Men with boobs.

[BullDog]

I wonder what the reaction would be if a public figure described their femme partner as basically a short/tall woman with boobs? How about a trans guy? Somehow it's ok to reduce butches to short men with boobs?

[betenoire]

I think it's icky to behave as though she said that "All Butches are basically short men with boobs! BOOOOOOOOOOBS! MENNNNN! BOOOOOOBS!"

And for the record - none of us know how this person self-identifies. There's nothing to indicate that Nixon's lovah identifies as a Butch. Nixon referred to her "butchness" but that's not the same thing - I'm sure we all know that. Plus, further on in the article Nixon did reject the notion that they were in a Butch+Femme relationship.

I bet you'll all be real upset to hear that I tend to refer to my spouse as "the short hair" and myself as "the long hair". OMG I have oppressed us all!

[Heart]

I find it interesting that in this instance, many are so willing to shrug and say, "well, who knows? Maybe that's how she identifies, that's all that matters, etc." Why is that all that matters? That is NOT something we would say if the comment was in reference to someone's ethnicity or ability, for example. You wouldn't refer to someone as a "crip," or "white trash" even if they refer to themselves that way. The exact point I am making here is that we tolerate comments like this about women, shrug them off, make it a personal thing, instead of having a community standard that says it's not okay to refer to butches as "men with boobs."

[Random]

Originally Posted by BullDog

I wonder what the reaction would be if a public figure described their femme partner as basically a short/tall woman with boobs? How about a trans guy? Somehow it's ok to reduce butches to short men with boobs?

and it's ok to say that butches who FEEL like short men with boobs have to be something else?

Again.. not everything fits everyone...

[Bad_boi]

I think she was kidding.

I have jokingly referred to myself as a guy with boobs. Lets face it, butches are just like men in many ways. Its kind of like saying she is a guy and a girl rolled into one.

[MissItalianDiva]

Here is a prime example of what irritates me. We as LGBT and others...label ourselves and put ourselves in boxes of some sort all the time but the moment someone uses a label that they don't deem appropriate a finger is always pointed.

If she wants to call her butch a short man than boobs then so be it. Like others have stated perhaps this is how the butch identifies. So the real question....so lets assume for a moment this is how this particular butch/woman identifies, does that make it wrong? Why, because it isn't in our usual boxes of labels hmmm.

I think sometimes we can get a little carried away with the whole feminist movement issues. I am willing to bet money that when she called her butch a short man with boobs it didn't cause any damage to the progressive movement

[turasultana]

The full advocate article puts the comment in a little more context. They were saying how folks would see Christine as very different than the women they are used to seeing "miranda" with (carrie, samantha...). And Cynthia Nixon laughs and makes the short man w/ boobs comment.

Not saying right or wrong, but in context I think she was more saying how Christine might look from the outside if sitting at a table of Sex and the City characters.

[apretty]

Originally Posted by Heart

We live in a world where what it means to be a woman is so restricted and devalued and female masculinity is so under-represented, that a woman as sophisticated as Cynthia Nixon publicly calls her butch lover "a short man with boobs." Ugh.

thanks, nixon's comment totally felt dismissive and shitty, to me.

(and if i'd have said that about anyone i've dated, i'd have found myself very SINGLE, after.)

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Heart

We live in a world where what it means to be a woman is so restricted and devalued and female masculinity is so under-represented, that a woman as sophisticated as Cynthia Nixon publicly calls her butch lover "a short man with boobs." Ugh.

Personally, this is offensive to me. I am tired of having to defend the fact that I love my breasts! And they are an integral, important part of my butch body. As I have stated before, if faced with breast cancer and needing mastectomies, I would do everything to assure that I could have reconstruction afterwards. And it would be very sad for me to lose the erotic sensations my breasts give me sexually. They represent to me the essence of being a masculine woman with all of female and male combinations I possess along with my vagina. Both are essential erogenous zones for me. Both define a part of my whole. I will not hide either.

