[BullDog]

Metro and Beau, what both of you say does make a great deal of sense. I would like to just be Plain Ole Butch, but when butches who do consider themselves to be female and women don't speak up, the stereotypes and assumptions continue.

I also agree with Metro. I don't id as female, I am female. Woman identified butch? What is that. I am female and woman, and yes when we have to use it so we are not mistaken as being male identified it seems to come off as a qualifier for butch which does seem ass backwards to me. Most butches have female bodies, most butches live their lives as females, why are we using female as a qualifier for butch? Why are all the online defaults for butches male when most butches don't identify that way?

I don't think female identified butch is the flip side to male identified butch. I find female identified butch and woman identified butch to be rather meaningless terms, and I agree with Metro that they seem to work against us. I am not sure I see it as identity politics though. Most butches don't consider themselves to be male and don't wished to thought of as such. We have to speak up to make this known.

Female and woman are already part of butch. It's redundant to say female or woman. For those who that doesn't apply to, I think it's up to them to specify what their meaning of butch is if that's important to them. "Female identified butch" came about as a reaction to male identified butch, not as something meaningful in and of itself.

Online there's a lot of double speak. People will say that yes they believe butch women are just as butch as anyone else, just as masculine as anyone else, and then totally contradict themselves five minutes later with some other statement. It happens quite often. People of all gender identities do it.

It's sexism. It's the failure to truly conceive that women can fully embrace masculinity as butches and live our lives without apology or reservation for who we are. We are butch. Being a woman and female does not take away from butch, it does not take away from our masculinity.