[quote]Recently lesbians have been transitioning to become âgay men.' This does seem to be a new development and is particularly common amongst lesbians who have spent years practising sadomasochism, often with gay men. Pat Califia, the most famous US proponent of lesbian SM has become Patrick and her partner (who bore a child before she 'transitioned') was also involved in SM and is now a âgay man.' Linnea Due, co-editor of the anthology Dagger: On Butch Women (1994), notes that at a 1995 conference for FTMs about half were 'gay-identified.â

I understand transitioning to become 'gay men' to illustrate the almost total dominance of gay male culture and gay male versions of masculinity within âqueer' communities. In Drag King shows, now sweeping Australia as they have the US and the UK, lesbians tend to dress up specifically as masculine gay men and seek to outdo each other in the imitation. Gay masculinity has become the highest good and reflects gay men's superior financial status and other resources and glamour. 'Butch' lesbians who choose to be gay men do not have functioning penises, phalloplasties are very expensive, enormously painful and do not erect, thus they become 'bottoms' in gay male sexual practice