Mom tells of hints at future sex change

CLEARWATER -- Irene Kantaras always thought her daughter, Margo, was a little different as a child.

She was a tomboy who didn't like dolls. When her parents brought her to the toy store, Margo went right for the toy guns and cowboy hats. Margo didn't like to play house with her older sisters. She loved playing baseball with the boys.

Then came the day a mother living next door started screaming. Margo was beating up the woman's grade-school age son.

"The young boy tried to give (Margo) a flower and kiss (her) on the cheek," said Kantaras, who said the gift and kiss incensed Margo. "I think the boy got the idea."

Many years later, an adult Margo explained to her mother that she was a man trapped in a woman's body and was getting a sex change. Said Kantaras: "I got on the floor and cried a lot."

Fifteen years after undergoing the sex change, Margo is now Michael Kantaras. His mother testified Wednesday in a Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court trial in which Michael Kantaras is seeking custody of his two children from his ex-wife, Linda Kantaras. She has custody of the children and wants to deny him even visitation.

The couple separated in 1998 after nine years together. Michael Kantaras, 42, had adopted his wife's child from a previous relationship. Their second child is the product of artificial insemination using donated sperm from Michael's brother.

Linda Kantaras, 33, knew her husband had undergone a sex change when she married him in 1989. Now she says he should not have custody of their 10-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son because he is not a man in the eyes of the law.

Michael Kantaras' parents, Irene and John Kantaras of Holiday, both testified Wednesday. They almost always referred to their child as Michael or their "son." They did so even in describing events that happened long ago, when Michael was still Margo.

Kantaras' 75-year-old mother said Margo never acted like her two older sisters as a child. But she thought it was simply a tomboy phase that her daughter would outgrow.

When Linda Kantaras' attorney objected to her calling her child Michael in describing events before the sex change, Irene Kantaras apologized.

"You'll have to excuse me," she said. "He's been Michael for 15 years. It's very hard for me to call him Margo now. The whole family knows him as Michael."

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