I appreciate this article.

I am a femme, and my partner is a trans man, which is a new experience for me from dating butches. Now I feel like I am experiencing a level of queer invisibility. We come across as a "normal" (het) couple. I feel overlooked or shunned by my lesbian community, but not belonging (for sure) in the het community. It really sucks. I miss my community.

I also am a queer femme who was in a relationship with a trans guy. I too struggled most with losing my visibility into a seemingly het relationship. I found the loss of community very difficult.

i'm sorry, but excluding trans women because of the gender assigned to them at birth is WILDLY fucked up, as is the entire notion of "women born women" spaces. if trans men are excluded (and i think that's completely understandable, as they are not women), trans women should be included, as they ARE women. you're just enforcing these shitty patriachical ideals of birth assignment being some kind of magic spell. trans people are not fakers, and trans women have just as much right to women's spaces as cis women.

I can almost empathize with your point of view. Women-only spaces and the butch community have been safe places for you and watching them change may feel threatening. Perhaps you can also try to see it from the other side. "[T]here was no such thing as Trans men just Butch and Femme and it was pretty clear which party you belonged [to]" sounds a bit like "there used to be men and women, they got married and had babies, it was pretty clear how you're supposed to act." Trans people exist. Please respect us.

A man is a man is a man and by any other name would still smell like androgen.

Women's spaces should be women's spaces. A "women's" space with biological males in it is a mixed space and not this woman's space.

I don't hate anyone but the sight of male genitals makes me cringe and move away - fast. I say this despite the fact that I sorted through an archive of thousands of images of male porn left by a deceased male porn author whose effects were being transferred into a national gay and lesbian archive and they needed volunteer archivists to help with the sorting - I AM that dedicated to our community!

None-the-less, if I wanted to see that in my private spaces I would be with a male. I am a lesbian and I don't want to see that. I don't want to be with men and I don't care if they were born men or were surgically created men. The whole CIS v Trans thing is so not an issue for me. The presence of male genitalia assures they will never be more than friends with me.

I can understand how people can miss their community and I feel for their loss and the confusion that faces them, but expecting that nothing will change after sex-reassignment surgery is like planting corn and being surprised when beans don't grow.

A butch woman is a woman. When I want to be with women I want to be with women. It can't get any more simple than that.

Any place where men are going to take their clothes off is not a place I want to be. I will be elsewhere - having gone where the men are not.

This is by far the most thoughtful and daring post that you have written here!

I really liked:
"If I'm right, then we're not "losing" butches; we never "had" as many as we thought to begin with.  We just got to borrow thousands of trans guys until society caught up."


Mmm. Bravo!

Thank you, Campbell. You said so beautifully what I floundered around trying to say. I also respect what Trans men have done, no one should take that away from them. Becoming fully who we are is always a supreme act of courage.

I identified as butch because I didn't know about transppl. I am now a Transman. I still wanted to be part of the gay and lesbian community but here in tx I was basically told I didn't belong because I wasn't gay. All my lesbian (butch and femme alike) had treated me terribly and shunned me as a traitor. I was about to give up on the gay community here until I met some younger lesbians who accept me as I am. I'm still not welcome at the pride festivals here by other lesbians. I even got pushed and shoved.
And as for Mi(I'm originally from Mi) I would never asked to be a part of a woman only space. I mean why would I? I'm a guy. So I respect womens only spaces,its their right t have their own safe space. But I was upset with the Mi womens festivals excluding the transwomen.. but that a whole other can of worms I guess. I am greatful now that I am not having as much trouble being a part of the butch community. Everyone has the right to be who they are comfortably. I just wish Tx was more open to the fact that everyone has their own identity,butch,femme,trans,genderqueer, or however they want to live.

Thank you for such a well-written and thoughtful approach to a very delicate subject. As a young "old-school" butch, I have to admit that I sometimes fret over what seems to be a decline in butch-ID'ed people of my generation. I also bristle when people suggest that my butchness is just some pit stop on the road to FTM. This past Pride, a trans woman for some reason felt compelled to give me unsolicited life advice "in case I ever decide to actually become a man instead of just dressing like one." Her tone was so condescending and disappointing to me; it's bad enough when the hetero world doesn't get me, but that sort of attitude from my own community is incredibly hurtful.

