Appeals Court Reverses Radical Judge's Gender-Bending Ruling

by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
June 17, 2005

(AgapePress) - A precedent-setting case in Florida has ended with a court order annulling the marriage between a transsexual who was born female and a biological mother of two children. One pro-family legal expert believes the court's action will have major repercussions.

The Florida case involved transsexual Michael Kantaras (born Margo Kantaras), who had married a woman (Linda Kantaras) with two biological children of her own. Linda Kantaras later became a Christian and sought to annul the marriage. However, a child custody dispute between the estranged couple had to be resolved in court.

In February 2003, Pasco County Judge Gerard O'Brien presided over the child custody dispute, at the heart of which was the question of whether or not a transsexual marriage may be recognized as legal in the state of Florida. The state legislature had banned same-sex marriages back in 1997 when lawmakers passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined a marriage as being between "one man and one woman" in the state of Florida.

However, Judge O'Brien ruled that the Kantarases' transsexual marriage was legal, and he granted custody of the 11-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son to Michael (Margo) Kantaras. But that decision was overturned last year by a Florida appellate court, and last week, a court-approved settlement returned the two children to the primary care of their biological mother.

Mat Staver

Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver believes the resolution of this legal matter will have a far reaching impact, just as many believed O'Brien's original ruling would have. Staver notes, "This case, when it was originally decided at the trial court, was touted worldwide as this major breakthrough in the notion of abolition of gender -- that gender is just a product of your mind and not any physical or objective criteria."

Now that Judge O'Brien's decision has been reversed, however, Staver says the new court ruling that, in effect, says transsexual marriage is not lawful in Florida "cuts against that precedent and instead gives us another precedent." And this new court precedent, the attorney adds, is "one now that is in support of the traditional family, supporting that there is a difference between male and female, that it does make a significant impact on children, and that marriage is only the union of one man and one woman."

Rolling Back a Bad Precedent
Born in the state of Ohio as a female, Michael (Margo) Kantaras later moved to Texas and became interested in having gender reassignment surgery. She began taking testosterone and later had both a hysterectomy and a mastectomy. However, at the time of Judge O'Brien's 2003 ruling, Kantaras still had female genitalia. The judge ruled that this fact was inconsequential for the purposes of determining gender.

In his decision, Judge O'Brien made it clear that he did not consider biological factors to be particularly important when it comes to determining gender. "Chromosomes are only one factor in the determination of sex, and they do not overrule gender or self-identity, which is the true test or identifying mark of sex," the judge wrote.

Denying Linda Kantaras' request for an annulment, O'Brien also noted, "Some jurisdictions prefer to remain in the nineteenth Century understanding of binary sex that saw male and female as distinct, immutable, and opposite." The judge proceeded to ignore the two children's expressed desire to remain with their biological mother and awarded custody to the estranged, transsexual "spouse" instead.

O'Brien's radical ruling failed to stand up on appeal, however,. In a unanimous decision, the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland, Florida, overturned the previous ruling. In its decision, the appellate court wrote, "[We] must adhere to the common meaning of the statutory terms and invalidate any marriage that is not between persons of the opposite sex determined by their biological sex at birth. Therefore, we hold that the marriage in this case is void ab initio" -- that is, null and void from the beginning.

Liberty Counsel represented Linda Kantaras in the case. Staver says the outcome represents a tremendous victory for traditional marriage, and a huge setback for the transsexual and homosexual agenda. "A few hormones and plastic surgery do not change a person's sex, which is an immutable trait fixed at birth," he says. "The law cannot permit a person to change their sex like one changes clothes."

Unfortunately, Staver points out, Michael (Margo) Kantaras for the moment retains custody of the two children. Still, he notes, "The good news is, now that we won the case at the Court of Appeals with the ruling that says marriage is only between one man and one woman -- and therefore as a transsexual, you cannot marry someone of your same birth sex -- we've gone back down to the trial court to address the issue of the children."

In light of the new ruling, Linda Kantaras and her Liberty Counsel attorneys are hopeful that Judge O'Brien's ruling on the custody of the children will also be reversed.