Part 11 - This is the Sequel to Jason's Story.

The justice system takes another look at Carol's custody.

Chapter 27

Kelly and Julie sat in the family room with Kelly's parents as they watched the news. Facing strong backlash, the judge in Carol's case had called for a press conference.

"Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming today. I'm Justice Douglas Juarez, I am the supervisor for the family court system. Before Justice Gilbert speaks to you, I want to take this opportunity to review what is happening with this case.

As you know, the minor involved in this case was involved in a custody hearing between his parents. As has been made quite public already, the child is transgendered, and how that should be treated was the key factor of the case. Ultimately Judge Gilbert decided that putting the child into his father's custody was in the best interest of the child. Unfortunately as we have learned, the child was severely beaten, and is currently in the hospital as a ward of the state. The case has been assigned to a new judge to review, and determine what is now in the child's best interest.

Since this is an ongoing case, involving a minor, I will not comment further on this at this time, other than to say that it has been pushed to the top of the calendar, and the new judge has already arranged for a hearing next week, to determine if the mother's restrictions need to be kept in place, and the child continue to be a ward of the state, in foster care, or if he can be put back into his mother's care.

Now, let me bring Judge Gilbert to the podium."

"Good morning. I'm Judge Norman Gilbert. I presided over the custody hearing for the child involved in this unfortunate incident. As most of you know, I have been a family court justice for almost 30 years. I've made some decisions over the years that I have later regretted, but none so much as this decision. Before coming here this morning, I stopped at the hospital to meet with the child and hi.. no… her mother.

They are understandably angry with me, and I cannot say that I blame them. This case was difficult for me and in reviewing the decisions I made over the past few days, I believe that I allowed my own biases to affect my decision. I have always tried to avoid doing that, but in this case I am afraid that I failed to spot my own biases, and that fact put this child into a risky situation, that could have been even more tragic. I am truly sorry.

In order to spare the taxpayers the expense of a review, I have tendered my resignation, I had been considering retiring at the end of this term in any case, and this has given me the clarity that it is time. It is my intention to learn everything I can about the issue of transgenderism and in time to become an advocate for the rights of children like this one.

I apologize to the community, our great state and most importantly to this child and mother.

Thank you."

With that Judge Gilbert left the podium ignoring the barrage of questions from the press.

Kelly said, "Wow, I never expected that!"

Her mother replied, "I did some checking and Judge Gilbert is well respected. One of my friends is a lawyer and she knows him pretty well. She said that over the years he has done a lot to protect the best interests of children in custody battles. He made a mistake, and she told me that he was likely to regret this decision for the rest of his life. Thank God Carol is going to be alright, and according to my friend, there is no one that is more grateful for that then Judge Gilbert."

Chapter 28

Kelly visited Carol as often as she could over the next few weeks, and was pleased to see that she gradually did heal. The bruises on her face eventually faded, and the pain in her rib area began to lessen. The doctor's told her it would take another 3-5 weeks before it would be completely healed. Her arm was still in a cast for another 3 weeks as well.

Carol had spent another two nights in the hospital after the press conference, and then was released to a foster home as a ward of the state, while the Judge that took over the case reviewed the prior proceedings.

One week after the night Carol went to the hospital, the Judge held a hearing and subpoenaed Carol's doctors as well as the specialists that her father's legal team had used.

Kelly was part of a contingent of friends that attended the hearing to give Carol support.

When the Judge entered the courtroom, he sat at his desk, and said, "Well, thank you all for coming on such short notice. I know that several of you had to re-arrange your very busy schedules to make this occur, so we are going to try to get this done as quickly as possible, while making sure that Charles is well taken care of."

Kelly cringed at the use of Carol's masculine name.

"Charles, I believe from the records that you prefer the name Carol, is that correct?"

Carol's father's attorney started to object, but the Judge looked at him and said, "Sit down Mr. Dernhelm. This is an informal hearing to determine the custody of a child that is currently the ward of the state. Your client has proven to be unfit, and your presence here on his behalf, is a courtesy. I am going to do the questioning here for now. I'll give you a chance to bring up anything I might not be aware of, before I'm done. Is that clear?"

"Yes your honor."

"Now, Charles, is it true you would prefer to be called Carol?"

"Yes, your honor. I would."

"Fair enough, however, at the moment, that is not your legal name, is it?"

"No, your honor. It's not."

"So, there will be times in this court, where you will have to be addressed, and supply your legal name. Like right now, when I am establishing that this hearing is about you. There are other times, when it's ok that we use… well let's call it a nickname for now. So, please state your legal name for the record, and then you may add, for the record what your preferred nickname is, and we can use it from this point forward. Is that okay?"

"Yes your honor. My legal name is Charles Edward Winston, but my friends call me Carol."

"Thank you, Carol."

Kelly squeezed Julie's hand.

"Alright, now from what I can tell the entire basis of the ruling to restrict Carol's mother, Cynthia Winston, custody of Carol is the argument that the treatment of Carol's transgenderism with acceptance is tantamount to child abuse. That other then following the advice of the professionals that they were working with, Mrs. Winston was in no other way unfit. Is that correct, counselors?"

The attorney representing Cindy Winston replied, "Yes your honor. We would agree with that statement."

"And what about you, Mr. Dernhelm?"

"Your honor, that was the principle concern our client had, but I don't know if I would say it was the sole complaint."

"Then speak up, what other issues did you have about Mrs. Winston?"

