Sure! You can. I don't think BBP was creating an umbrella term for the masses. I don't really know. It is a term that was useful for the work that they are doing. I don't speak for BBP or Cole. I am just trying to communicate what I have seen, heard and learned. Obviously I am not great at parsing things in an academic way. When people dismiss the term it makes me feel sad. It is an emotional response. You don't have to agree or even understand it.

Martina, your post gives me something more to think about. I do identitfy as masculine it is my ID. For me, I do not see masculinity as male or female.

I did not think I was giving masculinity a place of regard in the conventional sense. Perhaps I have been. I need to think about it. I grew up surrounded by very strong women that could be defined as masculine and their strength was not a negative.

I have learned quite a a bit here in the forumns through the years. Thanks to you and others.

i find the fact that bbp puts issues of masculinity at the forefront of their work to be really awesome because i have lived in communities of color that are in crisis because of the intersection of gendered violence and colonialism. i think that's why the term - and their discussions of masculinity and femininity - resonate with me so much. i think their work and the discussions they spark by attempting to re-envision masculinity is very very necessary. (i also have no argument against being grouped under the umbrella term "feminine of center," although i don't find it unproblematic by any means.) i definitely agree that we need to have more discussions about how not to turn around and recreate masculine spaces that are misogynist. and maybe this isn't the right umbrella term. (fuck all the umbrella terms! except, you know, let's find each other so we can work in solidarity. but seriously, fuck all the umbrella terms.)

No! The racial tension came from the objection to the term MoC! This is my experience of being there. BV did include all the voices by trying to use MoC as an umbrella term. Or at least that is what they thought they were doing. It ended up alienating butch women.

I won't say that all who objected to it were/ are racist. There was a lot of unexamined white privilege that was part of that discussion. And ageism.

See and that was the whole point. To many young MoC butch does NOT include them. That is why BV tried to add in MoC to include those for whom Butch does not resonate or feel good.

Yes I hear you and understand how you feel. There were many other butch women who felt the same way. All I can tell you is that in the rejection of the term there was unexamined white privilege and ageism. The conversations were extremely heated and emotional. What *I* learned was that for many people of color they did NOT feel comfortable in white butch spaces. They did not feel heard. Butch Voices was trying to include those voices.

I am a white femme. I do not pretend to know what people of color go through. During the weekend I listened and heard that many people felt that butch was a white identity and it did not speak to them. MoC did. It included their particular cultural identities of stud, aggressive, macha, dom etc.

I'm exhausted, my head is spinning
 

I cannot begin tell everyone how much I appreciate the opinons, the facts, the beliefs, the politics and even the bias of this subject.

My challenge is to recognize the culture (my predispostion to white butch culture?) that inadvertantly establishes a bias. I also want to reflect and address who and where I am within that. I guess most notably any unintentional fallout from my staunchly defending my Butch id which then may be percieved as exclusionary... It was in my "blind spot" and I was unaware that in my unabashed support of Butch, I may have set up a predispostion to exclusion. Who knew ?

My head is really spinning over this...
good night -

Although I do not want to use MOC for myself, I did understand how they believed that Butch was a white identity. I guess because I am old enough to remember when white lesbians shunned using Butch as an identity, and there were POC Butches. Today there are many White Female Identified Butches. I am not saying that is a bad thing.

I think for me what is the hardest and most painful part is to know that my good heart and intention along with my marginalization as a queer is a white experience which is not an easy thing to see, name and work on. When we as white folks talk about race most often we are looking out instead of in and locating ourselves in the system. Being a white queer masculine person has its benefits even when if I am called sir 9 out of ten times and I know I am not. I am not racially profiled everywhere I go, in fact when I am assumed male I am often asked for my thoughts on subjects I know nothing about. In my last relationship, I was assumed to have the college education as well as my family with only one parent who had a HS diploma and my girlfriend is a lawyer and her parents went to college but she is a WOC. My point is part of keeping things the same is the use of white guilt as a tool of policing the system. So as much as I want to think my experience is the same as other butch's or MoC or any other label the one thing I can not escape is that of being white and that come with unearned privilege. So I keep pushing, unlearning and healing, and that which is giving light grows

I do not id as being masucline at all. The world's stereotyping put's that crap on my ass imo. I am a lesbian that loves being a woman and loves loving a woman. I refuse to accept the stereotypical lables of what a woman should wear, carry or act. I'm am highly offended when anyone attempts to deam what I have the right to think about myself and think they have the right to determine how I define to ID myself.

I hope Jack will come in here and discuss her experience with the BV conference. She was on the very first "steering" committee for all of 30 days. She chose to leave when it became clear to her that the Aging Female "Butch" in "Butch Voices" was going to take a back seat.

That's her story to tell and I hope she tells it.

One thing I will say is that I was really glad to see that there was a push to welcome and embrace young masculinities of color, experiences of different abilities, and folks with non-traditional masculine experiences. It was time for it.

Something that happened for me when I was on the original steering committee for the Femme Collective is that my world of "what I didn't know" was expanded. And it hurt like hell sometimes. And this is where I tell you I fought pretty hard to police "Femme" from Men. Was that my privilege talking or my fear? Was that my indignant belief that Femme was Queer and Female? At the time, I had to let some of my shit go. Some of that shit that I had fought really hard to claim, because, in the end, the most important thing for me was that I was recognized for who I was and that all of my sisters were recognized for who they were.

I don't know what the point of this was, but there it is.

Concerning the center............How about the center is androgynous-an equal mix of masculinity and femininity? MoC simply would be the masculine side of androgyny. Femme of Center would be the feminine side. There is no male or female sex involved. It's about the energy. *shrug*

White butch women, including me, got a bit bent (to say the least) about the MoC thing. So much so that it caused a split within the BV Conference leadership and community and it got messy and there were a couple of three issues besides MoC. Nobody was listening to anybody. BV leadership includes many PoC and it's not easy on white folk when PoC are in charge. Change is hard.

I went to the Conference and was invited to sit on the InterGenerational Panel. It was an amazing experience. I am still jaw dropped amazed at those kids.....

I went with an open heart and mind to try to understand what was going on. I came away from it with a better understanding of the dynamics.

I do think the language could be tweaked, but I am not involved with BV so I made my suggestion and they can do what they want. No skin off my back.

I still don't claim masculine of center as identity.....I'm a butch woman....but it certainly fits as a description of how I present.

bookmarking to read later

It's pretty clear to those who claim it..........<grin> .......and if you don't get stuck on the phrase 'MoC' it's pretty damned inclusive and clear to me. And I met the folks who coined the phrase and they are mostly female/woman id'd folks and not afraid to say so.

Us old farts have to remember we are old and the kids speak a language that is hard for us to get..........<grin>