 Tensions among FTM-identified and butch lesbian-identified people had been leading to politically charged disputes about the significance of masculinity. For some lesbians, FTMs represented a betrayal of womanhood and a desertion of lesbian community. For some FTMs, butch masculinity was a lesser and perhaps “artificial” manifestation of masculinity in contrast to the masculinity exemplified by FTMs. Such competing ways of understanding masculinity led to what have sometimes been called “Butch/FTM border wars” (Halberstam and Hale, 1998).