mew arf :3

After the Butch/FTM Conference Why Not to Give Up on Butch/FTM/Trannyboy Coalition Building by Jaron Kanegson

I'm a transgendered person who identifies as both Butch and FTM. A faggy "Butch" who typically dates Butches/boy-dykes/FTMs, an FTM cross-dresser who responds to a range of pronouns, a bio-female who frequently passes, and partially identifies, as male, I can't squeeze my gender iden-tity into one category. As such. I felt excited, even relieved, when I first heard about the Butch/FTM Conference. Finally, I thought. a forum that would logically include genders which, like mine, incorporate elements from both the categories of Butch and FTM. And, I was happy that a spectrum of people from communities that sometimes overlap—more, I think, than many would like to admit--would be coming together to work towards change. I figured we'd have a lot to talk about regarding discrimination from the larger society, identity questions, health care, employment, sexuality, racism, etc. I am saddened to report that while some bridges were built, others were broken, particularly during the "Betrayal—What Makes It Hard To Trust Each Other" workshop. I believe that structural aspects of the conference contributed to the conflict in that workshop, and detracted from the progress that might otherwise have been made that day. Though I had briefly worked on planning the conference, I quit because I was convinced that the conference was not being planned in a constructive way. During the six-week period that I was involved in planning the conference, I attended both a general meeting and panel-planning subcommittee meetings. I also took part in conversations with various conference organizers, potential panelists, curious friends, etc. In my circle of friends, Butch and FTM describe not only categories that at times blur, but also groups that, along with femmes, MTFs, bio-fags and others, often relate as friends, lovers, roommates and members of a larger community. So, I expected the Butch/FTM Conference to build on the base of shared community that already exists, to a certain extent, in San Francisco. Instead, I found that some of the other organizers seemed to see Butch and FTM as two inherently separate, distinct, and perhaps even naturally hostile identities. One area where I saw this mindset demonstrated was in the planning of the morning panel. I thought that, of the five or six panelists, at least one should be a person with an identity specifically incorporating aspects of both Butchness and FTMhood. I suggested a number of boy-dykes and dyke-fags, all of whom identified as transgender. In response, one organizer, a Butch woman, expressed her frustration that I was "muddying" things. She stated that I was "Not respecting that the conference (was) supposed to be about Butches and FTMs." That conversation marked the end of my involvement. Ultimately, although some gender ambiguity certainly crept into the panel, no panelists with the type of gender identity I had lobbied for was included. Transfags and people younger than their mid-thirties were also absent as panelists, and all of the FTMs seemed to be former Butches. That unfortunately reinforced the idea that every FTM "gained" is a Butch "lost" and the misconception that all FTMs are straight. As well, though I know gender-flexible people of all ages, my personal experience is that younger queers are more used to the idea of alliances between dykes, fags, trannies, etc. There were other aspects of the conference that did not seem to be designed to bring people together. One example was the wording of the Harvey Milk Institute catalog course description. Originally, it described Butches and FTMs as

Butch and FTM describe not only categories that at times blur, but also groups that (along with femmes, MTFs, bio-fags and others) often relate as friends, lovers, roommates and members of a larger community. "competing for dwindling resources!" While this and other potentially inflammatory language was ultimately removed, other revisions aimed at making the language more inclusive did not stick. For example, I suggested at the general planning meeting, along with others, that we list a wider range of relevant gender identities—including a more culturally diverse range—in the course description. That way, people who identified only with certain aspects of "Butch" and/or "FTM" would know that the conference was about them, too. Five of us spent half an hour at that meeting's end rewriting the course description to specify that the conference was not strictly about "Butches" and "FTMs," but also about boy-dykes, transfags, bull-daggers, cross-dressers, anabes, marimachas, etc. While the line "All genders are welcome" stayed in the course description, the idea that the focus of the conference was about a range of gender identities was excised. Finally, while the course description set the tone for the conference, as well as drawing a particular audience, the workshop topics themselves were not conducive to alliance building. In particular, the smallest of the three after-noon discussion groups,