Genderphobia...Do you have it, asks KATRINA FOX

Have you ever had sex with a transsexual, transgendered or gender variant person? No? Are you absolutely sure? Even those of you still resolutely insisting 'no' may want to think about it some more. With the rise of the transgender movement throughout the nineties, the boundaries of sex, gender and sexuality have started to become blurred and the lesbian community faces increasing challenges in how to react to the profusion of identities coming onto the scene. Words such as 'hermaphrodyke', 'pansexual' or even 'spansexual' are becoming as common in the gay press nowadays as 'diesel dyke' or 'stone butch' were in the eighties.

Until recently the main gender issue of concern to dykes was the question of whether male to female (MTF) transsexuals are women and if they should be allowed in women-only spaces. But with more and more of those stone butches pumping their veins with testosterone and declaring themselves to have been men all along, lesbian culture is getting a bit of a shock. Add to that the proliferation of people coming out identifying as both male and female, female part of the time, or as neither sex or gender, and things get even more interesting.

Reactions to this foray of gender bending are divided. US lesbian magazine Girlfriends' decision to keep female-to-male (FTM) transman Patrick Califia (previously well known lesbian writer Pat Califia) as a guest columnist angered some of its readers and pleased others. International photographer and artist Del LaGrace Volcano argues that 'lesbians are going to have to pull their heads out of the sand and address the issues gender is bringing up.' Formerly lesbian Della Grace, Del now describes him/herself as 'an intentional mutation of male and female that I call FTM intersexual by design'.

Where such people fit into the lesbian scene is a bit of a minefield. On the one hand, there is the camp that says if a person is born biologically female or male, that is what they stay, no matter how they self-identify or change their physical appearance at a later stage. The other side argues that it's all about self-definition, so whether an MTF transsexual is welcome at a women-only event all comes down to which argument you favour.
But the 'what you are born as' standpoint has its limitations, as the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in the US has shown. Its notorious 'wimmin born wimmin only' door policy has been the subject of controversy for years, as it is based solely on what the organisers believe a woman looks like. So if you're an MTF who doesn't 'pass', a hardcore butch who looks like a man, or a superfemme with more make-up and big hair than a drag queen, be prepared to be excluded.

A similar debacle took place in Sydney in the early nineties when a group of lesbians sought to exclude all transpeople from Lesbian Space, a women-only building in Newtown. This kind of policy highlights the problems of trying to define what a woman is by criteria other than self-definition. Does it depend on a person's genitalia or chromosomes? If so, where does that leave the one in 200 people born each year with intersex conditions who are physically unable to fit into the rigid categories of male and female? Such policies also fail to take into account cross-cultural perceptions of sex and gender.

Spokesperson for campaign group Sex And Gender Education (SAGE) Norrie mAy Welby, previously an MTF transsexual who now identifies as 'mostly woman and sometimes more and less' says: 'I was only ever conscious of acceptance prior to the Lesbian Space incident. Since then, I have seen things shift enormously away from the destructive successes of transphobia and towards powerful public acceptance of transpeople from those influential in the lesbian community.'

Events such as the Gay Games, to be held in Sydney this year, are an example of the shift in attitudes as they adopt trans-inclusive policies based on self-definition.

But pockets of prejudice can still occur, particularly among older radical feminists such as Germaine Greer who continues to refer to MTF transsexuals as 'pantomime dames'. Psychotherapist Dr Tracie O'Keefe, author of Sex, Gender & Sexuality: 21st Century Transformations, believes that transphobia among lesbians is largely based on ignorance. 'Women of all kinds have space in the lesbian community - a lesbian is not a concrete concept, it's simply an aspect of female identity. Women don't come in boxes or with guarantees, they come in all shapes and sizes. The lesbian community, as well as the rest of society, is learning about an ever expanding knowledge that is accumulating in the diversity of sex, gender and sexuality. 'It's an opportunity for the community to not only consider the diversity of other sections of human nature but also to examine their own prejudices and ability to appreciate other people's lifestyles and physical and spiritual selves'.

One thing is for sure - the 'gender outlaws' are not going away. Take a look at the latest issues of lesbian sex magazines such as On Our Backs or Quim, and you'll find erotic stories written by and about 'tranny boys' or 'gender queers' included. Even academic organisations are amending their policies to reflect changing attitudes - last year Oxford University Student Union in the UK changed its Constitution's definition of woman from someone designated as such by their birth certificate to 'any person who permanently identifies as female'.
Debates over butch and femme are still raging after 30 years, as recent issues of LOTL have shown, so we can no doubt look forward to passionate exchanges over the wider gender agenda.
But perhaps instead of isolating ourselves into even smaller minorities, we can learn to leave genderphobia behind and take a step towards expanding our concepts of who we are and enlarging the possibilities for our lives. After all, as time goes on, it's likely that more of us will have emotional and sexual encounters with sex and gender variant people - whether we like it or not.

Lesbians on the Loose (LOTL) is an Australian magazine covering New South Wales and Queensland. For more information visit the magazine's website at www.lotl.com