"I'm not prepared to answer that question your honor."

"No? The custody hearing that led to Mrs. Winston being stripped of custody lasted 6 months. Surely you must remember the gist of your arguments. You knew you were coming to a custody hearing today, I would have assumed you would have reviewed your notes as to why Mrs. Winston was not a fit mother."

"Yes your honor."

"Well perhaps it has something to do with the charges of libel and slander that were applied to her? Although I'm afraid that your clients acts since lead credence to the claims that Mrs. Winston and Carol lodged against her father."

Mr. Dernhelm visibly winced at the use of the word "her."

"Your honor I would not wish to prejudice the case against … her … father."

"Probably wise of you. Never mind. So since I have not heard of any other credible argument, let us focus on the claims regarding Carol's transgenderism and how to best treat it. First of all, I have some questions for you Carol. Oh, we should do this under oath, Carol you swear to tell the truth?"

"Yes your honor."

"Very well. What led to the incident the night you were hospitalized?"

"My father came home drunk."

"Yes, most unfortunate. Did something set him off that night?"

"Yes. I was talking to some friends in a chat room."

"Friends from your TransTeen group?"

"Yes. Samantha and Joan. He came in, saw me online, and saw that I was in the chat room as Carol. He went ballistic on me."

"You knew your Father had forbidden you to speak with them. You also knew he had forbidden you to have anything to do with being Carol anymore?"

"Yes."

"You knew he would be pretty upset?

"Yes, he almost hit me the last time, before my parents separated."

"And yet you persisted, knowing full well if he caught you how angry he would be? Why?"

"Because I can't help being me! I am Carol, and will always be Carol. He can't take that away from me. I needed my friends, and I needed to hold on to that little bit of me."

Next the Judge questioned Carol's doctors about how long they had been seeing Carol. What they had recommended, how Carol had been doing up until she had been removed from the program by court order.

Then he moved onto Dr. Jergins and Andrews.

"How many times did you see Carol as a patient?"

Dr. Jergins said, "We never saw Charles as a patient."

"Her name is Carol. So let me get this straight, you testified in the previous court case about a patient you have never met? You know nothing about?"

Dr. Andrews answered, "We testified on the practice of psychological abuse that is recommended by some in the psychiatric community, such as our colleagues on the other side. Our studies show that the practice of treating transgenderism with acceptance simply is an enabler, which does nothing to cure the subject, and leads to a lifelong struggle with society. Intervening at this young age, with strict redirection towards gender appropriate behavior leads to a healthy future."

"Yet my research shows that your findings are largely considered to be discredited amongst the scientific community. In fact the general opinion is that your research has been faulty."

"That is not true your honor. Our research has been meticulously documented."

A cough and almost choking noise came from one of Carol's doctors.

The Judge smiled, and said, "It would seem some of your esteemed colleagues disagree with you. While I appreciate the sentiment, please control yourselves in the future."

"Yes, your honor."

"Now, Dr. Andrews, so you testified about your research generically on the subject of treating transgendered teens. What do you and Dr. Jergins recommend as the best practice treatment plan?"

Dr. Jergins answered, "We recommend strict redirection to the appropriate gender. Immediate removal of any non-gender appropriate items, clothing, toys, etc. Positive re-enforcement of gender appropriate behavior and negative re-enforcement for gender inappropriate behavior."

"Did you have any meetings with Carol's father?"

"No we did not."

"It would seem he went a bit overboard on the 'negative reinforcement' would you say?"

"Yes, your honor. We do not condone violence."

"I'm very glad to hear that. Having just read your latest book on the subject, I must say I was not quite clear on that. I suggest your next edition, might be edited to spell that out a little better."

"Yes, your honor. We will look into it."

"Very well. For the record, prior to last week, I knew very little about the subject of transgendered children. Seems that it is more prevalent than I would have suspected. In anycase, here is what I have learned in my research. First is that the general consensus, in the community has been moving to treating with acceptance. That being transgendered in and of itself is not harmful, that societies position on it tends to be the problem. By all accounts, Carol was doing quite well in the care of her doctor's and as part of the TransTeen support group.

More importantly, there is no evidence whatsoever that Carol's mother in any way was doing anything other then following the advice of medical counsel, including several additional opinions. Carol was content and happy with the way things were going.

In addition, I find it fascinating that this issue was even an issue in this case, as in this state we have laws protecting Gay, Lesbian and transgendered teens. In fact, as I'm sure many in this room are aware, there was a recent controversy at a local high school because of the attendance of a transgender teen. State law protected her, and it should have protected Carol as well.

So, my ruling is that the custody restrictions are hereby removed from Carol's mother. In addition, Carol is free to follow the advice of her doctor's."

"Your honor!"

"Mr. Dernhelm?"

"Um…"

"Do you have an objection?"

"Ummm…"

"let me save some time, your client has lost custody, and should be worried more about his freedom then interfering with his daughters life."

"Ummm… Yes your honor."

"Allright, case closed. Carol and Mrs. Winston, you are free to go home. Good luck to you."

Copyright (c) 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Author's Note: It has been entirely too long since I posted part 10, and this is a small update. Life has gotten in the way of writing of late, but I really did not want to leave Carol sitting in the hospital without her mother having legal custody. This was unedited, as I really wanted to get this posted, and did not wish to wait.

I will be working some more on this as soon as I can. I'm also working on another completely unrelated story, which I won't publish until it is complete.

Hope that you enjoyed this little continuation.

Kristy