Yes- very confusing!


I had a little bit of what you describe when I lived as a teen in a "mountain town"- Yet, felt like you did. I was not the same kind of butch as these other women due to my sexuality, not my gender presentation.

This is just not a simple subject area. Sometimes I wonder why we think it can be wrapped-up into a one size fits all paradigm. Both gender & sexuality are elastic and fluid to me and defy simplicity.

hmmm i guess what bothers me most about the cis terms is their usage. I don't have problems with anyone's personal ID's. In fact, i think the cis terms can be quite helpful in explaining an individual's experience with gender when used as a self-ID. I disagree with the use of cis(anything) as a blanket term for those who do not ID as trans. Cis implies a knowledge of someone's self identity and we cannot know this just by looking (which is how this labeling usually happens). The other terms don't imply anything about how one views their own body or gender. Personally though, i use non trans(sexed or gender). I think that I see things this way because neither cis or trans fits for me.

I am not sure how you can separate the two questions out. Our internal sense of self is still influenced by the culture and society we grow up in. We learn what it means to become female and woman by growing up and what we are being taught. I also do agree with Toughy that it can vary depending on where you grow up and also your family and other factors in terms of how your understanding develops in terms of what it means to be a woman, female etc.

When I was a child I wanted to be a boy. I had crushes on little girls and liked boys things way more than girls. I remember when my little girl friends would invite me over to play barbies and I would be bored to tears. I would rather be outside playing sports, riding my bike, reading a book, anything but play with dolls. I hated wearing dresses. I don't remember wanting to have a male body necessarily, but I did want to be a boy. I was a tomboy and this worked pretty well for me until adolescence. Then when I was in my teens I discovered what a lesbian was and it clicked for me and I didn't want to be a boy anymore.

My sense of my female body is much different than what I have been taught. I do feel my butch cock is an extension of myself and my ideal chest would not involve breasts. So I have made adjustments in my mind to align myself. Perhaps I will some day have chest surgery or perhaps not. I do not pack most of the time. I don't need to. My butch cock is there whether I am wearing it or not.

i think this thread is a great idea...

it'll be interesting to see how ppl respond, if they can get past the poll! ;-)

i am femme and id as cisgender, i use because i see it has helping to make the invisible privileges i was born into visible, not just to other cisgendered folks, but to myself as well. i see it as a way also to challenge the idea that the dominant culture's expectations of gender expression is what is "normal" and anything outside that box is "deviant" or "other". to adapt the old hetero quote: cisgender expression isn't normal, it's just common.

I totally agree! Transsexual/transgendered was not a label that was originally introduced by the people whom it was intended to label; it was a label assigned to people by the dominant culture who had the ability to force a label onto a group of people. I think that the only reason this is a debate right now is b/c cis attempts to label non-trans folks in a way that doesn't set us up as the norm, and the discomfort comes from it not feeling like the "normal" id. i needed a lot of dialogue around it before i felt like i understood and was comfortable using it, privilege can easily be discounted by those who have it.

Absolutely!

admitting ignorance
 

That probably comes being active during the Second Wave as the movement questioned the binary. This kicked in severly as the Gay Rights movement began as a related offshoot. And that could be why and how feminism was rejected by middle and upper middle-class (mainly, white) women that did fall within the range of what was considered "normal" for women- wife & mother. Tragic, really. But, what I am stating here is my personal feelings really having been an activist during that time. Heart will have to address this.

When I look back, I may not have had the terminology, but in the midst of questioning my sexuality, I questioned my gender. I never felt that I was male, but I sure knew I wasn't "of the norm" as a woman and a female and that heterosexuality (then, bi-sexuality) just wasn't who I was. Even in the kind of culture I was living in early on (the "mountain town"). For me, sexuality and gender identity was intermingled for a very long time.

Consequently, cis-gendered or cis-sexed doesn't work for me as an individual. However, I can see where it does for many people. Something else that has never fit is putting down women that do fit into the binary. It seems like not just a few femmes have been subjected to down right cruelty due to that kind of thinking because they may "appear" to fit the stereotype of the binary feminine or woman/female.

All in all- Queer seems to be the best fitting term for what I feel internally and about myself externally. But, I see the cis-gender/sexed theories can have a positive impact on society. We just have to get out of the confines of the binary system as it has stood for so long. Mainly, I want for all of us to be accepted as we are.

"Aligned"?!?! ....I guess that leaves me out of the cissexual panoply, then. As a lesbian butch I've never been "aligned" with any standard or norm.

