[Kobi]

Originally Posted by IslandScout

Kobi, That whole long post was really impactful I thought, but I excerpted this one little part because it is a more tactful way of saying what I said in my last post—substituting of course, the "who needs to entertain taking my name" with "who needs me to take their name."

And that brings up a point: Why did I assume that role of being the name-taker, not the name-giver, in my post? You likewise, assumed the opposite.

For me I think it's like that joke where you guess the wrong person at the end because subconsciously you can't equate "doctor" with "woman." (I think that joke is universal enough that a lot of people might have heard it at one time or another; I apologize if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

What I'm saying is, apparently I have internalized more assumptions about what it means to be feminine than I realized.

Scout

Scout, I am not sure I am following you. Or maybe I wasn't as clear as I thought.

For me it isn't just about femme's taking butches names. I have the same issue if butches wanted to take a femmes name or making a hyphened name, or making up a whole new name.

It is what the action symbolizes to the partners and to the society as a whole.