I think you make an excellent point when you say that increases in MOC people who are transitioning is probably more the result of greater visibility and accessibility of trans resources, rather than there being some sort of trend of butches becoming trans. It's probably true that many people who ID'ed as butch decades ago would have actually ID'ed as trans had that been an option.

I love the care and respect you showed when writing this! I, like Campbell, present quite masculine, like being addressed with male pronouns, have 'male' hobbies and love being complimented with 'handsome'. But I love my body, feel at home in it and have no desire to transition.

I see nothing easy about those that do transition, I have a huge amount of respect for them because that road is also a tough one to travel.

Thank you for this post. I imagine that it was a difficult one to write and, perhaps, even more difficult to actually post.

After reading it, well while reading it to be more precise, I had so many thoughts and feelings on the subject that I had to start writing myself. At first I wanted to write a comment for this page but it turned into a blog post of my own. Feel free to click over and read it when you have a chance.

Again, thank you.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful and compelling article. I especially appreciate what you say about FTMs taking "the easy way out". Changing your sex is the farthest thing from easy imaginable. You basically risk losing everything you ever had to be seen as who you really are. You risk losing your family, your friends, your job. There's going to be months and even years before you will pass completely as male. The most minimally invasive chest surgery runs between 6k and 10k, with a minimum 6 weeks before you can raise your arms above your shoulder level again, and lower surgery starts at 20k and goes up to 200k. You have to inject yourself with T at least once every two weeks and in many cases weekly.

Luckily for me, my butch friends truly are my friends and we carry on the same supportive relationship we've always had. I would do anything for them and them for me. In fact I stayed with my butch buddies while recovering from chest surgery.

I hope you write more about this- this is some of the most intelligent writing I've ever read on this subject.

I have never read your blog before. A friend of mine sent me this article. It is the perfect information sheet to hand out to anyone who says "I just don't get it" when referring to FTMs. I am presently with a FTM and I've heard all the arguments; from all sides, and it is most disappointing when the community you have been a part of for so long, no longer embraces you. We have faced discrimination together and separately from our respective communities. He once identified as butch and I am/was? a lesbian. I have no problem handing in my lesbian card for a bisexual one if that is what it means I have to do, to be with my trans guy. I mean, what difference does it make? Everyone wants to be accepted but no one can really take away your identity. I'm hoping one day we will all be one big happy family under the big Queer umbrella, but until then, articles like yours will help pave the way to better understanding all around. I know I will be forwarding it on to my friends, who all eventually came around and accepted us for what and more importantly WHO we are.

Samantha, I totally get where you are coming from and the only thing I can say is; never stop being proud. You can have the same feeling you had while being a visible lesbian by being invisible with your transman. Try to think of it as infiltrating the straight world and take joy in knowing you have a secret, and in the blowing of people's minds if/when you out yourselves to people who don't know. People complain that becoming trans is "trendy" which is just as silly as "taking the easy way out" but that doesn't have to stop you from "feeling" trendy when you are the only one at a gay party with a transman. As for your community, with time and education they will come around eventually. You just have to hang in there and never regret being yourself!

I think the conflict is new and wonder if it might be partly because of the Butch Voices conference itself, where many lesbian-woman identified butches found themselves sharing space with trans men and thinking "hey wait a minute." With regards to space and soapbox sharing it might not be the most ideal mix because the conversations of most interest to both groups are so very different. When any one person waxes on too long and others don't get a chance to speak then there is irritation and resentment. Also a lot of resentment is brought to the table automatically by the trans folks who feel they've been excluded or dismissed (and yes, they sure have). We need to learn to share this space and everybody take turns talking, because the future of our movements even where they differ, depends on our getting together in this GLBTQ community and collectively deciding on love, tolerance, acceptance--eschewing the infighting.

Firstly, great article. You managed to hit pretty much everything, with one exception ... I've heard that transguys poach femme women who would otherwise date stone butches and butches alike.

To partners of transguys: check out my wife's blog at thissideofchanged.WordPress.com or her trans specific writings at cardcarryinglesbian.com . She posts under her nom de plume Jolie.