Butches differ concerning their breasts. I support all butches personal feelings about their breasts. However, I want the same respect for my feelings in return and am sick of this devaluation of female-masculinity as a butch. As sick of it as I was when as a heterosexual woman, my breasts were viewed as nothing more than play things for men that they fixated on.

LOL.... have to say that I love the very different manner in which a femme lover views my breasts. It is not even close to what I experienced as a heterosexual.

I am not a taller man with boobs! I am a woman that celebrates my meshing of male and female physical features and appreciates those that find me desirable just as I am. I do not fit into the traditional gender binary and refuse to default to male. Many do and that is their prerogative and I will always support their doing so. But, please, do not put me in the same category as it is disrespectful to me as well as to those that are trans and we all have struggles in this binary fixated world!

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Heart

We live in a world where what it means to be a woman is so restricted and devalued and female masculinity is so under-represented, that a woman as sophisticated as Cynthia Nixon publicly calls her butch lover "a short man with boobs." Ugh.

Just a little re-focusing.....

[Darth Denkay]

So many excellent points made in this thread, but this one especially stuck out to me.

Originally Posted by gayla

We're linear people living in a linear world. We grow, chronologically, along a linear scale - 15 is "less than" 20 when talking about age - so it's easy for me to see how some people can view what they used to be as being "less than" what they are now. Especially when what they used to be was something they didn't like or weren't comfortable with. That process of evolution from "just me" to "butch" to "stone butch" to "TG butch", etc. is very linear for most people so "just me" becomes less than "TG butch" for them. I think the issues come in when people can't see that the process is an individual one and not everyone evolves at the same rate or even to the same place.

I've spent a lot of time in the last 8 year's trying to define my own identity. Really, truly, in my heart of heart's I probably fall more into the "just me" category because I do see my gender as a fluid, ever changing kind of thing. I fall more to the male ID'd side of things, and it's where I'm most comfortable on a public level, but there's so much more to me then just that.

I think that Gayla identified a key aspect of what occurs on this and other similar sites. I've been involved in the b-f online community for about 12 years now. When I first joined, the default clearly was he. This felt comfortable to me so I never gave it a second thought. Over the years my identity "evolved". I went from butch to trans-butch-masculine-stone-daddy, and I imagine there were a few other identifiers I used at some point. I saw myself "evolving," as though butch was just the starting point for something bigger and better. At some point I dropped stone and daddy - figured those identities are really just applicable to someone I'm dating and/or sleeping with so they really were no one's business. I continued to play around with trans, butch, masculine-identified, male-identified, and at this point I have "evolved" to identifying as butch. Without being conscious of it, I was completely buying into a butch hierarchy. Recently someone - I think it was Bully but not certain - challenged me on my identity as masculine-identified. Since then I've been really thinking about all of this butch gender stuff, and realized that for me butch is plenty.

I think the use of the word "evolve" is key here. There seems to be an unspoken understanding that a butch should 'evolve' into something...more specific. And that ideally that "evolution" should include moving towards a more masculine identity, because that is better than just butch. I looked up evolution, and while I know some of you loathe definitions in posts I think this is important.

By way of dictionary.com


e·volve
   e·volved, e·volv·ing.
–verb (used with object)
1.
to develop gradually: to evolve a scheme.
2.
to give off or emit, as odors or vapors.
–verb (used without object)
3.
to come forth gradually into being; develop; undergo evolution: The whole idea evolved from a casual remark.
4.
Biology . to develop by a process of evolution to a different adaptive state or condition: The human species evolved from an ancestor that was probably arboreal.

My inclusion of the definition is to point out that I think often the word "evolve" is assumed to mean 'changed into something better', when all it really signifies is change into something else. I think a lot of this is due to how we envision the evolution of the species as going from less complex to more complex, with more complex being better than less complex. I think an amoeba might disagree there, although it probably doesn't give a damn because it has more important amoeba things to do. Anyway, it's one thing for identities to change, but it's another for the change to be seen as a progression from less to more.

