A transsexual embroiled in a bitter custody battle took the stand Tuesday, describing his bond with his two children and charging his former wife with trying to turn them against him.

"I did everything with my children. Everything that I could," testified Michael Kantaras. Describing the years before he separated from his wife, Linda Kantaras, he continued, "There was an elderly woman that lived across the street that used to watch and comment how any time I pulled up in the driveway both children would run out to meet me."

After the 1998 divorce, however, his relationship with his children soured abruptly, particularly with his 12-year-old son. "It became increasingly strained," Kantaras testified. "There was tension. There was doubt, I think, on Matthew's part."

"Was this because you were not making a big effort to come around and see Matthew?" asked Kantaras' lawyer, Collin Vause.

"No," Kantaras replied. "I never wanted my children to feel abandoned by me."

Asked by Vause why his relationship with Matthew became strained during January 1999, Kantaras replied, "Because of the inconsistency of visitation. Because of the disallowance of phone contact. Because of the disparaging things that he was hearing at home."

According to Michael Kantaras and his lawyers, Linda Kantaras shouldn't gain custody of the children — Matthew Kantaras, whom Linda Kantaras brought to the marriage, and Irina Kantaras, whom the couple conceived using sperm from Michael Kantaras' brother — because she is more concerned with winning the custody battle than with the children's well-being.

But Linda Kantaras claims that Michael Kantaras isn't legally a man, even though he had his breasts, ovaries and uterus removed, and takes hormones that have deepened his voice and allowed him to grow facial hair. She says that their 1989 marriage, and her former husband's claim to their two children, are therefore void under a 1998 Florida law banning same-sex marriages.

In more than two hours on the stand, Michael Kantaras provided a number of examples of how his former wife tried to alienate his children from him.

Three months after the July 1998 divorce, Kantaras testified, his wife called to say that she was going to pull the kids out of school. "She was going to leave and [said] that I would never see my children again," Kantaras said.

In response, Kantaras called their school, where the principal confirmed that the children were not there. "I became quite frantic," Kantaras testified. "I got really upset and started to cry."

Kantaras later learned that his wife had transferred the children to a different school without notifying him, one of her many efforts to reduce contact, he testified.

Michael Kantaras and his attorneys have pinned some of Linda Kantaras' animosity on the fact that Kantaras left her for one of her best friends, Sherry Noodwang, who also testified Tuesday.

Noodwang testified that she became fast friends with Linda Kantaras, working on the PTA with the substitute teacher, joining WeightWatchers in January 1998, and attending bible study together.

"I liked her pretty much immediately," said the witness, adding that between Christmas 1997 and July 1998, "I considered her one of my best friends."

Noodwang, a strawberry blonde, answered attorney Karen Doering's questions in a cheerful, calm voice.

Noodwang's credibility on the stand could prove important to Michael Kantaras and his lawyers not only because she is a character witness, but because if Kantaras gains residential custody of his children, they might also live with Noodwang and her three children.

Doering worked to establish Noodwang as a sympathetic person, who was motivated by a failed marriage to seek solace in a sympathetic friend.

Noodwang testified that she had been having difficulties with her husband, police detective Ron Noodwang, and that in July 1998 she filed for divorce after 15 years of marriage.

Sherry Noodwang

"I tried everything, everything," Noodwang said emotionally. "I went to counseling, I read books ... My husband did not like anything about me ever and never failed to remind me daily of every way that I had failed him..."

When Noodwang gave Michael Kantaras a ride to his parents' house, Noodwang testified, "He said he was starting to have feelings for me and that he thought I might have feelings for him."

Noodwang, who admitted to having feelings then for Kantaras, pushed all thoughts of a romance from her mind, she testified.

Linda Kantaras eventually found out about their mutual feelings, and confronted Noodwang, who promised she would choose choose her friendship with Linda Kantaras over a romance with Michael Kantaras.

But in another discussion between the two women, Noodwang told Linda Kantaras, "I'm not going to lie to you. I cannot promise you that if one day in the future you and Michael are not together that I will not be with him."

Two of Michael Kantaras' employees at the Sam's Club bakery where he is a manager also testified.

Jayne Blanton said she had overheard an accusatory speakerphone conversation between Kantaras and his wife at work. "She said, 'I know you're having F-ing relationships there with the females in the bakery department,'" Blanton testified.

Another employee told the court that Kantaras never flirted with the women at work, and described him as a gentlemen.

Michael Kantaras' testimony will continue Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. The trial is being broadcast live on Court TV.