Butch/Butch Theory

[Dylan]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

hmn. dunno. I have a friend here for the past 7 years, she's a butch woman, drag king, ID's as a butch woman and dates a transqueer boy - he self ID's as an xxboy. They are different genders. but they still consider themselves a butch/butch couple (in the loosest of terms). They go to HardOn, sex club for gay men that include other queers and the times I've gone, it's been mostly maculine/masculine in terms of dyke/trans/genderqueer/men/cismen in there. So not the *same/homo* genders...

I was thinking about it further today. most of the couples who are masculine/masculine in my circle of friends aren't strictly butch/butch. It's trans/trans, butch/trans, trans/cisman, butch/cisman, butch/genderqueer. I don't think I know a butch/butch couple... I don't think I've met one since toronto (where I was also hugely ignored/dismissed for being feminine).

[eye ball roll self realisation] I obviously have a chip about this.[/eye ball roll self realisation]

right

So, even though there may be crosses of sex...genders are somewhat similar (if we're using gender loosely...say like masculine/masculine, feminine/feminine...just to make very ez examples. Obviously gender could be broken down more, but I'm trying to keep this hella ez).

So, you may have two same sex people (say, two female ID'd people), whose gender (butch on butch) match. They are homosexed, and also homogendered. But you may also have two differently sexed folks (male/female...again to keep it simple), whose genders are aligned (effeminate male with a non-masculine female). Heterosexed but homogendered. A transman and a female ID'd butch...could be heterosexed, but homogendered also (or heterosexed and heterogendered if the transman were feminine). (again, using gender very loosely as feminine and masculine just to keep things simple).

Either of these couples (as labete states) is going to make some people somewhat uncomfortable. While this discomfort could be lumped into some sort of 'homophobia', with the het couple, it's not a matter of homophobia (since they're straight). It's the effeminate gender of the male that makes folks uncomfortable. The same could be said for het butches.

I am probably not explaining myself well, but I can't post long right now...I'm at work, but wanted to see what folks had to say.


Dylan