Gender Wars - A Femme's Perspective

[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.

[adorable]

Originally Posted by 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.

Thank you.

My ID will not help you read my words any more then anyone else's ID helps you read their words. Words themselves help you understand where someone is coming from. Words and who someone is helps you understand perspective.

All people in general have different perspectives based on where they live, how they were raised, what has happened in their lives, who they are partnered with, who they have been partnered with in the past, where they work and in some cases how they fuck.

To say that somehow knowing or understanding my ID will help you read my words doesn't make anymore sense to me then if I said I was a purple goat. In order for my ID to help you read my words we would all have to agree on the same definition of particular IDs which will never happen. If anyone starts saying that Femmes do this and Butches do this - well, that isn't true is it?
So for me people that claim femme or butch (or any other ID) doesn't have anything to do with their perspective on a particular topic.

Someone isn't saying something because they are a certain ID, they are saying something based on the whole of their experiences.

[Nat]

I disagree with you like 90%.

[SassyLeo]

Originally Posted by adorable

Thank you.

My ID will not help you read my words any more then anyone else's ID helps you read their words. Words themselves help you understand where someone is coming from. Words and who someone is helps you understand perspective.

All people in general have different perspectives based on where they live, how they were raised, what has happened in their lives, who they are partnered with, who they have been partnered with in the past, where they work and in some cases how they fuck.

To say that somehow knowing or understanding my ID will help you read my words doesn't make anymore sense to me then if I said I was a purple goat. In order for my ID to help you read my words we would all have to agree on the same definition of particular IDs which will never happen. If anyone starts saying that Femmes do this and Butches do this - well, that isn't true is it?
So for me people that claim femme or butch (or any other ID) doesn't have anything to do with their perspective on a particular topic.

Someone isn't saying something because they are a certain ID, they are saying something based on the whole of their experiences.

Originally Posted by Nat

I disagree with you like 90%.

I disagree also...

Here is why.

"All people in general have different perspectives based on where they live, how they were raised, what has happened in their lives, who they are partnered with, who they have been partnered with in the past, where they work and in some cases how they fuck."

And ID'ing as Femme, Butch, Trans, a Dyke, a Lesbian, a Man, etc... all are figured out from one's own "soul searching" of course but even that is influenced by what has happened in folks likes and who they are partnered with, what communities they are involved in, what they learned from other Queers, communities, etc.

How I speak and how my words are heard and read are absolutely influenced by how by my Femme identity and how I figured it out...through friends, experiences, communities, whom I dated, etc. BECAUSE I learned and discovered this from all those things.

How you/I/we came to figure out/decide the ID that suits us is a product of living, experience, environment, etc.

So, I'm not sure how those things can be separate. We are products of our lives' experiences.

[Isadora]

I find this whole discussion moot. Obviously people ID differently. We are all complex beings who have many identities. I don't think I like being "pigeonholed" (for lack of a better term) into anyone reading me through a "femme lense" rather than a human lens. Femme to me is PART of many parts of who I am. (I.E. I am fat, I am highly educated, I am of European descent, I am old, I am handicapped, I am...)

The last time I checked, I had no need to make comments on how people ID, just had to accept it. I have been and out femme for over 30 years. I have seen the ebb and wane of ID's that are accepted and not accepted.

Now, I know it is a femme thread, so it makes sense to ask how a participant id's. Once they ID or chose not to ID, I need to move on I do not need to vilify (I know strong word but that is the "feeling" I get from posts) or keep hounding on the same subject because I did not get an answer I liked. "No" or "do not ID as femme" is an answer, whether I like the answer or not. So now with that knowledge I can "read" through my femme lens posts.

Historically, in the 50's and 60's you had to id either b or f in our community, those who ID'd as kiki were kind of shunned or feared. The rigid structures of that culture were questioned and dismissed by some and we had the androgynous lesbian community. Rigidity led to backlash against the b/f community in the 70's where b/f became ridiculed for being "pawns of the patriarchy" and "coping heterosexual relationships". (K, I find it amusing that those same people are now touting for acceptance that we are JUST like heterosexual relationships.) I would hate to go back to that rigid structure.

I am a femme lesbian. I have always been a femme lesbian. I marched my little ass off to say that out loud. What I am reading is two different perspectives. Each is worthwhile, each is legitimate and valued. So to disagree is a natural thing and actually a good thing. I have gotten to the point with somethings to ask without snark or cynicism, "Is it okay to disagree with you?" Because sometimes it seems it is not or at least the question opens up a discussion on the ability to disagree and still honor one another.

I, like Sassy, have huge issues with cultural appropriation of language. To me, a woman can be feminine if she is not queer id'ed but femme is part of the glbt culture. But it is my opinion...