Anyone curious to dig into the mind of a transguy, check my blog out... I wrote a very specific piece of satire about this topic a ways back - when I was told I couldn't call myself butch anymore.

Very good dissertation, thanks!

I wasn't clueless as to my sexual preference; I've known since I was 3 yrs old I'm attracted to women. I just didn't know there were others, or that there was a word for people like me.

I was victimized by my Catholic upbringing to the point where I felt well, I must be a man in a woman's body. Loving women when I'm a woman is wrong, and God doesn't make mistakes, right? Ha!

So as not to offend my family (or the rest of humanity) I thought of transitioning & researched it extensively. This was before we even used the word "transitioning", when we had no words in our peculiar vocabulary like "transman" or "boi".

My conclusion was that it was tantamount to giving someone permission to mutilate my body. Surgery would remove my breasts. Okay, so now I'm flat-chested. But what surgery couldn't do was give me a working penis. I could never get my partner pregnant, or pee standing up, much less give her pleasure with it. Unless I'm woefully uninformed, things haven't changed much since the late 1970s in this respect. Or have they? I don't know.

At this point, I must admit to a bit of female-superiority. Why would I want to become that which I basically dislike -meaning, a man? Don't get me wrong, some of my best friendships have been with men. But they're not who I am sexually attracted to; I was a horrible failure at heterosexuality. Why would I become a man -just to enjoy male privilege? I didn't see any upside to transitioning.

I love women. I advocate for our gender. I don't want to be a man; I just want to love women as a woman.

This left me with the alternative -accepting myself as-is because I wasn't willing to change my body to suit someone else's vision of who I am or what I should look like because of my sexual preference. The process of self-realization & expressing who I really am within the confines of a strictly male/female (and predominately straight)world was slow, and not without self-doubt & loathing.

Like many, I became depressed & suicidal. But I finally reconciled with it all & today am happy being who I am -a fellagirlie, to quote Elvira Kurt.

My younger lesbian friends call me a "throw-back" as if I'm some sort of neanderthal version of the modern lesbian! I don't wear make-up, keep my hair short, and tend towards very practical, functional clothing, LOL! Think "Oakland dyke", circa 1979/1980. Funny how those tables have turned because back in MY day, we treated "lipstick lesbians" with suspicion, as if they had just hopped over to our side of the tracks to check us out, and would soon hop back from whence they came. I envied them because they could "pass" when I was so obviously lesbian.

I'm no longer dysphoric. I concluded that defining our world as strictly male/female is at best uninformed, at worst torturous because it leads to all kinds of misery. Imperatives like the younger generations telling butch lesbians YOU MUST TRANSITION.

If people truly understood the complexities of human biology, anatomy, physiology & procreation, how gender is determined when we're still just fertilized eggs, they may see what I've come to accept as one of my truths.

I remember bristling at a comment my roommate made years ago: "You're just a mistake of nature..." I've harbored animosity towards her for saying this because her intent was not to inform. It was to hurt and make herself feel hetero-superior.

After stewing over it for the last ten years, I recently took what was meant as a personal slight, spiritual violence meted out against me, if you will, and put it in perspective.

Some of us, through no fault of our own and really more attributable to a quirk of nature, are born female when we should have been born male, and vice versa. Who can say why this happens; it just does. There is nothing wrong with being homosexual. What's wrong are those hetero-centrics who look at the world through black 'n white lenses.

There is evidence of nature's quirks all around us, yet being the jar-headed humans we are, we stay stuck on black 'n white absolutes, when our world is so much more than that.

As for our lesbian community, all I can say is, don't do to others what's been done to us. Don't shun people (or worse) just because they don't fit into your neat little version of what humans should be. Step outside your comfort-zone and see the beauty in diversity, even within our own ranks.

I know we have a tendency towards separatism, and who can blame us? But we shouldn't use our shield to batter those who don't deserve it. We didn't deserve what may have been done to us by narrow-minded hetero-centrists, or closeted homophobes.

