Waiting for Justice - The Wife's Story
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The Wife’s Story
Sarah Rutherford told the Guardian’s readers what it’s like when the law says your children’s father isn’t a man
(Reproduced from The Guardian, Weds 23rd April, 1997)
For the past four years I have had an alter ego as Y, partner to X and mother of Z.
As this group of initials we took a case to the European Court to have my partner, aka Stephen Whittle, a female-to-male transsexual, recognised as the father of my children, who now number four. Yesterday we lost, writes Sarah Rutherford.
The day before, I was sure that I would be relieved to lose, and that we would cease to be the focus of media attention. And we could continue our lives knowing we had done our best and made our contribution towards rectifying a gross injustice.
But I am angry and disappointed. It is patently obvious to me that my children have a better father than most, and that there is no doubt about his gender. Whilst articles written about Stephen and me focus primarily on our relationship vis-a-vis his transsexuality, in truth our life is dreadfully stereotypical. Stephen goes to work as a lecturer. I stay at home with our children. He mends the car and unblocks the drains. I cook and make summer dresses for my daughters.
To those who do not know the truth of our situation, we present ourselves as boringly conventional. We are white, heterosexual and middle class. Not only are Stephen and 1 conformist by nature, we’ve been together 18 years.
Prior to having children I was reluctant to reveal Stephen’s past. In truth, of course, I was wary of what it said about me, and I was ashamed of it. My guilt and shame about Stephen’s transsexuality was perpetuated by my parents’ horror of my chosen partner and my father’s refusal to accept him until very recently - and by the media treatment of transsexuality as sensational.
Initially, I thought the way to achieve status was to blend into society and cover our tracks. But one spends one’s life waiting for the truth to emerge.
The birth of my children changed everything- It soon became clear that my daughter adored her father. If I was ashamed of who he was and encouraged him to be, too, how could I expect my children to be proud? And I hoped that making a stand would bring about a change. My children have a father, who signed a contract agreeing to be their father. He even has a certificate in parent worthiness.
He is not allowed to fulfil this role owing to the inequities of the law.
He has got up in the night with them, changed nappies, spent nights in hospital. He has attended school meetings and run in the dads’ race. But he cannot sign for an operation for our children and he has no authority to receive information from the school about them. In the unlikely possibility of Stephen and I separating, he would have no visitation rights.
The failure of this case signifies a success for all those who believed that Stephen was not a real father anyway and that our battle was a foolhardy shot in the dark. It distresses us that the prejudice that we have received from those like Stephen’s father, who refuses to use Stephen’s new name, has been supported first by the courts in this country and then in Europe. It plays into the hands of our local bigot, who sent our neighbours letters expressing horror that such perverts should not only be allowed to procreate but also to educate our offspring at the same institutions as their children.
The postscript to all this is that whilst I live with someone who earns the salary of a senior lecturer, I am entitled to all the benefits that fall on a single parent with four children.
