"Butch" and "Femme" - Truly Antiquated Terms or More Marginalization?

[Isadora]

I was rather insulted. As a femme who grew up with these terms being referred to as "antiquated" just thrills me. It smacks of ageism to me. Although I understand and accept that a new generation may not resonate with these terms, to dismiss them as old and tired is disrespectful of those who have lived with these terms for most of our queer lives, well all of My queer life.

Now, if it was worded that we have added to our vocabulary rather then having a new generation of terms that dismiss a whole generation of elderish b/f's, I would have not felt so written off.

As a partner, for going on 22 years, who is a POC, I asked hym what terms hy resonates with and hy said, "I am butch. I do not use other words (stud, aggressive, etc.) because it is not my generation. Accepting new terms is a good thing but not at the expense of dismissing others."

It was also interesting to me that to me it was never a "label" it was an expression of my inner self, a part of who I was growing up as a young femme.

So, I know the discussion was around a video about butch/aggressive/stud id's, what are the new terms for femme? I did not see ONE discussion on this aspect of our descriptors. Or did I miss something (heh, I am an OLD femme, I miss a lot of things!)?

It is interesting to me that both we as elders (over 55) and those who are young (under 30) must deal with the ageism that is inherent in our culture...so the elder are antiquated for our language and the youngers dismissed for theirs...when in reality there is nothing that says we can't celebrate them all.


*looks around for a helping hand down off my soapbox*