Do what you wanna do, don't bend to anyone else's notion of what you should look like based on who you are. Be who you are (thanks, Stephanie)!

wow, great article. I think you laid it all right out. Maybe I'm nuts but, I don't think of women's spaces that include trans folk as being or becoming non-womens spaces. Bear with me a second here, basically, transwomen are women, and women are women and transmen were at some point (presumably for most of thier lives) understood to be women, and treated as women. Male privelidge notwithstanding, these are men who know what its like to be 'read' as a woman. That's not to say that each and every transman is a totally rightous feminist, but I doubt that many are as unthinkingly entitled as cismen can be.

AND trans is still Queer, still community. Personally, I find that gay cismen offend me far far far more often than transmen do...

I think its also pretty important to point out as well the intense vulnerability of the trans community. Assuming that transmen experience male priviledge in the same manner as cismen do is, I think, inaccurate.

The very notion of 'passing' indicates the very real danger, that of not passing. And speaking of passing, I think that needs to be addressed a little bit too. I'm a queer femme, and most people assume that I'm a straight woman. Now I've considered long and hard the very real dangers that accompany NOT passing. But sometimes I want to just put someone who 'reads' queer into my shoes for a minute and see how they like the strange borderland that is passing. Each state has its own advantages and disadvantages, is what I'm saying.

OH! AND! the pressure to transition, kindof a pain in the ass. My butch GF HATES being called by male pronouns, and she HATES when people assume that she identifies male, just because they don't comprehend just how very very very womanly my masculine woman is... I get we're trying to be inclusive and appropriate, but perhaps the best way to do that is to ask people, instead of assuming.

And essentially, that's what we need more of, open communication. I don't think allowing transphobia to pass unchecked helps any of us, nor does destabalizing or denigrating butch identity.

And I don't think that we can or should critique who people are attracted to as far as gendered permutations and presentations is concerned. I'm attracted to butches and not to transmen. Some butches like other butches. Some femmes like other femmes. Whatever floats your boat, right?

I prescribe more communication! More listening and sharing. And sometimes, folks do need to have separate spaces. I think we can make spaces for all of us without excluding folks. Maybe its just gonna take a minute to figure out how.

Hello Fellow butches-transmen-non-forming masculine women, I have enjoyed reading the dialogue that has taken place on this blog. I have a desire to bring the gap between butches and transmen because we share so many similarities and we need to embrace everyone's transition. Some of us always acknowledge the women that we are while embracing men that we are called to be. OThers only see the man and love that person they see and it is okay. How do find the agree to disagree connection so we can work together to build this community? As a pastor, same sex gender loving, butch-transmale, I am also looking for the God in all of this. Loving one another means just that. I have quite a few very good friends that are transmen and we don't see each other any different. The love of God will not let us. So, if we bring spirituality and sexuality together then we will find the commonality between our fellow brothers and sister, butches and studs, transmen and non-forming mascline women. Let's talk about it.

Hey Pwog, that must have been a shock. Maybe talking to her, a support group for the significant others of trans-people, or a gender-specialized therapist would help clear some things up for you? Definitely talking to her. Communication during an transition or coming out is really critical, and usually extremely helpful to everyone involved.

I enjoyed this article, though the part about transmen reinforcing the gender dichotomy is a little ridiculous to me. Some transmen do fit in the dichotomy and are happy to, but many, like myself, also identify along the genderqueer spectrum. I have always felt genderqueer and transgender, because while I identify basely as male I do not identify with the binary definition of "man" as a cultural term. I've never once in my life identified as butch (because I'm so very not, though I <3 butch women and men), and in my experience there's no "normal" path transmen go to from butch to trans identified. The notion that somebody has to transition from female-identified to butch to trans-identified is as overblown as the idea that most people who are gay identified went through a bisexual experience. It happens, sure, but from everything I've seen in the community it happens a lot less than people seem to think or assume.

I think everyone should accept eachother as they identify. I am so sad that there is this ridiculous dichotomy in the female queer community, and it's a major reason I choose not to participate in any butch related groups. I refuse to go back to high school, and I despise any form of discrimination. If community means having to pass some sort of test put forth by others, then I would rather not be included. to be clear, everyone should be accepted as they identify.

I'm a femme (kind of witchy earth-mama kind) and my butch woman and I have been together nearly 25 years. I really appreciated the comment of rachel and PB and Levi and A. (And lots of others, too.) It's a very complex topic and a real issue in our LGBTQ subculture.