As I've considered my own identifiers, I realized something. I was identifying as masculine, because I saw myself as masculine more than feminine but not male, as I understand that to be (in my mind) more closely tied to man. However, don't most butches identity as masculine? Saying that I am masculine doesn't give any information that distinguishes me from female or male identified folks. I tried to figure out, okay self, are you more like female or male identified, and I have absolutely no idea. I like male pronouns because they recognize my masculinity. For me that feels good. For other butches, who may feel just as masculine, female pronouns feel right. Is our masculinity any different - who the hell knows. So after years of "evolution" here I am back to being butch. A butch who prefers male pronouns, but nonetheless butch.

I realize that pronouns carry differing amounts of importance for different people. It is important to me that people respect my preference here. I don't mean to suggest that additional identifiers are useless for others, but to describe myself they don't offer additional information. I don't know of any way to quantify the difference between a female-identified butch and a male-identified butch. What's the difference between a butch who identifies as a woman and one who does not. There are qualitative differences to be sure, but I don't know where to start with defining those.

All of this is to say that I think we often are stuck on this "evolution" of butch (with no similar evolution for femme) and do place value on undergoing this evolution. In the end, change identities because they better describe you, but not because you're supposed to. Evolution does not lead to better, only different.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Darth Denkay

.... There seems to be an unspoken understanding that a butch should 'evolve' into something...more specific. And that ideally that "evolution" should include moving towards a more masculine identity, because that is better than just butch....


[/FONT]

Hey, there, Darth.

First I want to say that I loved your post. LOVED it.

But, I chopped the heck out of it...lol I took just one snipet of it, but I think that this is not taken out of context from the whole post. If so, please let me know.

Anyway, with that said....

I absolutely disagree with you. lol I strongly disagree with the idea that there is an unspoken understanding that butch should evolve into something specific and that ideally it should be a more masculine identity.

Absolutely disagree.

Now I have seen some butches who seem to not understand their own feelings of masculinity and subsequently they wonder if this means they are FTM (I am thinking I see this most often with people who just figure out that they are butch/find community for the first time), but I disagree that there is some expectation that a butch will evolve into a "more masculine identity", than "just butch" when they walk in the door.

But, that's just my opinion.

ETA: This is not the same as saying that there has not been an encouargement towards using the pronoun he in the community. That is a different issue, in my mind.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Hey, there, Darth.

First I want to say that I loved your post. LOVED it.

But, I chopped the heck out of it...lol I took just one snipet of it, but I think that this is not taken out of context from the whole post. If so, please let me know.

Anyway, with that said....

I absolutely disagree with you. lol I strongly disagree with the idea that there is an unspoken understanding that butch should evolve into something specific and that ideally it should be a more masculine identity.

Absolutely disagree.



Now I have seen some butches who seem to not understand their own feelings of masculinity and subsequently they wonder if this means they are FTM (I am thinking I see this most often with people who just figure out that they are butch/find community for the first time), but I disagree that there is some expectation that a butch will evolve into a "more masculine identity", than "just butch" when they walk in the door.

But, that's just my opinion.

ETA: This is not the same as saying that there has not been an encouargement towards using the pronoun he in the community. That is a different issue, in my mind.

Hi Dapper-


I have to say that I have felt what Darth brought up (the expectation that a butch will evolve into a "more masculine identity") in our community. However, it is really important to take this apart and look inside at what is going on and consider one's own insecurities or just unfinished evolvement. Or maybe even personal experiences. Usually, when I do this, I find that so much of what is going on is about me figuring me out. This is where the whole blame-game stuff can get way out of hand.

When it comes down to it, no one can make me into something I don't want to be or do not experience as incongruent.

I wonder, though, if there exists an age variable here. I know that when I was in my teens, 20's and even part of my 30's, social/peer pressure did influence me. Just thinking this over... wanting to be accepted by others we perceive as an ideal or having desired characteristics can be a powerful force.

Yes, the pronoun stuff is another issue.


