The "Penis Police": Lesbian and Feminist Spaces, Trans Women, and the Maintenance of the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System

I provide a textual analysis to show how lesbians determine gender in sexualized spaces. As members work toward recognition, agentic embodiment, and the safeguarding of lesbian spaces, how do members differently determine gender for insiders and outsiders in order to preserve a particular kind of feminism? I show how public narratives of gender, essentialism, and heterosexuality circulate in some lesbian spaces as members use the "penis police" to maintain exclusionary feminism. I expand upon the concept of determining gender to move beyond questions about how gender is socially recognized to an analysis of how gender attribution challenges/maintains the sex/gender/sexuality system.