The estimated 42 percent of men who fade out of their children's lives after a divorce are in pain. That they lost their children -- and their money -- is all her fault. Some men are egalitarian enough to shift the focus to themselves. An old student of mine said he thought it was best for his child if he simply disappeared; the back and forth between parents was too hard on the boy. He nobly gave his son up so the boy could be adopted by his stepfather. My therapist's ex-husband told her that it was too painful for him to see their child every other week. He couldn't take the heartbreak; he loved his boy too much. She volunteered this information to me when I was sitting on her couch, seeking ways to maintain contact with my own son in the midst of a bitter breakup. Despite her suggestions, I did not want to join the pack of fathers slouching toward invisibility.

Actually, I was already invisible as a father to everyone but my son, Jordan. I am a woman after all. A female father, as it were. I'm gay, and my ex-girlfriend of seven years turned uncooperative and bitchy when it came to letting me see my son. Five years into our relationship, we had Jordan, but since she birthed him, the law was on her side. Unlike a "real," biological parent, I didn't exist in the eyes of the law. In fact, acknowledging my existence might have endangered Jordan's relationship, not only with me, but also with his mother. We live in Florida, and here, announcing that you are lesbian is reason enough to lose your child, even if you are the biological parent. As recently as 1996 a judge awarded custody of a child to her father, a convicted murderer, because the child's mother was a lesbian, and therefore legally unfit. Florida is also the only state that legally prohibits gays from adopting children or acting as foster parents.

Like heterosexual couples, gay partners can establish one another as legal guardian in the event that one or the other parent dies. The problem is that these wishes may not be enforced by the courts, depending on where you live. However, the situation is improving. About 20 states allow second parent adoptions, in which one partner adopts the child of the parent who already had legal custody, either through adoption or birth.

In 1989, the year before Jordan was born, Minnie Bruce Pratt published "Crime Against Nature," a collection of poems about losing custody of her children because she wouldn't deny being a lesbian. She wrote: "If I had been more ashamed, if I had not wanted the world / If I had hid my lust, I might not have lost them. This is where the shame starts." I took her words to heart.

As if being invisible in the "law" wasn't enough, now that we were breaking up, I ceased to exist in my ex's eyes as well. Never mind that I had raised Jordan for two years; never mind that he considered me his parent too. One day, on my arrival at his preschool, he nearly tackled another kid in his hurry to reach me. "That's my daddy," he shouted. I guess I am a sort of daddy, the lesbian version of pater. The one who didn't give birth. The not-mother. The truth is though, I don't consider myself a father and Jordan has called me daddy only that one day. For most kids, though, people come in male-female pairs. They fill in the blanks the only way they know how. "Oh, you're not his mama? You must be his daddy." Never mind that I have ample breasts and a swivel in my hips.

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