Ruling made in case of gender identity
STEUBENVILLE - A Jefferson County common pleas court judge has ordered a male child must remain a male, despite the desire of the mother to diagnose her son as having gender identity disorder. A Jefferson County woman and her ex-husband, who lives in Colliers, are involved in a custody battle for their 9-year-old son. At the heart of the custody case was the boy's desire to wear women's clothing, at least when he is with his mother.
The boy's mother had taken the child to a couple doctors, who diagnosed him with gender identity disorder. Then, the boy's father took him to different doctors, who did not diagnose him with the disorder.
GID is a disorder in which a male or female exhibits characteristics of, insists they are and enjoys the activities of the opposite sex. To be diagnosed with GID, a person must exhibit four of five main criteria listed by the Harry Benjamin Study, the benchmark of GID studies.
Common Pleas Judge Joseph Bruzzese Jr. issued his ruling on the case Friday ruling in favor of the father. In the judge's order, he stated the mother embraced the idea of GID long before she took her son to the first doctor.
Bruzzese states in the order that when her son was 4 she told him "he could grow up and be a girl" and has been taking the son to transgender support groups. The order states the mother's boyfriend is an apparent male, who used to be a female, that she met at one of these support groups.
"(The) mother has not only been supportive of (name deleted)'s female identity, but has actually charged headlong into it with the apparent objective of making it come true," Bruzzese's order states.
During hearings on the case, testimony was presented the mother enrolled her son as a transgender at a Niles school. The mother said she was enrolling her son as a transgender partly on the advice of two doctors. The doctors suggested the boy undergo a real-life experience, during which he would dress and live as a girl for an extended period of time.
However, both doctors said a real-life experience should be done in the community the child lives in, based on the guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic Statistical Manual 4, which is a manual of mental and emotional conditions that lists criteria for diagnosing conditions.
The court stopped the enrollment when the father found out. This is also when the court ordered the boy to be dressed as a boy and referred to as such.
In July, the mother took the boy to Geauga Lake in a bikini, despite the court order. The mother also violated the court order by referring to her son as "she" and "transgender."
The parents have a shared parenting plan, where they are both the residential parent during different days of the week. Before the ruling, the mother was the majority residential parent.
Bruzzese ruled the mother will have the couples' two children from Sunday evening through Tuesday evening and the father will have the children the remaining five days. The judge also ordered the child not be permitted to wear girl clothes or go by a girl's name.
Bruzzese said the boy cannot attend transgender support groups. He warned the mother that, given her prior history of disobeying court orders, any small infraction of the orders may result her receiving only supervised visitation.
Bruzzese also said both parents should undergo psychological evaluations and the child shall receive counseling.
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