I find that butch is an identity today that is not as "fashionable" as "trans." As a student of anthropology and history, I know that changes in culture are deeply tied into self-concept. Medical conditions that once were relatively common simply don't exist today (e.g. catatonia was once a common expression of mental illness) and new conditions appear and become much more common (like anorexia). Conditions in the west (like pain with menstruation) don't exist in other cultures. Our reality, even physically and medically, is grounded in culture and now the concept of trans is gaining cultural traction.

So while I agree that many transmen of the past probably lived as butches in the absence of other options, I also think that fashion and pressure enter into it. We are all part and parcel of our culture.

I feel sad that younger people don't embrace the identity of butch as readily and, at the moment, butch is losing cultural cred. I treasure the complexity of my masculine appearing woman. She is highly emotional, she has made (some) peace with her female body, and her strength is a universal innate strength -- neither "male" nor "female." Her very being expands the notions of what being female means. I love that and its very precious.

She is constantly called by masculine pronouns (weekly) and I feel part of that is a willful ignorance insisted on and enforced by our society. Despite being very large-breasted, she is seen as male because of her suits and body language. Our culture will not see diversity of dress -- or powerful female gestures -- thus she MUST BE a man. Long ago, I realized that, often, if we fit the stereotype, then we reinforce it. If we don't fit, we are invisible -- thus the stereotype is stronger than reality in front of one's face. But no one can ignore my love -- what a personality! She expands the possibilities of everyone she encounters.

We are both learning a lot about what it means to be trans, since someone we had already grown to love recently transitioned. It's a process of transformation that includes some pain and some joy. It's a journey that I think we are both committed to.

The pressure to identify as trans is (or can be) overwhelming to many butch women. When I was in college a few years back, I got asked almost daily if I was trans, despite my identification as gay. Other queers made it clear that I would be more accepted if I transitioned, especially since I was not exclusively female (I am genderqueer). Being butch, presenting as masculine and having partial success at passing as cismale on a regular basis is not accepted and barely tolerated. It would be entirely less difficult if I could identify as a transguy and work towards appearing more cismale. Society is beginning to understand transgenderism, but it does not understand what it means to straddle the gender divide in a way that does not insinuate a desire to change.

My mother asks me regularly if I want to be a boy. At least once a month I have to go through an emotionally tiring process of explaining my masculinity and its implications to my mother. She doesn't understand how I could not want to be male or female. She does not understand why I can't be feminine. She doesn't understand why, if I feel masculine and sometimes male, I don't just transition and make that my identity.

Gay/Queer media is getting in on it too. Every main blog or website is boasting its trans acceptance, and increasingly blurring the lines between butch women and transguys, often using these terms interchangeably when they are mutually exclusive concepts.

I think that my main goal here is just to disspell the notion that butch women, especially butch teenagers, don't experience intense pressure to fit into another (newer) box.

6. THE NOTION THAT THERE'S TOO MUCH PRESSURE TO TRANSITION
I've heard many butches and FTMs say that pressure is put on gender-nonconforming teens to identify as trans. If you're a masculine female, this story goes, your friends will tell you that you must be trans; after all, shouldn't your biology line up with your internal feelings of masculinity? I have no idea whether this "pressure" story is true. I'm not a teenager, and the very few FTM teenagers I do know are going through hell to make their parents understand that they're trans boys, not "just" lesbians. At the same time, it's true that butches are sometimes asked if they're going to become men. Still, this falls short of "pressure," doesn't it?

Nice post. Thank you for taking the time to publish this information very useful! I've been looking for books of this nature for a way too long. I'm just glad that I found yours. Looking forward for your next post. Thanks :)

I really recommend a fabulous documentary we screened recently, called "SWITCH, Community in Transition" by Portland Queer Filmmaker, Brooks Nelson, a FTM transman. It's about the adjustments that the transperson's community has to go through when someone changes gender. It addresses some of the issues you talk about like gaining male privilege and invisibility. I expect that Brooks will be making more films on both these topics. He came and discussed the film and his life with us after the screening. He's very open and candid about his experience.

