TMen

The film Boy I Am was shown at this meeting. The meeting began at FUS but was moved to a members home for the film showing.

The film's website describe it as:

"a feature-length documentary that begins to break down that barrier and promote dialogue about trans issues through a look at the experiences of three young transitioning FTMs in New York City—Nicco, Norie and Keegan—as they go through major junctures in their transitions, as well as through the voices of lesbians, activists and theorists who raise and address the questions that many people have but few openly discuss." (Boy I am website)

Issues between the FtM+ community and the lesbian community are a long standing concern. Some of the causes of this tension include areas of indentity intersection, areas where each community feels its identity (or identities) threatened and spaces in which definitions of one community have been created over and against the very core of the other group.

It would be interesting to have a deeper discussion about this. Primarily one that looked at how the following areas impact relations between FtM+ ID'd individuals and the Lesbian community:

* Age of transition - in other words how does an individual who transition at 16 or 17 and who may never have identified withn the lesbian community differ in this regard from someone who transitioned t 45 after spending 25 or 30 years identified within the lesbian community?

* medical transition vs no medical transition - how does a decision to puruse T, surgery etc. differ from noho/no-op as one handles the FtM+/Lesbian community interactions.

* Pre-transition identity - if an individual transitions and has never identified within the lesbian community (for any range of reasons) as opposed to an individual who identified within the lesbian community prior to transition.

* Post-transition identity - how does one's identity post-transition impact dialogus, discussion and identity concerns between the FtM+ community and the Lesbian community.

I think one of the key challenges to the dialogue and boundary concerns between FtM+ and lesbian communities is the internal fluidity and indentity overlap between these two groups. It also speaks to the challenges faced when two communities that have histories of marginalization have overlapping borders and limited power over external identity perceptions.