"Unmarked norm"? ....Who's norm? Heterosexuals? Transgendered people? Transsexuals? Gay men? Femmes? Butches? Gender theorists? Feminists? Christionists? Taoists? Dalmatians?

"Against"? As in by way of a comparison?

I'm not sure how it's possible to compare lesbian butches with trans/gendered people. They are different identities - not the opposite of one another. You can compare apples with apples, but not bananas.

Sullivan and Murray's characterization leaves me cold. Lesbian butch is not a "norm" by any criteria I'm aware of, nor does it confer any real or imagined privilege.

Cisgender privilege is a misnomer. Conformity isn't a privilege - it's it's a self-abrogating concession.

i can see your point. conformity can definitely be giving up your authenticity, and power.
i disagree that it is always that and i believe that there are some benefits to be had as well by those who conform. i do what feels right to me. does that mean i follow all of the norms or that i'm a virgin/whore wrapped up in a pretty package for your pleasure?? ...hells no. do i identify myself as aligned with the body i was born into? yes. does that give me certain rights? i would argue that yah, it does, unless you are living completely outside of society (in which case that's a whole other story). but because my sex aligns with the way i see myself, and the way that society views me i get to do things like get a job, i don't have to try to pass for someone i am not in order to feel or be safe, i don't have to explain my sex/gender to people, i can get a driver license/passport that id's me the way i want to be id'd (without any hassle or red tape), i get to use a bathroom without fear of having security called or getting beat up. basic stuff. things that should not be denied any group of people, but are. that's all i'm sayin.

The problem with conformity is, we don't always know we're doing it, and/or we call it by the wrong name, unintentionally or by design.

Even "being alternative", "gender queer", "fringe", "going G", yada, yada, can be a form of conformity. The conformity within my biker community comes to mind. (Accountants during the work week; Hell's Angeles on the weekend.)


Of course conformity has a pay-off, otherwise why do it? However, conformity always comes at a price, too.


Well, you can argue anything, if you've a mind to. :)

Being aligned with the body you're born into isn't a "privilege". "Privilege" is a social construct - an arbitrary, subjective reality based on social norms and convention. You either buy into a given social construct (any construct), or you don't.

Butches do not have gender "privilege". They do not conform to the gender consructs of this culture be they female identified butches or not.

And btw, the opposite of "privileged" isn't deprivileged - it's unprivileged. Few women in this culture are "privileged". The LGBTQs should take care not to reinforce dominant culture myths that work against, or divide us.

Deprivileged = the loss of social privilege; to lose an advantage
Unprivileged = never being socially advantaged in the first place. (Butches and most women.)

PS: Foot binding was considered a gender norm among the "privileged" class in China not so long ago. Genital mutilation is still a norm in certain cultures. These practices are seen as making a woman more attractive and desirable. I suppose they advantage women who align with these practices. But, I'm loath to say they confer "privilege".

I certainly see your points- yet, as a woman, you (and I as a butch woman) are more likely in this society to be sexually or phyically and emotionally assualted. Statistics demonstrate this. Just as there are higher rates of abuse and violence against transwomen within the tran population. So, being recognized as female, no matter the internal beliefs (or external presentation as observed by a potential abuser) of an individual continues (unfortunately) to be more dangerous across the board.

Add race, ethnicity and class to the mix and rates of abuse and violence against women (or those perceived as women) increase further.

Yes, AtLastHome. No category of human being is more mistreated than females.

And, as you say: "race, ethnicity and class" statistically increases the likelihood of exploitation, abuse and violence.

i'm feelin a lil snarky tonight, just outta finals! woo hoo! :seeingstars::blink::cheesy:

Something that is going through my mind about the concept/construct of comformity and gender variation or fluidity has to do with when a couple a trans partner (or both could be) takes on heteronormative conformity by emulating being "straight."

These thoughts came to me while watching the Chaz Bono doc- when they said- "We are straight, now." First of all, not every couple with trans participants/partner(s) adopts being straight as it is commonly defined.

Perhaps that is the problem- definitions that are static and have no elasticity? Or maybe, the hetero-normative construct continues to be so instilled in society and so potent, we just can't shake it.

OK, I do not have any issues with anyone adopting a straight couple persona if that is what they want. I do, however, wish that this was not a conclusion jumped to- within or outside of the couplehood.

I hope I am posing this clearly... Mainly, I think we often fall prey to constructs of social conformity that are just plain false.

Makes sense to me and one reason I wish people didn't have hetero-normative labels bestowed upon them. Or, assumptions.