[Bit]

I was curious, so I went back and re-read Kayden's opening post. When he says:

Originally Posted by Darth Denkay

. So how do we describe our identity? What is it based on? Concepts of masculinity but NOT stereotypes? Aren't concepts of masculinity stereotypes themselves?

I interpret that to mean he is looking not for a discussion about any one individual's personal identity, but a discussion about the ideas of "butch" and "masculine" and how they get expressed in our community without triggering common stereotypes. I read his question as asking if that's possible, or if the ideas of masculinity are already stereotypes; and it seems to me that he is asking not about any one individual's personal identity, but about general categories of identity--masculine, in particular.

I get it that sometimes people feel like they're being put on the spot in gender and identity discussions, and I understand that it gets old feeling like a person has to "defend" themselves... but I think that feeling usually happens because of misunderstandings. We don't all read other people's posts in the same way; sometimes something that seems crystal clear to someone is not actually what the poster meant.

Sometimes we struggle pretty hard to find the words to say what we mean--and I know I fail pretty often at that! It's especially hard when it's ideas I've never put into words before.

Sometimes we have such different experiences in life that what someone else posts just plain flat makes no sense to another person, and that's happened to me, too, not just as the person who doesn't understand but also as the person who is not understood.

These are the difficulties of having these kinds of conversations online.

Every difficulty, though, has a benefit. The benefit of this struggle to say what we mean in a way that others can understand--and get what we truly meant, in the way we meant it--especially when we're trying to talk about things we've never had the words for before, is that we all have a chance to see gender identities (again, not individual people's gender identities, but "gender identities" as a category) in new or expanded ways.

I would not be the person I am today if I hadn't had the benefit of this kind of discussion several times over the years. Reading what others had to say and then figuring out if it fit my life or not brought me peace with my own identity and helped me to feel like I was part of a real community.

To answer Kayden's question about masculinity and stereotypes, I think our current b-f community ideas about masculinity are partly based on stereotypes, and I think that's unavoidable. Just saying the word "masculine" brings up instant stereotypical images. It's supposed to; that's what words do. It's like an icon that we click in our brains to open a program, yanno? It's supposed to do that.

The value I find in conversations like this is that we can go beyond those images; the icon may open the program Masculinity 1.0, but our conversations can update it to Masculinity 1.2, or 2.6, 3.0... who knows how far we can update the program if we're willing to keep talking? And so even though it's a struggle to find words that others will understand, and even though after all these years I still cannot articulate completely what "masculine" or "butch" might be even when I do have the words, and even though I know I will more than likely fail again each time I try, I still believe the conversation is valuable to our community.

Edited to add--here's a video that I really liked, called "Tomboy." It's about a 9 year old girl who runs into gender stereotypes at school. http://vimeo.com/10654889