Controversy follows transgendered father

An unemployed father of two will walk out of the Spokane County Jail this morning after a week of incarceration for not paying child support.

But the 37-year-old auto mechanic who was born William Stankovich says it is impossible to find a job while becoming Kimberly.

Stankovich, who identifies herself as a woman though anatomically a man, says she is unable to provide for her impoverished family. Whether Stankovich is a deadbeat dad or a transgendered victim of discrimination, it remains for a court to decide at a divorce trial later this month.

At a July 14 hearing, Superior Court Commissioner Royce Moe found Stankovich in contempt for not paying nearly $1,000 a month in child support and spousal maintenance to Stankovich’s wife of 15 years, Marnie. The couple filed for divorce in July 2004.

Moe said he was not convinced that Stankovich did not make a choice to be transgendered.

“How is what your client did any different from deciding that she wants to be a punk rocker,” Moe asked Stankovich’s attorney during a July 1 hearing.

Stankovich, a former Eastern Washington University psychology student, was sent to jail for “willful failure” to meet her court-ordered obligation. Moe gave Stankovich a month to pay or appear on July 29 for one week of incarceration.

Stankovich, who said she has not had more than $1,000 a month to live on since 1996, reported for jail accompanied by an entourage of social activists belonging to a group called Stop the Clock. Once incarcerated, she was placed in a men’s wing of the jail, where she was verbally abused for two days until an expert in gender identity dysphoria contacted the jail commander to inform him of the psychological damage such treatment could cause.

Advocates for Stankovich said she has been denied her civil rights by numerous judges and court commissioners who have presided in the divorce case since it was filed July 15, 2004.

“It appears someone who has been discriminated against in the workplace is now being discriminated against by a judge,” said Fran Dunaway, director of Equal Rights Washington. “Gender identity is fundamental to who a person is.”

She said Stankovich’s situation “drives home the point that we need to enact legislation to protect people from this kind of discrimination.”

A bill protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people from discrimination in employment, housing, and other public accommodation failed by one vote in the state Senate during the last legislative session, Dunaway noted. The state House had approved the legislation.

Marnie Stankovich’s attorney, Susan Embree, said the issue is not transgenderism.

“The issue is parental responsibility and making an effort to fulfill that responsibility,” Embree said.

But at one point, court commissioner Valerie Jolicoeur ordered Stankovich to dress as a man during visitations with her daughters, ages 15 and 12, to spare them the embarrassment of having a transgendered father.

Judge Maryann Moreno later revised that order, allowing Stankovich to dress as a woman. Stankovich is allowed to see her daughters every other weekend and one weekday a month.

She is currently receiving hormones to facilitate her transition to physically becoming a woman but said she cannot afford the necessary surgery.

Interviewed in jail, Stankovich said her daughters have undergone counseling and come to terms with her transgenderism, which has become manifest since 2001. Earlier that year, the family filed for bankruptcy after their auto repair business failed. In December 2001, Stankovich said, she suffered a disabling spinal injury in an auto accident that left her unable to continue working full time as a licensed auto mechanic.

Since then, Stankovich said, she has pursued a bachelor’s degree in psychology, first attending Spokane Community College and then Eastern Washington University with the goal of finding a career in which her gender identity would not be an impediment. The court, however, has ruled that Stankovich’s first obligation is to find a job.

“They’re telling me going to college is a luxury,” said Stankovich. “I’d pay $2,000 if I could. My kids are everything.”

A year ago, Moreno ordered Stankovich to pay $950 a month in child support and spousal maintenance so that Marnie Stankovich could make her mortgage payment. With the exception of Stankovich’s half of a $2,000 income tax refund, the attorney said, Marnie Stankovich has not received anything.

Marnie Stankovich declined to be interviewed, saying through her attorney only that she is “sorry that Kimberly hasn’t taken under consideration what impact publicity would have on the children.”

The bottom line, Embree said, is that everybody has an obligation to pay child support.

“If she can’t find a job as an auto mechanic, she can find something else,” the attorney said, adding that the amount Stankovich was ordered to pay could be revised to accommodate her income. “There has been no documented evidence provided to the court, other than Stankovich’s word for it, that she has sought and been turned down for a job.”

