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attorneys would agree. Anti-porn feminists are rejoicing that my gender transition invalidates the critique of their movement that I pioneered—even if no cisgendered man would take part in that debate using the language and concepts that I used. Anti-S/M feminists have frequently said that my defense of this sexuality just proves that it’s male violence—male violence that polluted the lesbian community at my instigation, as a sort of double agent of the patriarchy. This sets aside hundreds of thousands of women-born-women who make up the modern lesbian leather community. Thank goodness, whether you like what I’ve done with my life or not, you can still benefit from the work of authors like Carol Queen, Tristan Taormino, and their compatriots. The explosion of well-written, sexually explicit fiction that followed the Feminist Sex Wars is still taking place, and everybody with an open mind and some open pages is better off for it.
    I knew that this would happen when I decided to transition. It made the whole process many times harder than it would otherwise have been. I felt as if I were pouring gasoline on a lifetime of work and lighting it on fire. But after spending decades urging others to come out about their sexuality, to be honest about their desires, and to bring their fantasies into reality, how could I live a lie myself, just to preserve that legacy? It was a double-bind that continues to torture me. I wish I could say that I never have second thoughts, but of course I do. Any major life change requires you to pick something you’ll gain—and give up other things. I have grieved the loss of my dyke identity more bitterly than any of my readers or friends.
    All I can tell you is that I never intended to deceive anybody. I had no hidden agenda around seducing lesbians to accept sexual values that were secretly contaminated with maleness. I think the political debates I’ve entered and won stand on their own merits, regardless of the gender of the speaker. At every phase of my life, I’ve been as honest as I could about who I was, what motivated me, and what I intended or wanted for the important people in my life.
    But feminism is no cure for transsexuality. In my late forties, I realized that I just couldn’t do it any more. Thanks to the gender-fuck ethos of BDSM, I had kept a portion of my maleness alive in sexual role-playing, but I was tired of being male only in the bedroom. I wanted an identity that was a better fit. And the conviction of my childhood about who I was kept haunting me. If anything, it got stronger, the older I became. The thought that I might die without ever knowing what it was like to live as a man broke my heart. For a long time, the limitations of medical technology held me back. I didn’t want to be a man with a body that was partly female. I loved women’s bodies, and I didn’t want to live in one any more. But I realized that if I was a woman, the fact that I couldn’t have a penis wouldn’t matter that much to me. It only mattered because my psyche was imprinted with the expectation that I have a male body.
    Coming out as gay in 1971 was a lot like coming out as trans in the twenty-first century. Being gay then was seen as a shameful mental illness and a loathsome sin. It was disgusting and ridiculous. People both hated you and laughed at you. It took a major effort of self-transformation for gay men and lesbians to see themselves as a politically oppressed minority that deserved better treatment. Gay pride was a long time coming, and we fought hard for every inch of self-esteem we won. I had no idea why I was gay. I was frightened to be gay. But the thought of being straight made me feel nauseous. I don’t know that I had a choice about becoming radicalized. It felt like basic self-defense at the time.
    Coming out as gay is no longer such a universal walk through fire. It’s still very difficult, but we have made a lot of