Transsexual Dad Wins Landmark Custody Case

C L E A R W A T E R, Fla., Feb. 24 -- A transgender father who was born a woman and won custody of his two children last week, in what is being called the first ruling of its kind, says that the children's best interests were the real issue in the case.

Clearwater Circuit Judge Gerard O'Brien ruled on Friday that Michael Kantaras, who underwent a sex change operation 17 years ago, is legally a man, and the best parent for his two children. The judge awarded him custody of Mathew, 13, and Irina, 11, and granted "liberal visitation rights" to their mother.

"I could say I was surprised," Kantaras said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America today. "The children were very happy and very relieved because they know now that they can have a loving relationship with both their mother and their father," he said.

Defining Transsexualism

The transgender case is the first in Florida courts and the first ruling of its kind nationally that addresses the custody issue for transgender parents, said Karen Doering, one of Michael Kantaras' lawyers and a staff attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

"The court was really able, for the first time ever, to make a full and fair assessment of when is a man a man and when is a woman a woman, so this will truly be precedent setting," Doering said.

Doering added that the court was really able to understand the condition known as transsexualism because medical testimony was a huge part of the case.

"We were able to bring in three of the leading experts in the nation on the diagnosis and treatment of transsexualism," Doering said."It's a condition where in their mind a transsexual person is one gender, but they are actually born into the body of another gender."

Three expert witnesses testified that people like Kantaras are defined as males in the medical community because theydo not have female reproductive organs or female hormones.

Doering said the experts helped demonstrate that a transsexual person can live a very healthy life once they complete a two-year sex reassignment as Kantaras did.