Gender Wars - A Femme's Perspective

[MsMerrick]

Originally Posted by adorable

What on earth difference does it make? Femme's post in the butch zone. Everyone posts in the trans zone and so far almost every ID has been in the lesbian zone.

So unless someone finds my post insulting or there is something WRONG with my post - I don't see how the fact that I don't ID as a femme has any bearing on that. And I didn't post from a femme perspective. I agreed with two femme's perspectives. I posted from MY perspective as a woman who lives and breathes just like other women.

But unlike others on here I have been asked to show MY queer card for consistency? Right.

Well since what you are asking for is to me to justify how come *I* can post where I please let me list all the things I can think of that might get me past the gatekeepers.

My GENDER is woman.
MY ID QUEER
I am 5'6" tall.
I have two girls and am a single mother.
I own my own home and have a valid driver's license.
I work full time.
I wear lipstick.
I worked two full time jobs AS a single mother and earned a bachelor's degree in War Crimes.
I don't wear underwear.
I liked to be fucked by mean TGs while I call them daddy.
I also like to fuck mean women who call me daddi.
I drink unsweet Ice Tea
I wear mini skirts occasionally, heels too
I have knocked out a man with an unopened can of diet pepsi
I run a business
I drive an Impala with heated leather seats
I'm fat but sadly not in the right places anymore
I work with LGBT youth in my community
I am a published author
I was passed over for a promotion once because I was a woman



If there is anything else that you need to know for me to be able to post, by all means let me know....

I think you were simply asked to clarify.
Those of us, who do ID as Femme, often spent some time struggling with it.
I would have asked the same, if I had known that you did not. I note, no one asked you NOT to Post, simply asked from what perspective, were you indeed posting. I don't gate keep the word Queer, or the word Femme. Nonetheless, this is a Femme's Perspective Thread, and as such, if you are posting in it and don't identify as Femme, a certain amount of explanation/clarification, seems at the very least..polite, imho, of course
I am also a great fan of Iced Tea, minimally sweetened if at all ; )

[adorable]

Originally Posted by MsMerrick

I think you were simply asked to clarify.
Those of us, who do ID as Femme, often spent some time struggling with it.
I would have asked the same, if I had known that you did not. I note, no one asked you NOT to Post, simply asked from what perspective, were you indeed posting. I don't gate keep the word Queer, or the word Femme. Nonetheless, this is a Femme's Perspective Thread, and as such, if you are posting in it and don't identify as Femme, a certain amount of explanation/clarification, seems at the very least..polite, imho, of course
I am also a great fan of Iced Tea, minimally sweetened if at all ; )

And yet it's not asked of others who post in other threads to which they don't claim that particular ID?

And it's based on what? If my post had been dismissive, or disrespectful or out of line - ok - I could see that. In fact I HAVE seen that.
Since it wasn't...
Why is this zone, different then other zone's?
Why would you ask me to clarify *IF* you knew that I didn't ID as a femme?
Butch or Femme for me are not genders - I actually don't claim either for myself out of respect for those who do.. regardless - I find it odd that I am asked to clarify who I am in order to post.
Does someone's gender or personal ID change the truth or un-truth in what they say?
If people are going to start reading posts along these lines and people collectively are going to be questioned about who they are so that other people can determine if their post is worthy of consideration - it does take away from the discussion factor...
It also puts those of us in the other category left out of discussions that matter just as much to us as everyone else.

[SassyLeo]

Adorable-

Reading your posts about not ID'ing as Femme has triggered something really huge for me. And this is not specifically directed at you, it just happens that the context of the conversation made me realize...

I feel really fucking protective of "Femme". As in, when I finally figured out that Femme was the right word to use to describe how I feel about ME, it was like the OMG A-ha moment.

And FOR ME, I feel like FEMME is a Queer denominator.

To people in the world, outside my community, I appear as a straight woman. Even though I work with many Queer folk at my job, no one had any idea I was Queer. One woman who is partnered and I have been work-friends with, was shocked when one day I was talking about Erin and used "she". I out myself everyday. And luckily I work for a company which celebrates diversity.

So, for me, FEMME is how I get to differentiate myself, how I say to the world: "I am Queer. I can look however I want, I don't fit in your stereotypes. I may "appear" as what you call a straight woman, but I AM NOT."

I know that not everyone feels the same as I do. I know there are people out there in the world who are like none of us on the site who use this word to describe themselves. However Femme looks to me is different than you and everyone else in the community. And yet, I find it hard to not care if some random straight woman in Missouri calls herself a Femme. It should make no difference to me since she is not connected to my/your Queer world... but it does.

[MsMerrick]

Originally Posted by adorable

And yet it's not asked of others who post in other threads to which they don't claim that particular ID?

But of course it is.. When someone asks for the butch perspective, and I go and post, although in all honesty I tend to refrain..But let's just say I do.. People do ask why ..

Originally Posted by adorable

Why is this zone, different then other zone's?
Why would you ask me to clarify *IF* you knew that I didn't ID as a femme?
Butch or Femme for me are not genders - I actually don't claim either for myself out of respect for those who do.. regardless - I find it odd that I am asked to clarify who I am in order to post.

Well first of all, I repeat, no on asked you not to post
That has been repeated, nicely several times, and its also very clear in the original post. Why you keep repeating it, I don't know.
But to answer the first part, this zone is no different, the OP, specifically asked for a Femme Perspective,m and that make sit different from other Threads, that don't state that in their Opening Post. But again I say, No One has Asked you, NOT TO POST
ok ?
Does yelling it help ? I prefer not to yell but I also prefer for people to actually read what I said. And I don't like it when people read in something, that wasn't there, nor even thought.

Originally Posted by adorable

Does someone's gender or personal ID change the truth or un-truth in what they say?

