Gender Fluidity

[Nat]

Lovely thread

I've spent a lot of time publicly dissecting my gender experience. For whatever reason I was riddled with shame through most of it. Constantly worrying, wondering if i was okay, valid.

Though I wouldn't necessarily come up with the term fluidity - Met's description comes closer than most to my experience.

I feel like I'm both male and female and both feminine and masculine. I really don't know how others experience me, but I tend to live in the femme. It is what it is, I am what I am.

The person I'm seeing is not butch and not trans. I experience her as fluid, though I'm not sure she'd describe herself that way. Sometimes to me she is this gorgeous and feminine woman and sometimes she's this beautiful tomboy, and these energies seem to flicker in her pretty much all the time. She's complex and transfixing and magnetic.

I wondered for a while if being with her would affect my femme identity over time - if I would draw closer to some imaginary center-line - but so far that hasn't happened. If I were a heart, femme would be the systolic contraction and guy would be the diastolic. Such is life. At least, such is my life.

Identity seems to be a hole I can fall into. It's helpful at times, but at the moment I find it's something that doesn't affirm me much. Being around other people who get femmes and sharing the company of other femmes just makes my heart sing. But in my daily life, I am just so conflicted about identity that I'd just rather not focus on it at all. Though I consider myself a femme, I can only do it on the days where it feels elastic enough to fit me. Being around other femmes makes me feel free again, re-affirms me somehow.

[Jett]

Thanks Barb and Nat!

Barb yes it is a elusive paragraph and I'm hesitant. I've written and tossed, one I posted and deleted saying hell why did I start this thread? (and I just re-vamped this one). It really feels quite core and I'm not the greatest sharer at that level but I thought it might be of use to someone... and admittedly I've been a bit bored since my lady's out of town.

I guess I could simply say for me it's a consistent, rhythmic flexible flow of distinctly changing energy...

or...

just explain that for me I'm a predominately and outwardly a *pretty boi who occupies a semi-gq gender space but easily slides around the "mascuninity" space that surrounds that part of the gender spectrum... and then some.

I'm not at odds with my female body despite my gender spectrum essentially being masculinely orientated, it's all female originated and it seems quite natural if that makes sense. Anyway I'm quite "flat" already ... and sometimes the contrasts of my hips with that seem pretty right for all of the above. *shrugs* But yep it's not quite that concrete, complicated or limited... and the language falls flat.

I've been very fluid as long as I can remember- though it wasn't until I'd been stomping around in my shoes long enough to actually have something to look back on is when the distinct fluid-ness of my gender became more apparent. You'd think as a kid feeling like a **boy... and a girl (albeit not "girly")... would be a clue but obviously I never thought consciously about it then or even felt it as any type of inconsistencies and it simply never occurred to me I couldn't be that way... and it never left me but it certainly became more "flavorful" as I got older... lol.

Anyway it's quite natural, simple and unproblematic for me in r/l- though admittedly it's caused a bit of a roller coaster ride here (BF spaces), probably needless to say but navigating in a sea of labels and identities has kind of (meaning really) kicked my ass because they're more static than I can ever ever could be in reality. But what can you do... hindsight's 20/20 unfortunately...

Metro

*Not as in physically "pretty" but as in a more queered term
**I didn't think I was a boy... but... well it's complicated don't ask

[imperfect_cupcake]

Originally Posted by Metropolis

Thanks Barb and Nat!

Barb yes it is a elusive paragraph and I'm hesitant. I've written and tossed, one I posted and deleted saying hell why did I start this thread? (and I just re-vamped this one). It really feels quite core and I'm not the greatest sharer at that level but I thought it might be of use to someone... and admittedly I've been a bit bored since my lady's out of town.

I guess I could simply say for me it's a consistent, rhythmic flexible flow of distinctly changing energy...

or...

just explain that for me I'm a predominately and outwardly a *pretty boi who occupies a semi-gq gender space but easily slides around the "mascuninity" space that surrounds that part of the gender spectrum... and then some.

I'm not at odds with my female body despite my gender spectrum essentially being masculinely orientated, it's all female originated and it seems quite natural if that makes sense. Anyway I'm quite "flat" already ... and sometimes the contrasts of my hips with that seem pretty right for all of the above. *shrugs* But yep it's not quite that concrete, complicated or limited... and the language falls flat.

