c o v e r s t o r y
Transgendered Butches and FTM's: a uniquely Femme Perspective
by Sonya Bolus

f e a t u r e s
Transgendered Lesbian
by Arlene Istar Lev
Passing as the Pope - the Story of Joan English
by Alison Phipps

c o l u m n s
Health
by Dr. Lipstick
Wealth
by Ms. Moneygrrl
Sex
by SexySuzi
Advice
by Victoria
Femme Perspective
by DeAnna
Butch Perspective
by E.T. Turner

Publisher's Note
Contribute to Femme

Transgendered Lesbian
by Arlene Istar Lev

(Continued, page 4)

We link cross-gendered behavior and assume/insist it is related to homosexuality, but yet when we are accused of cross-gendered behavior by the straight world we adamantly deny it stating emphatically, "We are just like everyone else!". We own gender transgressive behavior as ours own, and indeed often use it as a way to identify and define gay and yet we publicly deny that there is any relationship between our queer sexual identity and our gender presentation.

Certainly most gay people, like most heterosexual people, are not gender deviant or dysphoric. Most gay people experience their physiological sex and their gender identity to be congruent, and most of these people dress, more or less, within the expectations of their gender role. I suspect, however, that for many gay and lesbian people the overlap of sexual identity issues and transgenderism may be more linked then we have previously assumed.

As we explore these gray areas of gender and sexual identities, I am finding that the old paradigms of gay or straight, man or woman simply might be too restricting for many people. It is really no wonder that there has been so much resistance to the words "bisexual" and "transgendered" in the queer liberation movement; these words shift the entire system of "us" and "them," and show us how permeable the boundaries of identity can be. We are living in a time when the transgendered community is beginning to find its voice and I suspect, in part, we are concerned that as transgendered people articulate their experience, we will find that some of "them" are really some of "us," and that some of "us" have always been some of "them." Many lesbians play with and explore gender as a transgressive act. At what point does transgressing gender as lesbian put one outside of the lesbian rubric?

Transgendered lesbians

Transgendered has been used as an umbrella term to describe people who do not identify with the gendered assumptions placed on their physiological bodies. There are lesbians who seem to embody a kind of transgender, which includes a broad spectrum of masculine embodiment in females and a sexual attraction to women. Wading through the quagmire of language I have seen and heard numerous terms for people who might be included in this rubric of identity including butch, tomboy, stonebutch, transgendered butch, female man, s/he, guys, boychick, bigendered, f2m , transmen, and most recently mandyke. Even among clearly identified female to male transsexuals, a distinction is made between f2m and ftm. Ftm is used as a synonym for transsexual and f2m describes a broad array of people labeled female at birth and who are masculine identified and/or moving in that direction.

continued on page 5