He’s cancelled our Christmas - what can I do?

It wasn't raised. 🙄 It was a metaphor.

Given that main residence is overwhelmingly given to the mother if not 50-50, how on earth do you reach this conclusion?
I know MN is massively skewed towards women being helpless victims of evil men, but the family courts stats will taken some twisted logic to conclude they are biased against women.

Well obviously you know this but are trying to make some sort of point?
Please explain.

They do indeed but I think in this case it’s understandable. I agree with others if was an example it was a really strange one to use. And may give an insight into what’s going on.

Hopefully @Birdofpain can come back on and clarify.

People love an excuse to bring up the trans rhetoric on MN.

So people keep saying, but as others keep saying - pretty odd example to give. Even more so in the light of what @JollyHollyMe points out.

I think this was just an example given as something that was made up but can be easily disproved, however it was just blindly believed without being checked.

I dont have a clue.
It was not that odd until the post about the allegation made that the OP has a penis!

Oh okay - can you spell out what's happening then because it's not clear to me?

The level of misogyny in the family courts is a massive problem. The family courts aren’t trauma-informed enough either, and considering the amount of trauma that is usually prevalent in such cases this is highly problematic. Women should not have to force themselves not to show any emotion for fear of being labelled ‘emotionally unstable’. I despair.

We do not know the backstory here, but just taking the OP on face value it seems like she experienced DV from her ex, which impacted her physical and mental health. If this is the case, getting an expert witness could be invaluable (although costly) - a clinical psychologist who is an expert in trauma and can attest to the impact DV can have on a persons mental health. Many CP’s, myself included, have a feminist perspective and are well versed in rebutting the usual narratives around women being ‘crazy’ and all that gaslighting. This can really help in court.

Wishing you all the best OP.

At no point does the poster say that they are the biological mother or that they are female.
They use the word mum-once - in relation to an allegation that the 'mum' has a penis.

OP, I think the backstory of very important here otherwise people can't properly advise.

Why are you not allowed anywhere near his school?

Yeah completely agree with this. I used to work in social services and I feel we are missing some vital information .

This is just a guess but I suspect there are some strong mental health concerns.

That’s what I was going to say, the sad thing is Sara’s own mum wasn’t great either.

So I think the courts were deciding between who they thought was “least worse”.

They did of course get it wrong since he turned out to off the charts evil, and ended her life - but it wasn’t all happy families with her mum either.

It’s sad that she didn’t have one decent parent :/

True, although in that case Sara was removed from an abusive mother. Not saying that OP is, but something isn't adding up here, the backstory is relevant. Op is right to say that even if she were the worst mum in the world, her concerns should be listened to. The problem is, the backstory might be the reason that she isn't listened to. I hope there is a resolution for the sake of this child.

It is practically unheard of for a court to award 0 residency or visitation.

We don’t know about the man in question here, but there will absolutely be a reason why this is the case.

Tbh it’s hard to tell given her references to having/not having a penis.

The courts have given sole residency to the father with 0 visitation to the OP. They have said that he can give her reasonable access, which has been 5 hours a week. She is not permitted access to his medical records, he doesn’t stay over. So it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that she’s not biologically his parent, although he may be adopted.

What an unpleasant comment. Please read up on how abusive men behave. They can turn on the charm when needed (to the outside world) but really destroy the person they are abusing.

With attitudes like this, but is no wonder abusive men get away with it so often.

I think the "penis" reference was more an example of the level of ridiculousness of the accusations against the OP. It's a physical thing that can easily be proved/disproved, yet the ex's word was taken and the evidence that he was lying was ignored. I suppose another easy to prove/disprove thing would be that she could have been accused of something like self harming by cutting, when there were no signs on the body that she was or had ever been cutting.

So just give the cutting example. The penis example is pretty nutty and doesn't help OP sound well and reliable. There's a lot missing from this story so it's very hard to give advice. It's extremely rare for a mother to have a custody set-up as exclusionary as she describes and other things like the guardian simply not bothering with her don't seem to add up. There are court failings for sure but something bigger is going on here and wacky penis examples are obfuscating not clarifying the situation.

Usually because the Judge is male and a misogynist. HTH?

She's the mother, of course she is

Because the mother was also neglecting Sara

In that case the mother was also abusive/neglectful and at the time of the father's application he was judged the safer parent. It's not as if they removed her from a safe parent just to place her with an abuser.

''I could have been the worst parent on the planet but almost all parents should still see their children when it’s safe (which is is) to do so.''

{Cut and paste direct quote from op}

There must have been a really substantial back story here.

Courts should always put the Child's safety and wellbeing first.

No, I think a social work/guardian (non medic probably) etc thought that she had some mental illness on the insistance of abusive ex. (Anxiety, fii, depression) But she doesn't and can prove she doesn't. The medics can prove she doesn't but the social worker/guardian/etc are so convinced she has it that her saying she doesn't have this I just shows she has "no insight" very common in fii accusations.

It's heads I win, tails you lose.

If you try to prove you don't have fii then that is a symptom of fii. (Common for undiagnosed autistic parents to be accused of fii according to the autism magazines, not done proper research to check)