No, I am not insinuating a thing about butches that transition who are not FtM's or Inter-gendered. I think there is a whole lot of bio-physiological gender explanations (including chromosomal links) that explain this. But, as much as we try, the traditional gender binary keeps poking its ugly head out. And it hurts us all… butches and femmes… the whole damn world of gender designations!

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

Hi Dapper-


I have to say that I have felt what Darth brought up (the expectation that a butch will evolve into a "more masculine identity") in our community. However, it is really important to take this apart and look inside at what is going on and consider one's own insecurities or just unfinished evolvement. Or maybe even personal experiences. Usually, when I do this, I find that so much of what is going on is about me figuring me out. This is where the whole blame-game stuff can get way out of hand.
When it comes down to it, no one can make me into something I don't want to be or do not experience as incongruent.

I wonder, though, if there exists an age variable here. I know that when I was in my teens, 20's and even part of my 30's, social/peer pressure did influence me. Just thinking this over... wanting to be accepted by others we perceive as an ideal or having desired characteristics can be a powerful force.
Yes, the pronoun stuff is another issue.


No, I am not insinuating a thing about butches that transition who are not FtM's or Inter-gendered. I think there is a whole lot of bio-physiological gender explanations (including chromosomal links) that explain this. But, as much as we try, the traditional gender binary keeps poking its ugly head out. And it hurts us all… butches and femmes… the whole damn world of gender designations!

Yes, the first statement is similar to where I was going in my post (one's own self awareness), and your second point I wanted to say also, but couldn't figure out a way to say it well.

Just as I was teasing out the pronoun issue, I also want to tease out the fact that in my posts I am not speaking to the belief often presented that male is valued over female in our community (subsequently, male id butch possibly being valued over female id butch).

Thanks.

[Dylan]

I just asked Mahhh Woman if she considers her pronoun a 'preference'...she said, "No. It's just my pronoun"

Seems logical enough. I'll bet if I asked my mother if she thought her pronoun was a 'preference', she'd probably wonder what the hell I was smoking.

I don't get why for butches, pronouns are considered a 'preference'. I mean, I have a preference for things like brands of coffee, cigarettes, candy bars, things like that.

Preference kind of implies a particular liking for something, but not necessarily a necessity. I mean, if the store is out Reese Peanut Butter cups, I might set my sights on...mmmmmm maybe a Twix Bar. 'Preference' implies if I don't get my way, there's other 'choices'.

I don't find my mother's pronoun a 'choice' or a 'preference'. It's just an IS. She's a she. No questions. No hard work. No one screws it up. No one has to write it down and make a big list.

And yet for butches, in a queer community, a pronoun is a 'preference'. It's WORK for QUEERS in a QUEER community to remember a pronoun? Really? It's difficult? Because, seems to me, in a queer community amongst QUEERS that I and other transguys would have more of a hard time with pronouns.

So that makes me wonder, WHY in a queer community are QUEERS defaulting to he? It's quite heterosexist for the default to be 'he', no? I mean, are butches just supposed to be male stand ins? Is it an "I'm not ready to accept I'm queer" thing?

And saying, "but but but, it's so harrrrrrrrdddddddd to keep track of a pronoun, and I don't like being called out when I don't want to do the 'work'..."...isn't that kind of like saying, "If you want to see all butches as he and male, why not just go back to men?"


I'm Being Serious, Because I Don't Get It...And I'm Willing To Bet Not Too Many Femmes Around Here Have A) EVER Been Called By The Wrong Pronoun And B) Consider Their Pronouns A 'Preference',
Dylan

[Heart]

Originally Posted by Darth Denkay

I saw myself "evolving," as though butch was just the starting point for something bigger and better....

Without being conscious of it, I was completely buying into a butch hierarchy....

There seems to be an unspoken understanding that a butch should 'evolve' into something...more specific. And that ideally that "evolution" should include moving towards a more masculine identity, because that is better than just butch.

Pronouns are a matter of preference and a way to demonstrate respect to each other, but they are not the core issue, as Darth eloquently demonstrates with his post.