Part 2
about landing that kind of job or career making that kind of equal money. You have got to stand up for yourself or you will stand for anything.

c) Hegemonic masculinity - What? That’s a privilege? This makes make me laugh. There is always a price for being in a gender grouping. For, the price of belonging in our diseased cultural model of male and female grouping is to being ranked on the totem pole just like anyone else. The transmale and Bio-male are faced with this in the masculine world in our culture. Because it is how men in our behavioral environment treat each other. If you were born male, you would know *you are fucked from the beginning. Fucked in the middle and fucked at the end of life. It is just that *you don’t see it -- being female. Am I going to explain it here? No. It something that us guys have better deal with and now. Females have your own issues about not accepting each other. Please, I ask that *your time be spent on figuring *yourselves out and not us. When *you do, you are no longer wasting time anymore and creating positive choices. Remember, things can only change when *you change *your outlook about the thing *you are looking at. Only then do those things change. Until then, stop carping about us. I am not going to spend my time and my whole life talking about female negative traits, either.

4. BUTCHES' AND FTMS' RELUCTANCE TO DATE EACH OTHER. Where I live, not dating “butches” it is about not being seen as gay or sissy bios fags [yes, the word is used in a positive sense].

4. PERCEPTION THAT THE TERM "BUTCH" IS WEAKENED BY THE INCREASED PRESENCE OF FTMS. Have no idea what is being talked about here. I don’t hang out with “butches”. When they pick-up on me, “the radar thing”, I don’t look their direction or walk away, and go talk to another man. I am not interested being label by association because who I stand next to, when I have my own identity. Now that said in non-public situations, if a “butch” was there I would say hi.

5. CONCERN THAT BUTCHES ARE A "DYING" BREED. Some lesbians lament the increased transition rates, and decry the "loss" of butches in the lesbian community. – LOL, I have only met one female, a femme, who said that to me personally and she’s dead now for 10 years. “Dying breed”? How about yes, it is true. I am happy that I can finally be myself or finally evolve to be all I can be. Sorry girls, *you don’t have that “butch” to kill that spider or hump *your crap after moving -- again. Now, check *yourself, if your feel the urge to unload on me because this is the reality: “butch” was only need there for free muscle for a task.

6. THE NOTION THAT THERE'S TOO MUCH PRESSURE TO TRANSITION. – I have no idea. I am not a teenager. I do like the fact that the NextGen of people 20- 25 are the “Whatever Generation” simply because - they plain just don’t fucking care what *you are. Just be *you and show up. Thank *you, FINALLY!!!

7. THE IDEA THAT FTMS ABANDON THE GAY COMMUNITY BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE SEEN AS "NORMAL". – LOL. Any new male transitioning reading this, my strongest suggestion would be –RUN- and – RUN AWAY FAST NOW. Come back after, if you still feel it’s worthwhile. Please see it from the view of cost/benefit scale. How would I come to this conclusion? Because victims become superior victimizers, that is why. My experience of gays and lesbians is in this 99% category: lesbians damned me for leaving “the team”; out me when I required medical privacy in a professional environment. Word had spread fast about what had happened. I got stalked and never got to relax until I left. I was physically ambushed and assaulted. Secondly, two, dating dykes in their careless, loud conversation in a restaurant displayed their verbal disgust of me. There were two law enforcement officers [LEOs] sitting next to them. That was so enlightening of them. Those two LEOs decided they were going to pull a “Brandon Tina” and have some “fun”. The only reason I am not dead today is because my girlfriend at the time, did an intervention on the cops before we left the restaurant. I won’t say how and she saved our lives. Thirdly, gay men, it is a similar story of rejection and revenge. It was really sick stuff. I started hanging out with bi-women for safety and friendships. I found an empty office room to get away and have lunch. So no, I didn’t get the welcome-wagon; I pushed out under the punishment of assault and/or conspiracy to attempt murder via a 3rd party. Sound like fun to you? No, this is a ridiculous idea of “be[ing] seen as normal”. I know the thirtysomething woman didn’t mean this, however, this “moralizing thing” makes me laugh.

8. BELIEF THAT TR

Thanks for this discussion. I think about it frequently.

