Journal of Lesbian Studies. 2007;11(3-4):203-11.

The lesbian community and FTMs: détente in the butch/FTM borderlands.

Weiss JT.

School of Science and Human Services, Ramapo College of New Jersey, 505 Ramapo Valley Road, Mahwah, NJ 07430, USA. jweiss@ramapo.edu

In 1998, Dr. Jacob Hale wrote about a 'borderland' between butch lesbian identity and FTM masculinity, suggesting a 'demilitarized zone.' While the intervening years have brought no 'demilitarized zone,' the border may not have a long future. Converging trends in identity among the younger generation in their teens and twenties suggest this, such as changing meanings of 'lesbian' and 'FTM,' the blending of sexuality and gender, and understanding these as personal, rather than identity, differences. The socio-historical circumstances that gave power to anti-trans feminist attitudes and trans rejection of lesbian identity are disappearing. This is not to say that we are 'post-lesbian' or 'post-transsexual,' but the tension between identities, the need to distinguish clearly between them, and the arguments about who is 'really' lesbian or 'really' FTM may be of supreme unimportance to the next generation. Time will tell.