In West Virginia and across the United States, divorced parents must follow child custody laws. Transgender parents may face additional difficulties when they try to gain custody or visitation rights to their children. One legal point of view centers on the fact that the child in a non-transgender setting is used to having a male father and a female mother. Growing up in a traditional family may offer a child emotional stability. The child may suffer from trauma when one of the parents has a sex change and declares that they are now a transgender person.
Some states do not grant transgender parents visitation rights.
Some states have strict laws about parents who become transgender individuals. These persons may lose their legal rights to child custody because the law may deem that same-sex parents do not have custody rights.
The moral issue focuses on the negative impact a child experiences when a parent decides to change their sexual identity. A father who decides later in life that he identifies himself as a female instead of a male may unwittingly cause trauma in the mind of their bewildered child. A judge favoring traditional family values may take away all parenting time from the transgender parent.
One parent may dispute the other parent’s rights.
Another possibility occurs when one of the parents deems the other parent as having mental problems that may cause their child to suffer from emotional stress. A judge typically favors heterosexual parents who do not identify as transgender people. Traditional values often influence judges. So, a situation involving a father who is now a woman or a mother who is now a man may present difficulties to the presiding judge.