I identify as femme female. I am erotically and emotionally interested in stone butch women. I would never be in a romantic relationship with a constructed or unconstucted male. I don't care if anyone else is, it is just not for me. I am female centered.

A butch boifriend one told me that my type of woman is the most rare of all. Hye said that everyone loves a luscious femme - even gay boys love Sophia Loren - but that the rarest of all birds are those of us who are attracted to butch women.

Any one who has the courage to become fully who they are deserves my respect and there is plenty of room in the LGBTQIQ tent for everyone - it is one of the biggest tents on the planet!

Finally. for many women - about a third of American women - the penis has been wielded as a tool of aggression in rape and for most of the world is has been a symbol of the oppression of women for eons. While it is difficult to imagine anyone who has endured what a FtM has passed through could be a rapist, it is reasonable to understand and admit the fact of the symbolism and to give women who want it freedom from that particular symbol when the request it.

Re-subscribe. Unsub'd by accident, sorry.

thank you for a well written article. I am a man. so I was born a woman, who really cares right? It should not be such the issue that it is being made out to be. The other men I know tend to fall into one of two lines, hetero or gay. The hetero go for the ladies and the gay for the boys. Personally I don't understand why a man who has passed through the transistion would chase a lesbian lady. She likes women, not men. Nor do I understand how the reverse works either. If one is lesbian why date a man in or done with transisition? I am in my mid 30's also. This is no fad for me. I am a gay man who had the horror of being born into the wrong flesh. Such things happen. It is nice to know what was happening to me and finding a way to become who I should have been barring the accident of my birth genitals.
I didn't go through the pain and suffering both physical and emotional to "gain male privlages". I was just being who and what I was. No more no less. It was not an "easy way out" in any way shape or form. I personally would not press myself into a women's only space, that would be rude. But I must say that pushing the women who transistioned from male geintals out is just as wrong. They are most definantly women. Many of them work very hard to look, display, and be the woman they are. Maligning them because of a birth accident is pretty shameful.
For the butch women, you go ladies. You got a rough end of the stick in society where extreme femm is the magazine "ideal". It takes mad guts to say "nope I am me and screw you". Keep at it and fuck those who can't accept you.
For you femm ladies, if you love your butch women then love away and don't let anyone pressure you to go to a "transman" just because that is what they think you should do.
Life is too short for the crap, no we are not always going to totally agree. The "trans" communities needs are different from the Gay/lesbian community but we are coming up behind you trying to gain some of the same measure that your hard work has won. Shit ain't always fair, but hate only hurts everyone.
Love who you are, be yourself, fuck the nay sayers and if you have to find others of like mind and hang with them instead. Cause really.. it is not worth the headache.

Thank you. Although-it looks like she is at it again. :(

I think some butches are transguys but they just don't do body modification. I think some of the older generation of butches who came of age before body modification was even known of are in this category. I think there are a lot of feelings for those butches to deal with because there is a lot to consider and it is a brave-new-world. Some tension lies there. I think this is a bigger issue between generations than it is for the younger generation.

I don't agree the older generation wasn't aware of it. The first F2M I knew was back in the 1970's. I knew several in the 80's as well, etc.

I am curious as to whether ButchWonders thinks that it is disrespectful to say that some proportion of the transitioning that is going on is related to fashion / faddishness.

I wouldn't suspect that except that the surge in numbers has been so very large - I hardly know any butches under 40 who don't identify as trans. It's like trans is the new butch. I am curious about that eruption of a bio/hormonal/"I was always really male" based identity. Especially as I know so many of the older generation of butches who are indifferent to the whole issue. This sort of swift transformation seems like it might well have a strong cultural component.

Is that a bad thing? Born males tend to have more rigid sexual identities in every way. I question whether it is really accurate or helpful to put the burden of "I was really born in the wrong body, I am actually a man" on to ALL of F2M transitioning. Some of it, sure.

Also the meaning of Butch in the lesbian context and the role of Butch Femme (both diminished) has changed. As lesbians have become more acceptable and assimilated, I have observed less butchness as an aspect of lesbian culture. I think it has been watered down. Could play a role? My point is that the culture has changed and I think that has consequences.