The above statements are key in terms of what I think of as a core issues in the community - valuing male over female, man over woman, therefore Butch becomes a "starting point" on a journey, inevitably, towards male identity. God - that is painful to even type. It is so totally negating of butch as a whole identity, as a valid female identity. But I think, sadly, it is common. It can be almost unconscious, but it is deeply rooted.

Heart

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Heart

Pronouns are a matter of preference and a way to demonstrate respect to each other, but they are not the core issue, as Darth eloquently demonstrates with his post.

The above statements are key in terms of what I think of as a core issues in the community - valuing male over female, man over woman, therefore Butch becomes a "starting point" on a journey, inevitably, towards male identity. God - that is painful to even type. It is so totally negating of butch as a whole identity, as a valid female identity. But I think, sadly, it is common. It can be almost unconscious, but it is deeply rooted.

Heart

Horribly painful to see and cope with even when one values gender diversity. Sometimes, the unconscious aspect you speak of is the most painful to me. It often feels like an elusive, aggressive form of cancer that defies any and all treatments because there is so much scar tissue covering its etiology. Yet, where it stems from is right in front of us. This not only negates butch in its entirety, it helps misogyny continue to take from us all.

My butch journey has been one of embracing female more than ever before. Although, I have to admit this has been more outside of the B-F online communities, yet several of the people that have been part of this do participate here. And not all are FIB or femmes or even women.

But I sure do grow tired of this "starting point" on a journey, inevitably, towards male identity mentality. Sometimes, I really have to fight with myself to remain in the B-F community!

Sap that I am at times, I somehow gain the strength to continue here, but it is the other folks like you that have a hell of a lot to do with this!

[Jett]

Originally Posted by Darth Denkay

...........There seems to be an unspoken understanding that a butch should 'evolve' into something...more specific. And that ideally that "evolution" should include moving towards a more masculine identity, because that is better than just butch. I looked up evolution, and while I know some of you loathe definitions in posts I think this is important.

..............My inclusion of the definition is to point out that I think often the word "evolve" is assumed to mean 'changed into something better', when all it really signifies is change into something else.........

This is key to something that's been on my mind a lot lately and I'm going to kind of jump off it...

There are places, milestones in life we as people change and to grow and I've been going though one of those points.

In B-F context it's been coming out sideways as something of a fucking roller coaster really of hating labels, everything feeling itchy and trying to get out from under that feeling. But what I'd like to get at is about 6 weeks ago I took a bit of a self imposed hiatus, and I kind of woke up. Because in that time ended up looking at what was making me itchy about certain things/labels/words and my experiences that shaped those discomforts... instead of looking at how I could get around or avoid them which is what I had been doing.

I agree with you Darth, 100%. In our online community changes/movement (physical or other) along the gender lines is generally celebrated, as long as it's linear- toward male... and the hierarchy works it's way up hand in hand with this. I don't think it's expected for butches to move along that line but that that's the direction, to put it lightly, that's more valued... I don't think that's hard for anyone to see.

But the point... in that hiatus I changed my pronoun to she, and my appearance also changed somewhat... to more of a female appearance- and that doesn't equate to being feminine (again female doesn't mean feminine, two-whole-different-words). And I didn't change internally persay, but more let go of some bullshit I'd been holding on myself... shit I'd let sink it without realizing it.

And with all that I'm aware of the all the crap stuff enough and "unwritten laws" that for about a week I seriously questioned my remaining in the community, and NOT because my butch-ness changed, it didn't and I don't think it could, stone hasn't changed either, I suppose that could but I don't see it. I'm simply re-claiming being female, myself, and with it being female in butch and what that means for myself.

And make no mistake I can handle my own, always have. But it's more a question of with this I just wondered at what point does it push past the point of being worth the bull and the battle.

But part of being able to embrace this change in myself and grow with it is not giving a fuck about what anyone "thinks", we all grow in our own ways, and it's not always linear... but what's right for us. To me that's the most important thing to celebrate... and not which "direction" you went. I know lot of people probably aren't going to get it, but they don't need to except that my butch-ness doesn't depend one iota on how "male" I am or a pronoun, it never has.

