Perhaps the most painful example was the , a landmark lesbian feminist event that for decades banned trans women, enforcing a "womyn-born-womyn" policy. This sent a devastating message to trans lesbians: You are not woman enough for our culture.

This divergence creates the "border" of the culture. Within LGBTQ spaces, a cisgender gay man and a transgender man share the experience of being queer, but their medical, legal, and social needs differ wildly. The gay man fights for marriage equality; the trans man fights for access to hormone therapy and updated identification documents. For much of the 1970s and 80s, the relationship was rocky. As the gay rights movement gained mainstream traction, some cisgender gay activists viewed the transgender community as "too radical." They worried that drag queens and trans people would make homosexuality look "deviant" to straight people. This led to the infamous "respectability politics" era, where some gay organizations actively tried to drop the "T."

In the mid-20th century, society did not distinguish between a gay man in drag, a transvestite, or a transsexual (a dated term for transgender). All were lumped together as "gender deviants." Police raided bars where gay men loved other men, lesbians dressed in pants, and trans women lived openly. Because of this shared oppression—the criminalization of both sexuality and gender expression—a political alliance was not just convenient; it was necessary for survival.