A divorcee has been forced by a judge to pay half for her ex-husband’s trans surgery.

[TheywontletmehavethenameIwant]

I thought I link to this, it's on MSN.

"The mother argued that it was unfair that she had to stump up £80,000 for the procedure when the decision to transition had led to the breakdown of her marriage.
But in what is believed to be the first case of its kind, the judge said that the surgery was a “need”, not a “whim”, and therefore it was “reasonable” for the cost to be met out of their joint funds."

Divorcee forced to pay half of ex-husband’s trans surgery in legal first

"She was “deeply shocked” when her husband “stated that she intended to live her new life as a lesbian woman” and that is when she began divorce proceedings.

The husband responded: “You marry a trans person. You live with a trans person. You benefit from a trans person. They are suicidal and you support them.”

Male privilege write large, and another activist judge, from Brighton, of course.

The judge agreed with the wife’s legal team that the husband had “shown no understanding whatsoever that her decision to transition to a woman has had an impact on anyone else, and particularly” the ex-wife.

Judge Farquhar said that while “there is no doubt that this has been a hugely difficult and emotionally draining experience” for the trans woman, “the lack of empathy” for the ex-wife “is striking”.
However, he said that could not be considered when dividing up the assets and the court “will not consider the reasons that a marriage broke down within financial remedy proceedings”.

He said he was satisfied the “surgery was meeting a genuine and deep-felt medical/psychological need”.
“This cannot be, and has not been, said to have been carried out as a whim when all of the effort and time that the respondent has invested in the process is considered,” the judge noted.

Therefore, it was “reasonable” for the money to be spent “out of joint resources”, he ruled.

Maybe she can counterclaim for her need to have a holiday in spain for 20 weeks a year? Preposterous! Sure that is worth an appeal?

Has the surgery already happened? Does the wife still have to pay if he doesn't get the castration?

The surgery happened and it’s already paid for. The wife wanted half that money back as part of the settlement.

This guy’s clearly read the “arsehole’s guide to getting a divorce” hasn’t he?!

Step one: burn through as much of the joint assets as you can

Step two: fail to live up to your financial and, I think we’re safe to assume, emotional commitments to your children

Step three: make sure you switch from whatever career you were doing well in (he must have been, hence the joint 3mil) to something that’s going to pull in 3/5ths of sweet bugger all.

TBH, the whole transitioning thing is just icing on an already depressingly large ‘cake.’

Disgusting decision by the judge, the woman’s been through enough! And him likening it to ‘cancer surgery’ - he can go fuck right off!

Absolute madness! I hope she appeals and wins

It said surgery not castration.
I'd not make the assumption it was bottom surgery.

Given his very male attitude to the ex wife, my money is on a boob job, face surgery and hair implants.

Dick is most likely intact with all that gender dysphoria neediness.

It's not about sending the other party the bill. The equivalent would be if she'd already been on holiday using money from the joint account and then the husband asking the court to make her pay that money back.

It would be unusual for the court to make such an order - this case is being very misunderstood on this thread.

Family lawyer here
Haven’t read the full judgment but according to the article it’s clear the £80k surgery has happened and been paid for out of joint money before the division of their assets.

The wife argued that the money should be nominally “added back”, so she would effectively get what she would have got if the money hadn’t been spent (so an extra £40k from their remaining assets).

The law on “add back” requires the expenditure to have been wanton and reckless. There’s plenty of case law examples where there’s been unfair spending from joint assets and it’s not been added back - the court will usually only divide what remains.

This isn’t a trans victory case - it’s been spun as so.

The judge said vaginoplasty in his comments.

Thank you, that's a very helpful and clear explanation. It's ridiculous the way this is being spun.

The bar for wanton and reckless spending needs to be a lot lower. The potential for abuse seems so obvious. Another example given in the tweet I linked to upthread was of a husband who had spent thousands ferrying prostitutes around by air out of joint funds.

I think I disagree. While the man in your example (and the man in the OP story) sounds like a complete arsehole we can't get the courts to fix everything. There are consequences to joining your finances with someone and the idea that a court should have to do a line by line of spending and make a call is impractical, undesirable and will leave everyone except the lawyers worse off financially anyway.

Pretty typical Telegraph clickbait. The way this has been presented in order to promote their agenda is really irresponsible.

Yep, really shitty journalism. And potentially really quite damaging - we have people on this thread denouncing all the judges in Brighton, FFS, based off their misunderstanding of this issue.

While I see what you mean in principle, I think the example I quoted and the case we are discussing are sufficiently extreme and the sums sufficiently large for courts to allow the dissenting spouse some latitude, especially if the spending takes place after the relationship has broken down and a divorce is being sought. When couples join finances in a joint account, especially if one or both of hem additionally have their own current accounts, there is an implicit understanding that the money is for expenditure which benefits or is necessary for both parties. If one spouse isn't earning, she (or occasionally he) usually gets some sort of allowance out of the joint funds. This is agreed expenditure. I think implied consent should be key. You can't just do anything you want with marital finances, whether you are the principal earner or not.

I still also question the judge's reasoning - whether the ex-husband had thought about vaginoplasty a lot isn't really the point. People think carefully about how to screw someone else over. Plus, again, gender dysphoria is not a medical condition any more and therefore vaginoplasty is not a medical need.