She wed a man, but saw a woman

CLEARWATER -- Linda Kantaras married her husband knowing the truth, knowing that the man she fell in love with was born a woman named Margo.

But behind closed doors, she looked at her husband, transsexual Michael Kantaras, and didn't see the traditional married partner. She said she couldn't bring herself to have intimate contact with him.

"When Michael takes his clothes off, he is a woman in my eyes," Linda Kantaras testified on Tuesday in the couple's divorce and custody battle. "I think I told him it was hard for me to look at him naked and see a man.

"To me he looked like a woman. And I'm not gay and never have been," she said. "I just couldn't do it."

Linda Kantaras, 33, a former Pasco substitute teacher, testified for most of the day, saying that her husband was a domineering person who carefully controlled her life. He bought her clothes, she said, and decided what kind of haircuts she should wear.

Linda Kantaras said their marriage lacked normal affection, like hugs and compassion, which she said she thought her husband withheld from her in retribution for not engaging in sex.

"He wanted me to be with him as a woman," she said. "I would not. So that was his punishment for me."

Eventually, Linda Kantaras said her husband told her that he had fallen in love with another woman and suggested that the three move to Utah, where, he thought, the law allowed him to have multiple wives.

Referring to the girlfriend, Linda Kantaras said, "He told me, "I love you as my best friend.' He said, "I love her as I love a wife. ... Why can't we all be together as a big family?"'

Kantaras said she refused the offer. By then, she said, the marriage had already failed.

She said she accepted his attempts to control her life, because it made her feel loved.

Michael Kantaras, 42, adopted Linda's son, now 12, whom she had from a previous relationship. She had a daughter, now 10, through artificial insemination using donor sperm from Michael's brother.

Those children, now the focus of a custody battle, were first told by Linda Kantaras that their father was a transsexual in late 1999 after the marriage had failed. Kantaras said she was worried the children would find out from classmates. Word was already out at the school.

She said the kids asked her why she married him. Her answer: "Because I loved him. Because I thought he loved me. "They felt like I lied to them their whole life about who their father was," she testified, saying the children were angry at both her and Michael.

The girl asked her mother whether Michael Kantaras gave birth to her, Linda Kantaras said.

"I said, "No. I never met your dad when he was a woman,' " she said.

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