Two recent court decisions about transsexual males underline some of the divergences between the goals of transsexuals and those of gays and lesbians.

In Florida, a state circuit court judge ruled that the marriage of a transsexual male to a women was legal under Florida law and awarded him custody of the woman's two children, one of whom he had adopted and the other conceived by donor insemination during the marriage.

The man's wife, who was seeking a divorce, argued that the marriage was never valid because the husband was not legally a male when the couple applied for a marriage license. In effect the wife argued that since the husband was female, she and her husband were involved in a lesbian relationship.

But the judge ruled that the husband was "medically, socially, and legally" male, meaning that he physically looked like a man, behaved like a man and adopted the social role of a man, so he was for practical purposes a man. It was, in short, a judicial version of "close enough."

Almost simultaneously an Australian court upheld the legality of the marriage of a transsexual male (born female) and his wife, ruling that the husband was a man in the ordinary, everyday sense - he looked, sounded and acted like a man. Interestingly, the court ruled so even though the transsexual male had not had a penis created for him. "Not quite so close," the court was saying, "but still close enough."

An Australian lower court had ruled similarly in the same case, concluding that sex should not be defined exclusively by one criterion (presumably genitalia) but should include other factors such as "brain sex" - i.e., the sex the person subjectively feels himself or herself to be.

It is worth pointing out that the courts are not saying transsexual males are men. Courts cannot do that and that was not the issue. Courts are in the business of making legal determinations, not ontological ones. They are charged only with doing their best to fit the complicated reality of human life into existing legal categories, which is what they tried to do.

Both cases will be cited as gains for GLBT rights. The New York Times quoted Lynne Gold-Bikin of the American Bar Association as saying of the Florida case, "This is a major victory for alternative lifestyles." But you have to wonder.

It is not clear how the Florida ruling affirms any "alternative lifestyles." The whole focus of the case was the effort by a transsexual male to prove that he should not be viewed as a woman in a same-sex relationship, but a nice, normal heterosexual guy in a heterosexual marriage - in short, that there was nothing "alternative" about his life or his lifestyle at all.

And far from benefiting gays and lesbians in any way whatsoever, the ruling conspicuously reaffirmed opposite-sex, heterosexual marriage as normative and exclusionary.

Ironically, the Florida transsexual's case was argued by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) which won by convincing the court that its client, although born a woman and married to a woman, was not female and therefore not a lesbian. How this supports lesbian rights is obscure.

Presuming limited NCLR's resources, some lesbian in a painful legal battle somewhere in the United States is not receiving NCLR support because NCLR spent its money proving someone was heterosexual and bolstering heterosexual marriage.

In fact the NCLR "victory" is a legal setback for some transsexuals. Consider a person born a male and attracted to women, but who understands himself to be female. He then takes hormones and undergoes surgery to become female. But since nothing about hormones or plastic surgery alters the sex a person is attracted to, since she is still attracted to women, she now views herself - and is viewed by others - as a lesbian.

If she meets the woman of her dreams and wishes to marry, under previous law she could display her male birth certificate, marry and live happily ever after. But under the Florida ruling, she no longer has this recourse. Instead, body configuration, social role and mental sex are determinate: Heterosexuals 1, Lesbians 0.

So gay and lesbian people gain nothing from heterosexual transsexuals being able to marry. But transsexuals, all transsexuals, would gain from gay marriage.

If same-sex and opposite-sex marriage were equally legal, not only would gays and lesbians be able to marry, so would transsexuals since they would not have to prove to a court that they were the opposite sex of their partner but could marry no matter their sex-of-origin, sex-of-outcome, or sexual orientation.

Our goal, after all, is the right of any two adults to legally join their lives together in a reciprocally supportive relationship, so in continuing to press for marriage for ourselves, gay and lesbian people benefit others as well.

Paul Varnell writes for the Chicago Free Press. Some of his previous columns are posted at the Independent Gay Forum (www.indegayforum.org). His e-mail address is Pvarnell@aol.com.)