Transsexual custody trial begins with age-old question: What makes a man?


By Matt Bean, Court TV
Is sex in the mind or the body? That was the question in a Florida court Tuesday as the custody battle between a transsexual man and his wife of 10 years got under way.

Central to the case of Michael Kantaras — who was born in 1959 as Margo Kantaras but took hormones and had his breasts, uterus, and ovaries removed to become a man — is the notion that sexual identity is a mental, not a physical construct.

"Sex is between your ears, not between your legs," testified Walter Bockting, an expert on transsexualism, on Michael Kantaras' behalf.

Bockting, a clinical psychologist who says he has helped 150 "gender dysphoric" individuals switch genders, was the only witness to testify in the opening day of this precedent-setting custody battle.

Kantaras' wife, Linda Kantaras, claims that because her husband was born as a woman, their 1989 marriage is void under a 1998 Florida law banning same-sex marriages.

Linda Kantaras, 33, brought to the marriage a 1-month-old son, Matthew, whom Michael Kantaras adopted that year. Then, in 1992, Linda gave birth to a daughter, Irina, using sperm from Michael's brother, Thomas.

It was Michael Kantaras, however, who in 1998 filed in Pasco County, Fla., for divorce and custody of the couple's two children, now ages 9 and 12, after allegedly becoming involved with another woman.

The bench trial, the first of its kind in Florida, will provide Circuit Court Judge Gerard O'Brien the opportunity to set precedent on a number of issues, beginning with an age-old question revisited: What makes a man a man? ...(cont.)