I've been very fluid as long as I can remember- though it wasn't until I'd been stomping around in my shoes long enough to actually have something to look back on is when the distinct fluid-ness of my gender became more apparent. You'd think as a kid feeling like a **boy... and a girl (albeit not "girly")... would be a clue but obviously I never thought consciously about it then or even felt it as any type of inconsistencies and it simply never occurred to me I couldn't be that way... and it never left me but it certainly became more "flavorful" as I got older... lol.

Anyway it's quite natural, simple and unproblematic for me in r/l- though admittedly it's caused a bit of a roller coaster ride here (BF spaces), probably needless to say but navigating in a sea of labels and identities has kind of (meaning really) kicked my ass because they're more static than I can ever ever could be in reality. But what can you do... hindsight's 20/20 unfortunately...

Metro

*Not as in physically "pretty" but as in a more queered term
**I didn't think I was a boy... but... well it's complicated don't ask

lol you sound pretty similar to inki, cept she has larger boobs and a 50's Glam Model type figure - tall blonde hour glass. So when she's not inhabiting the genr that is totally aligned with it, she looks at her body in the mirror and says "jesus look at that. fuckin hot. But I'm not really there as me. why is this mine?" then she winds up perving over her own boobs. lol it's like a guy somehow gets in there and goes "phwar look at - hey it's mine????!?"

And it's a surprise, every time. gender memory of a gold fish. swim around the bowl once and surprise one's self every time. LOL!

She has one other butch mates who has the same fluidity and same body. When they met at my birthday they spent *hours* talking and agreeing. Was rally nice to see. Especially cause I get along very well with that butch's gf - who's a construction worker with long black pigtails and can wield a jackhammer.

I tend to not really hang all that much with people who are ID blah-blah. Most people I know are pretty fluid, have been comfortable with where they are in the gender spectrum, know how they ID but don't feel the needs to really state it over and over and they don't really subscribe to much. it's a very comfortable place to be, for me and for inki. I do want to bring her to some events in Seattle/Portland/Eugene/San Fran but I am slightly nervous about it. If people start making butch-femme jokes and stereotyping or talking about their ID and positioning everything around them, ID wise, I know she'll just get up and leave (bless the dutch directness) with no excuses.


oh shit! bugger I have a coffee to go to!!

bbl! xx

[Soft*Silver]

Metro, I think you hit on something in this statement. In my real time, when I bring up the labels we speak of here on BFP, I have had to explain the nuances of gender ID and degrees of Butch and Femme, TG and Trans to people who dont frequent these sites. They are usually overwhelmed by the labels I pull out of thin air like magic. I have to remember that not every person in our communities, are walking around defining themselves. For most, the process of coming out is all they worked through. The rest, like you say, becomes natural, simple and unproblematic for them after that. Self acceptance. Its here in a cerebral zone that we can look at ourselves and others and go WOW....look at the prism! Its when we try to name the colors beyond ROYGBIV that makes it complicated but...BUT....we are complicated in our simplicity, against a culture that makes no room for our identities.

Originally Posted by Metropolis

Anyway it's quite natural, simple and unproblematic for me in r/l- though admittedly it's caused a bit of a roller coaster ride here (BF spaces), probably needless to say but navigating in a sea of labels and identities has kind of (meaning really) kicked my ass because they're more static than I can ever ever could be in reality. But what can you do... hindsight's 20/20 unfortunately...

Metro

*Not as in physically "pretty" but as in a more queered term
**I didn't think I was a boy... but... well it's complicated don't ask

HB...the picture that comes to mind is Sally on the old tv show 3rd Rock From The Sun. She was a ungendered alien inhabiting a gendered earth body...female. And she would look at her body at times and be amazed at it. LOL...it was a delightful little comedy that explored the basics of human nature. It brought gender concepts to the mainstream American pop.

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

lol you sound pretty similar to inki, cept she has larger boobs and a 50's Glam Model type figure - tall blonde hour glass. So when she's not inhabiting the genr that is totally aligned with it, she looks at her body in the mirror and says "jesus look at that. fuckin hot. But I'm not really there as me. why is this mine?" then she winds up perving over her own boobs. lol it's like a guy somehow gets in there and goes "phwar look at - hey it's mine????!?"

[Jett]

Hah Barb... I always thought I'd like Inky now I know I would. I get it with the the mirror/body thing lol, except with me some days it's like, "oml... you go". There was a time I went a bit round and round with my body image, but the stuff I've let go of (rather than anything I've learned) has set it right if that makes any sense.

