[nowandthen]

I am involved in these conversations in many places and in my own life. When I first heard the term MoC I too was "What center" but then I had more than one conversation in-person and on-line. I agree that for me it is not a umbrella term, but I do agree that it is a identity many I know use. I looked up the history of the term Butch and below is one example.

"Prior to the middle of the 20th century in Western culture, homosexual societies were mostly underground or secret, which makes it difficult to determine how long butch and femme roles have been practiced by women. Photographs exist of butch-femme couples in the decade of 1910–1920 in the United States; they were then called "transvestites""

All the terms we have come to know or use for ourselves come out of a medical industry supporting difference through bad science. They come from a White Eurocentric Heteronormative relationship to bodies and the need to gender and define those bodies and identities for markers to police.

One of the struggles that we all come back to is the lack of language and the attachment to what is already in the lexicon. We will never all come into agreement in my life time, but the power to name is fundamental to self, class and race always impact the relationship to power and naming. An example is the letters LGBT , I write them TBLG why, because the LGBT Power/Money players do not have any authority in my life. No one is in-charge, yet money and power seem to give folks the ability to say who and what community is and those of us outside of that fight for visibility. I am not pro-assimilation, I am a prison abolitionist, I am not a morning person, I am white, queer and masculine only because of the need for others comfort, because when I say masculine or butch it is and will never the same as someone else.

I was at the community meeting at the last BV, I participated because difference should not mean to discount, judge, or name others. This is hard and painful work for me and the communities I move in. I have an intimate relationship with the pain of being a body marked as Butch by lesbians and the larger world. What is painful is the knowledge that I was told more times than I can count that how I looked was not dyke, If I wanted a man I date a man, the 70's-90's brought us more clarity on the body, sex, and identity so yes the expansion of knowledge allows for change, I for one have a hard time with change, I know that those naming themselves MoC have no more legitimacy than those called butch to the process of naming others. So maybe the work is to name ourselves and give others the same right.