Good grief, a perspective, is a exactly that ! Not a Truth with a capital T. And yes, ones experience, ones identification, all those things color our perspective.

Originally Posted by adorable

If people are going to start reading posts along these lines and people collectively are going to be questioned about who they are so that other people can determine if their post is worthy of consideration - it does take away from the discussion factor...
It also puts those of us in the other category left out of discussions that matter just as much to us as everyone else.

Yeah well but you see..None of that..actually happened ..
Do you write scripts for faux News or something ?

[adorable]

Originally Posted by MsMerrick

But of course it is.. When someone asks for the butch perspective, and I go and post, although in all honesty I tend to refrain..But let's just say I do.. People do ask why ..
Well first of all, I repeat, no on asked you not to post
That has been repeated, nicely several times, and its also very clear in the original post. Why you keep repeating it, I don't know.
But to answer the first part, this zone is no different, the OP, specifically asked for a Femme Perspective,m and that make sit different from other Threads, that don't state that in their Opening Post. But again I say, No One has Asked you, NOT TO POST
ok ?
Does yelling it help ? I prefer not to yell but I also prefer for people to actually read what I said. And I don't like it when people read in something, that wasn't there, nor even thought.


Good grief, a perspective, is a exactly that ! Not a Truth with a capital T. And yes, ones experience, ones identification, all those things color our perspective.

Yeah well but you see..None of that..actually happened ..
Do you write scripts for faux News or something ?

LOL! I would never write for faux news....but I have always kind of wanted to write for Anderson Cooper. Admit that he tugged at your heart strings during Katrina....anyway...please do not read my posts as hysteria, but rather with annoyance.

I'm not sure if I've had a change of heart or if it's the drinks...

My post in this thread, I still argue wasn't a perspective but an observation. So to be asked or as I see it as being called out specifically because I don't ID as femme is a double standard that I haven't found in other threads. Perhaps it's there....in the thread on this topic on the butch zone, plenty of femmes posted and not once did anyone ask for clarification. I doubt the ID of femme alone means that someone has a clarity on perspective. Femmes are not the same, anymore then all butches are the same, anymore then all trans are the same.......

Not IDing as a Femme or a Butch for me personally is about how the words are used HERE. Where I live in real time, they are not used in the same way that so many people use them in online. My real time community and I use the words in the same way. My experience online has taught me that people absolutely freak out in the way I use the words....and I know that is because of for many they consider it their gender. Gender is something that I am VERY respectful of on many levels and embrace for all people. How people feel on the inside is not a joke or something I want to be seen as dismissive of... ever. It has happened to me in real time and online.
So I don't use the term butch or femme as an ID in here.
I am most aligned with Kiki in a historical sense. I don't embrace it entirely. I am both butch and FEM which is not short for femme, rather feminine....which is how we use the words here... Kiki was used as a disparaging term during the 1950s which does trouble me for that reason. I don't consider myself a switch sexually - so to me Kiki doesn't equal switch and why I prefer use it for myself.
I love the 1950s version of BF that I have read (I wish there were more) I tend to romanticize it....
I am a feminine woman who is seen as straight in my day to day life. I tell everyone I am queer because I am lucky enough to live where I do....it takes far less bravery then it does for many of you. Location, location, location.
I belong to all and nothing. In my head and with people who know me in real time I am understood or at the very least respected. Translating that online is very difficult. I can say that my experiences are very similar as a woman with many on this site. Exactly the same? None are exactly the same. But I am a woman. I am queer. I am a mother and a daughter. I work. I cry. I feel. I love....

[Gayla]

Originally Posted by adorable

So I don't use the term butch or femme as an ID in here.
I am most aligned with Kiki in a historical sense. I don't embrace it entirely. I am both butch and FEM which is not short for femme, rather feminine....which is how we use the words here... Kiki was used as a disparaging term during the 1950s which does trouble me for that reason. I don't consider myself a switch sexually - so to me Kiki doesn't equal switch and why I prefer use it for myself.

This is the second time in, I believe, as many days that I've seen someone say this. No *sigh* not the exact same quote, not using the same words, etc. etc. but a similar concept.

I have no issues with what people call themselves and where people fall along the butch-femme line as it is constantly changing for most all of us on some level. I also have no issue with people who do not identify as butch or femme participating on the site.

I do have problems when someone speaks from "the place of" a specific ID that they do not own. This is what it has felt like when reading your posts in various threads over the last few days.

[adorable]

Originally Posted by gayla

This is the second time in, I believe, as many days that I've seen someone say this. No *sigh* not the exact same quote, not using the same words, etc. etc. but a similar concept.

I have no issues with what people call themselves and where people fall along the butch-femme line as it is constantly changing for most all of us on some level. I also have no issue with people who do not identify as butch or femme participating on the site.

I do have problems when someone speaks from "the place of" a specific ID that they do not own. This is what it has felt like when reading your posts in various threads over the last few days.

I apologize. If I have to own an ID to post how I feel about certain things I'm not sure what to do about that. Perhaps I don't belong?

ETA: I didn't speak in this particular thread in that way if you look at my OP either. I was simply agreeing with two femme's perspectives and an observation that I had made. It was something I wanted to add and I personally thought had value to the current discussion. I didn't take the OP and answer all the questions as if I was a femme....

[Nat]

Adorable - if you are here you belong. The interest in your Id (for me) has been more "how do I read your words" than any determination about whether or not you belong or have a right to speak. Anyway thank you for being kind enough to indulge the questions.

My gf does not identify as either butch or femme and she is total awesomeness in my world. She doesn't post here partially because of that and partially because she's not a huge fan of Internet forums, but I do hope she would feel welcomed here if she ever did decide to join.