LONDON (Reuter) -- The 17-year marriage of a British couple was annulled after the wife discovered her husband was really a woman, the Court of Appeal was told Wednesday.

The lawyer representing the wife told the court the union was based on deception and because the "husband" used an artificial penis "the wife always believed he was a man."

To protect the couple's children, conceived through artificial insemination using donor sperm, the identity of the couple was not revealed.

The husband took the case to the Court of Appeals after a High Court judge ruled that he was not entitled to automatic access to the children or his portion of the marriage wealth after the marriage ended because the union was based on perjury.

The husband's lawyer defended his client's action, saying he had "an unshakable conviction that at his core he is a man although he is trapped in a woman's body."

The couple never discussed "what the nature of this man's birth position was" during their marriage, he added.

Despite the deception, Appeal Court Judge Alan Hylton Ward told the court the husband deserved sympathy and understanding and not moral condemnation.