Is Michael Kantaras, who was born a woman, a man by virtue of "sex reassignment" surgery? Should his choice to live as a man affect whether he gains custody of his adopted children?

These are some of the issues facing the judge deciding Kantaras v. Kantaras, a custody battle currently being played out in North St. Petersburg, Fla. The trial involves some complicated stuff, but the issues are hardly new. One look at the Web site of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute reveals that lawyers and legislators alike have been grappling the legal implications of such identity issues for years.

The organization's Web site, transgenderlaw.org, features articles and discussions about litigation and legislation across the country.

"The Web site preceded the Institute. What we wanted to do first is get information out there, useful information," said Paisley Currah, who launched institute and its Web site in 2000 with one of Michael Kantaras' lawyers, Shannon Mitner, and others.

"We've had about 24,000 visitors [to the site]. People seem to be able to find us," said Currah, a 38-year-old writer and associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

The site provides a wealth of information about civil court cases and legislation dealing with discrimination against people who alter their behavior or appearance to suit the gender they have chosen for themselves.

In a recent Minnesota case, for example, the state's Supreme Court held that employers who assign restrooms based on biological gender are not discriminating against transsexuals.

According to Currah, Minnesota and Rhode Island are the only states so far to enact anti-discrimination laws that explicitly refer to transsexual or transgender people. A number of cities and counties have such laws, but advocates are pushing for additional laws and favorable rulings in a number of states.

Currah said the questions all boil down to people and their right to choose their own identity and lifestyle without facing discrimination because they buck the "predominant norms" in society about what makes a man a man and a woman a woman.

"The argument is that they should be covered under sexual and gender discrimination laws even without those laws being amended to include transgender people," Currah said. "The idea is to move people forward and let people have the ability to ... say, 'This is my gender, this is how I express it and it is not up to you to decide what gender I should be and how I express it.'"

An attorney who has been representing transgender people for about seven years said the site is unique and a must-visit for lawyers and non-lawyers trying to make sense out of the myriad laws on the topic.

"It is an incredibly useful Web site. It is probably the best collection of recent decisions, commentary and statutes," said Jennifer Levi, senior staff attorney for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders. "I haven't seen anything out there that collects the same scope of information and does it in such a current way."

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