[Darth Denkay]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Wicket, there are some butches who feel their gender is Butch, without other qualifiers or other genders in addition to. Butch is generally understood to be masculine female. So I am wondering why your gender wouldn't just be Butch as a stand alone gender if other terms don't really resonate with you? I am just curious is all.

You're right Bulldog, many folks around here use Butch as their sole gender identifier. The reason I am really exploring other labels is that, in my opinion, butch as a gender is only useful within the butch-femme community. In thinking about being a part of the broader general public, although most folks still won't get it, third gender would be easier to understand. It's less specific, granted. But I think they could wrap their heads around it better. The other reason is that I am hesitant, especially in the general public, to think that adding gender categories is helpful. Seems like a huge to me. We add butch and femme to the gender categories, others who don't feel as though they quite fit into the now four-gender system come up with their own, and we end up with a never-ending list of gender categories. Instead, why not simply present ourselves as not male or female, simply in an attempt to challenge the accepted gender binary. That seems to me a potentially more effective goal.

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

You bet!

I have been thinking about the fact that I (and it seems like quite a few others) do take some license when applying different gender theories to myself. I don't really know how this plays out in terms of those who are really experts in the field. There are certainly a whole lot of folks much more well-read, up to date and have a very breadth of knowledge in this area compared to me right here on the site (and the other sites for the B-F community. Some are even majoring in college in Gender Studies, etc. I know that when I am pondering gender identification it really helps me to ask folks I know that have more knowledge and can give me info on the literature.

Ah, so the academics are the experts in gender theory? I'm still in graduate school and have done a large amount of reading and some research around gender theory, especially butch-femme. I don't think that I can completely understand any one person's experience of gender. I can better articulate mine, but no one can box me into a specific gender theory. We are all the experts of our own gendered experience.