Terri, a reader, sent me a letter concerning my recent co-authored column With Gay Marriage Comes Gay Divorce: The Rise of Lesbian Custody Battles (MSN.com, 10/15/09). In the column, we asserted that regardless of whether one supports or opposes gay marriage, lesbian custody battles are enormously illustrative of the dynamics behind heterosexual family court battles.

Mothers are often able to convince courts to allow them to drive decent, loving fathers out of their children's lives by employing anti-father/pro-mother stereotypes and by portraying dads as abusive or unfit. But there are no abusive males or bad dads in lesbian custody battles. Nevertheless, when two lesbians agree to have a child together and the relationship goes sour, the lesbian biological mom often does the exact same thing to her ex as heterosexual mothers do.

Terri writes:

I've been reading your articles for over a year.  I'm a little concerned that you are promoting the gay parent right along with transgendered.

When I first took your emails it was because my brother was getting screwed by the family court system.  He is fine now, but he's been relegated to every other weekend status.  I'm writing because my circumstances have changed and now I (a woman) find myself in a divorce.

I have felt the formulas are unfair to men.  I still think in many cases it  is.  But as a stay-at-home-mom of 9 years who homeschooled my children, I find myself on the short end of the stick to some extent.

See, your support for transgendered parents bothers me because, without my knowledge, my husband of 15 years decided to change his sex. He filed for divorce when I found out about his hormone therapy.  We are still in the process of divorce.

I think two things are really unfair:

1) the children and I have to deal with his choice to change, and as that relates to custody, visitation, and decisions on their behalf, I am very concerned.

2) the state of Texas has a maximum for child support.  My ex makes 150K but will only pay 30 percent of first 75k for child support. Not enough to keep the kids at home with me home schooling and I have to find a job to support them.

I'm very discouraged that you would join forces with the transgendered. I can understand that gays made a decision with full disclosure.  But I never would have subjected my children to what they will endure with their dad.  I'm open-minded but there is another face to these cases.  Blind support of transgendered emboldens them to destroy more families.

My reply:

Terri, I sympathize, but your situation regarding your husband changed his sex is very rare--I wouldn't extrapolate much from it onto families in general.

In the cases I'm discussing, both lesbian parents agreed to have kids together and for years raised them together. My point is that neither one of them should be able to drive the other one out simply because they've broken up. Parent-child bonds need to be protected regardless of sex or sexual orientation. My views are hardly "blind support."

As for your financial situation, on many occasions I've said that stay-at-home moms (and dads) often do need financial protections in divorce. I don't think it's wrong that you have to go back to work--that's natural and necessary after a divorce--but I do believe you're entitled to some financial support.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Child Support/Child Support Enforcement, Divorce/Separation/Child Custody, Gays, Gay Marriage, Alimony/Spousal Support. You can trackback from your own site.