Stankovich said she is looking for work but was not informed of the need to provide evidence.

Stankovich said she recently lost a part-time contract job with Sneva’s Affordable Cars in Coeur d’Alene after Marnie Stankovich “outed” her there. Owner Blaine Sneva said Stankovich was not called back after failing to show up and because her work became “shabby.” Sneva said he never knew about Stankovich’s transgenderism though he has known Stankovich for more than 10 years.

Embree emphatically denies that her client exposed Stankovich at the auto dealership.

“It would be like shooting herself in the foot,” she said.

Meanwhile, Marnie Stankovich, who makes $8.50 an hour at a convenience store, has lost her home to foreclosure, has had her credit ruined and has been forced to move in with friends, Embree said.

“Kimberly is not homeless. She has food, clothing. She has made choices that have cost two little girls their home,” Embree said.

Embree said she “is not out to persecute Kimberly Stankovich,” but she sees no reason why women cannot be mechanics as easily as men and will continue to press for contempt until Stankovich fulfills her responsibility to her family.

When the Stankovich divorce goes to trial Aug. 22, her attorney, Kelly Malone, will argue that transgenderism is not a choice, but something you are born with, and that her client’s gender identity is certainly an impediment to finding work, particularly in the conservative environment of Spokane.

While jailed, Stankovich was placed in isolation on the 6 East wing of the Spokane County Jail, a secure area for potentially dangerous inmates, according to jail commander Jerry Brady.

“She was put there to make sure she was safe,” Brady said. “Then we received an e-mail from a doctor indicating this is something that would be detrimental to her.”

The doctor was Kimberly Hyatt-Wallace, a psychotherapist with a doctorate from Cambridge University, England, and an expert in gender identity dysphoria. She came across a Web log describing Stankovich’s case and took it upon herself to intervene on her behalf.

“I was absolutely dumbfounded,” said Hyatt-Wallace, herself a transgendered person who is married and lives in Alton, Ill. “It’s treatment one would expect to find in a Third World country – throw a transgendered person in a men’s jail to find out what happens.”

Stankovich has legally changed her name to Kimberly but was called William in jail. She wore the two-piece uniform of a female inmate. Male inmates are provided jumpsuits, which would require her to pull down the top half, exposing her developing breasts, to use the bathroom.

“I was in solitary the whole time with people yelling derogatory things,” she said of her time in the men’s wing, from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon.

After being contacted by Hyatt-Wallace, Brady had Stankovich moved to a less restrictive jail wing with men and women.

Brady, who has been jail commander for five months, said it was a new situation for him. He said the jail will respond more appropriately should a similar situation arise again. Stankovich, he added, was pleasant and not a problem prisoner.

Hyatt-Wallace has since written Stankovich in jail.

“You have no choice in the matter and even to indicate you do displays both a bigot’s mentality and the disadvantage of having an uneducated appointee judging you without basis of fact,” Hyatt-Wallace wrote. “No medical or psychological testimony supports the position it is a choice and any such opinion would fly in the face of accepted mental health and medical treatments.”

In a phone interview, Hyatt-Wallace called Court Commissioner Moe’s ruling “the biggest travesty of justice I’ve heard about in a long time within the transgender community.”

Putting Stankovich in jail, she said, turns her into a “prisoner of conscience because it’s done to prove a point.”

Vanessa Edwards Foster, a representative of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, concurred.

“This is apparently a judge that wants to make an example of Kimberly, and he wants to show the world that there is retribution for individuals who transgress the social norm,” Edwards Foster said.

Moe, who declined to be interviewed, referred questions to presiding Judge Linda Tompkins, who said she could not make a determination whether the contempt order was in error.

“The matter has not actually been submitted for a court review process, called revision,” Tompkins said. “There are legal avenues that the issue could be re-examined by a judge.”

She went on to say, “We live in an era right now where reasoned review is sometimes out of reach.”

She would not comment on Moe’s suggestion that being transgendered is a choice.

Stankovich herself said being transgendered is a choice.

“But it’s a choice like eating,” she said. “If you don’t nourish your soul, like not eating, you die.”