You know I've read this a few times and I'm not even sure I got across what I intended... but like I said it's just some shit that's been weighing on my mind a hell of lot lately.

Peace,
Metropolis

[Medusa]

Great post, Met! And as usual, you have me doing some further thinking on the existence of and effects of the continuum.

I'll have to start another thread because I don't want to derail this one but I see a really similar happening in the Femme community with "the continuum" and the values places on the "hyper" Feminine.

We have a lot of "unwritten laws" in the Femme community as well, and although it might be wildly unpopular to suggest this, I am wondering if we don't as Femmes "celebrate" milestones that drive us toward the more homogenous version of "Femme" or "Woman" in much the same way that happens for the Butch community.

Im thinking particularly of Femmes who are elevated to a more "legitimate" or more "acceptable" status when they become partnered. (That whole "a single Femme is a dangerous Femme" thinking) or Femmes who are celebrated when they partner with a Transman.

I won't derail this thread any further with these thoughts but just wanted to say that I think these parallels tell at least me personally that there is something going on with the motion and direction that the Femme and Butch communities are pushed in with the created hierarchies.

I think there is more to it than trying to homogenize "Femme" or "Butch" into a heterosexual standard. It's almost like this need to be able to recognize each other as a "thing" or "label" becomes more important than recognizing the dynamic person. I'm not quite sure what it is yet but I'm thinking on it.

[BullDog]

Dylan you raise an excellent point. No my pronoun is not a preference. I didn't sit down one day to decide whether I preferred She or He. I've always been a She.

I've heard a couple explanations on why He became the default over on the Dash site. One of the owners said once that back in the Internet dark ages when they were communicating primarily via email lists there were no avatars, pics, etc to tell people apart so they used He for butches. I've also heard that in chat the default was He or Hy for butches to tell them apart from femmes and that's how we got to where we are now.

One thing I think is important to note is that these explanations really don't have anything to do with there being an increased influx of male identified butches. It is supposedly to tell butches apart from femmes, not to distinguish between different types of butches. I often hear when butch women are speaking up that we are afraid of becoming extinct. That really gives me a good laugh. Anyway...

First of all, I'm not sure why the hell you need to group people or tell them apart that way. If a person's gender is pertinent to the discussion, I'm sure they will let you know. When you are in chat talking back and forth does it really matter if the person is butch or femme? Is it an insult for a butch to be mistaken for a femme in chat? If so, why? Can't you ask if you really need to know?

If you are talking in third person about someone and for some reason you need to let your friend know who you are talking about is butch, you can say she's a butch or he's a butch.

I seriously don't get the whole "we need to tell the butches apart from the femmes" argument for using He. I thought we were queer/lesbian, homosexuals (same sex). What am I missing?

The other explanation I have heard is what it was a way to honor a butch's masculinity. Hah well it sure as hell doesn't honor mine. I think though this starts to get to the heart of the matter. People have a hard time thinking about masculinity in female terms. It is basically considered less disrespectful to call a butch He by mistake that goes by She, than to call a male identified butch She by mistake- which is like the worst crime in the world.

Masculinity is still closely associated with male. People have a hard time knowing how to recognize and refer to female masculinity that isn't associated with or compared with male. As many of us have said, this goes well beyond pronouns. It is not just pronouns which have become defaulted to male. Male has in many ways become the standard by which butches are measured.

Finally, butches like Toughy, myself and others have been speaking up for around 10 years. If for some reason it started out as a default with no ill intent, that's one thing. But why for years and years and years afterwards was there so much resistance to change after butches have been speaking up? Why is there still resistance by some?

I really think there is plenty of evidence to show that most butches are females and consider themselves to be females and many consider themselves to be women. Why the hell wouldn't that be the case? Most butches ARE females. We were born that way. Butch femme communities are comprised of female born people and trans people. If there were going to be any defaults, logically speaking it would be female pronouns and identities.

Those who identify as male should be respected and called by the proper pronouns. But they are not the majority and not the default. They never have been.