Men with boobs.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by HowSoonIsNow

Out of how many sites, how many threads, how many years (!)*butch* identity gets discussed/analysed, deconstructed (and put back together again!), it goes on and on.

There have been some awesome people who have started great *Femme* threads, but, constantly, the threads that get the most feedback are about BUTCHES (FIB and MIB) /TG/MEN of our community and their identities.

What is that about their (butch/female and male dependent) identities that make for the most heated (and most interesting!) conversations when femme threads do not get half the attention?

So true and I have wondered the same thing. And I have to mention MtF's as well along with stone. I do know a couple of MtF's that used to post on the old site, but just began to feel too alienated. I think there are many different femme presentations and identifications that are shut out here and on other B-F sites. Although, I think as the site continues this will change as it feels very open to me. Then, again, POC members have brought concerns up that they felt have simply carried over.

Maybe because the Planet is fairly new and lots of folks from the old site do not particpate here, these areas just have not developed their voice yet. I hope new folks feel free to begin threads about these, too. Actually, I get really jazzed when I see posts by people I have never seen before. There are so many ideas out there that I have never had an opportunity to learn or hear about. And hell, I'm old!

Since I can't go to the ReUnion () due to economics, I plan on attending the Femme Conference here in the Bay Area that same weekend. Will be my first and I am looking forward to the topics femmes will discuss.

[Gayla]

As to the online vs offline pronoun switcheroo thingy... I use both, offline and off, depending on the situation. I'm not trying to pull a fast one on anyone but yes, there are some people in my life that refer to me as she and others that use he, both online and off.

Thinking back on it, there's a slight possibility that I could be the person June referred to in her earlier post (although I don't think I ever would have commented on her using "she" online because it's just not that big of a deal to me).

My reality is that I do not exist solely in a queer/bf environment. I have a job. I have family of origin. I have friends that are not queer. I interact, both online and off, with a wide variety of people. (And they seem to all be on my Facebook now!) There are a number of people that I met in queer situations, or online, that know me as "he". That's who I am to them. There are also people that know me as "she" and that's who I am to them. There's even some, such as my partner, who know me as both.

Again, this isn't meant to be duplicitous in any way, it's just who I am.

I understand that proper pronoun usage is very much a respect issue for some people, and I've seen it used in very disrespectful ways in the past. I totally get that, understand it, respect it. For me though, it's really not that big a deal. Maybe it is because I've spent so much of my life in a community where things like "sir" and "boy" aren't determined by biology and are considered titles of respect aside from gender. /shrug

[Gayla]

Originally Posted by June

No, puddin' it wasn't you, although you are dear to me as well, even though you're not coming down to game night

I very much remember meeting you for the first time and asking, and you said it didn't matter. And I can totally respect that. When it happened, it didn't make me think less of the person, it made me sad, and only because I felt like it was so they wouldn't be "less than".

And I don't mean to sound condescending, I really do feel sad when people are afraid to express themselves because of what other people might think.

this leads me to another point, which is a tad off topic, but someone mentioned it to me today in a rep, how Butch and Trans bottoms are also seen as "less than" Snowy touched on it, but I wish someone would start that conversation in a thread.

I really, really, really wish I could make it but right now the making money thing is really, really, really important, too. Not to mention, I just had some major dental work done so I'm a little scared of those cupcakes. <3

There's been a lot of really good stuff in this thread and I've probably started a good dozen comments but them deleted them because I got sidetracked and went off on tangents. I've learned a lot from the "men with boobs" part and now that we've evolved here, it's given me even more to think about.

I have never not been butch. With a couple of brief exceptions, my relationships have always been with women who ID'd as femme. I've been "out" for 30 plus years so it's not something I just discovered about myself when I found a website. During those years I've also been "boy" or "Sir" or "Daddy" so ID'ing in some way that is publicly seen as male is also not something I discovered from a website.

I've been "Sir" longer than I've been "hy" and it's a place where I'm really comfortable. I don't think I ever gave it much thought or put any real concrete theories behind it until I found the dash site, ummm, I think 8 or 9 years ago now. It was there, in chat, that I had "hy" thrust upon me. I'm not real fond of made up words so I wasn't sure what to think but then it just became the norm so I got used to it.

The theoretical evolution of my gender started there and, to be honest, the pronoun / MID / FID / etc. issues around butch gender are something I've only seen online. With the exception of people I've met through the dash site, I've never had a conversation with another butch about pronouns, ID or any of the other issues we so often discuss here. I also don't know any butches in r/t, again other than those I met through b-f, that use male pronouns offline.

But online, on that site, at that time, it was a must. Butch=hy, femme=she and that's how, at least in chat, we could tell each other apart. For so many people, finding butch-femme community online is the start of the exploration and education process. We've all seen it. The newbies who start off at "but we're all just girls" and learn to understand why that statement is so offensive to many of us.

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.

This got way more rambly then I intended and I don't think I even really said what I thought I wanted to say when I started but.. well yeah. I don't agree with the "less than" theory of things but I can see where it may have come from in this situation.

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by gayla

The theoretical evolution of my gender started there and, to be honest, the pronoun / MID / FID / etc. issues around butch gender are something I've only seen online. With the exception of people I've met through the dash site, I've never had a conversation with another butch about pronouns, ID or any of the other issues we so often discuss here. I also don't know any butches in r/t, again other than those I met through b-f, that use male pronouns offline.

But online, on that site, at that time, it was a must. Butch=hy, femme=she and that's how, at least in chat, we could tell each other apart.

This is my exact experience as well.

I think the argument that you need to have different pronouns to tell the butches from femmes apart is quite ludicrous.

Nat, people have been extremely careful to qualify when they have observed that some femmes refuse to use the right pronouns, etc that it's not all femmes doing it. I don't know how people can be any clearer about that.