Kings County Supreme Court rules transsexual father has standing to petition for custody of child
October 20, 8:21 AM
Daniel Weaver
http://www.examiner.com/x-14537-Albany-CPS-and-Family-Court-Examiner~y2009m10d20-Kings-County-Supreme-Court-rules-transsexual-father-has-standing-to-petition-for-custody-of-child (http://www.examiner.com/x-14537-Albany-CPS-and-Family-Court-Examiner~y2009m10d20-Kings-County-Supreme-Court-rules-transsexual-father-has-standing-to-petition-for-custody-of-child)
In a complex decision released yesterday, the Supreme Court of Kings County ruled that a transsexual father has standing to petition for custody of a non-biological child.
J.R. agreed to marry K.B. even though she knew K.B. was born a woman. K.B. took hormones and had done everything short of surgery to become the man she believed she was. J.R. eventually gave birth to a baby conceived through a third party sperm donor. In 2007 after the marriage between the couple had gone sour, both parents filed petitions for custody of the now five-year-old child. The mother's petition argued that:
Ugh, that mother just brought up the fact that he "was really a woman" in the hopes that the judge would be a bigot and not want to award custody to the father because of it. That's just ridiculous.
~Sarah
A similar favorable ruling in the Florida case of Kantaras v Kantaras back in 2003 was overturned on appeal in 2004.
http://www.nclrights.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issue_caseDocket_kantaraskantaras (http://www.nclrights.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issue_caseDocket_kantaraskantaras)
I hope the same doesn't happen again. I'm not sure Dr. Phil would come to the rescue this time.