And right, I couldn't hang with peeps who were always peeping about ID and building everything on it either, very happily I haven't run into that toooo often... though one time I did meet a couple from g.com B-F chat room up in the cities years back who made my head spin. I tried to be polite but I did consider feigning death toward the middle of the evening... lol.
*S*
Metro

___________________

(Gah, sorry on the lag here my minds been a bit elsewhere as my gf's out of state w/ her mother who's very ill and I'm running a bit ragged here on this end with some other business on top of it.)

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

lol you sound pretty similar to inki, cept she has larger boobs and a 50's Glam Model type figure - tall blonde hour glass. So when she's not inhabiting the genr that is totally aligned with it, she looks at her body in the mirror and says "jesus look at that. fuckin hot. But I'm not really there as me. why is this mine?" then she winds up perving over her own boobs. lol it's like a guy somehow gets in there and goes "phwar look at - hey it's mine????!?"

And it's a surprise, every time. gender memory of a gold fish. swim around the bowl once and surprise one's self every time. LOL!

She has one other butch mates who has the same fluidity and same body. When they met at my birthday they spent *hours* talking and agreeing. Was rally nice to see. Especially cause I get along very well with that butch's gf - who's a construction worker with long black pigtails and can wield a jackhammer.

I tend to not really hang all that much with people who are ID blah-blah. Most people I know are pretty fluid, have been comfortable with where they are in the gender spectrum, know how they ID but don't feel the needs to really state it over and over and they don't really subscribe to much. it's a very comfortable place to be, for me and for inki. I do want to bring her to some events in Seattle/Portland/Eugene/San Fran but I am slightly nervous about it. If people start making butch-femme jokes and stereotyping or talking about their ID and positioning everything around them, ID wise, I know she'll just get up and leave (bless the dutch directness) with no excuses.


oh shit! bugger I have a coffee to go to!!

bbl! xx

This post is a breath of fresh air.... and Met, you seem to be my US breath of fresh air about all of this. No, I am not putting anyone down, but, the continual preoccupation with gender identifications here and in the real-time B-F population really makes me nuts sometimes.

Tell Inki that I for one would be getting up with her without excuses. giver her my applause! Do this myself in the SF Bay Area around this when this nonsense gets going to the point that things like a person's character, values, ways of treating others, heart & soul get side-lined and their gender identity is the be all and end all.

I know that for some on the site there just are not many opportunities to discuss gender identity where they live (and the pain that dealing with gender dysphoria can have), but I am really much more interested in a person's integrity and honor.... them as a human being. Not to mention that I personally tire of butch identity always getting framed in these terms. Butch is much more than this (and has a personal meaning for each and every one of us) . Yet, it too is not the whole of someone. I has stopped using butch for myself much of the time because of how very tired I am of so much of the conflict over it as an identity. That is how it is for me presently.

Lately, I have been introduced to more B-F persons from the UK, australia and South Africa. A small group of friends now living here. They really are just not hung-up on so much of this identity stuff. Not the butches, transgendered, FtM's, MtF's or femmes. None of them. It has been a welcome experience for me in many ways, but especially with this. Just feels freer for me. I always have space to learn from others.

[Rope]

I'm not quite sure why being interested in your gender identity as a butch makes one obsessed. Some of us took AND take a lot of shit for looking male and trying to "trick" straight people. We took a lot of shit for being who we are from the lesbian community back in the day. These things color your world. Being butch isn't something we put on for the day or when we feel like it, it's just there.

The discussion of butch and all it's stuff (tranny butch, femmy butch, queer butch, feminist butch, butch that's female id, butch that's male id, including the fluidity that some butches feel around their gender, ETC) is just the interesting mutations of a shared experienced on some level that we get to talk about.

Rope--

[AtLast]

Gender fluid for me became clear by learning more about Native American Two-Spirit foundations. This brought me personally to a peaceful place about my female-masculinity- my butchness.

We all get there in whatever way we fits for us individually. A spiritual journey away from Christianity was mine. It also brought me to allowing myself some balance with all of the things I am where butch is one part. When I have had the negative (sometimes, plain cruel and bigoted) things happen to me that we go through as masculine women or butches, male & female identified and all of our transgendered, transsexual or intergendered formations, these concepts have given me a much less stressful emotional state of being. Every one of us does this differently, which makes it all the richer.

One book (there are many) that I got a lot from is-

Two-spirit people : Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality

Sue-Ellen Jacobs; Wesley Thomas & Sabine Lang (snippet from an ad about the book).

This landmark book combines the voices of Native Americans and non-Indians, anthropologists and others, in an exploration of gender and sexuality issues as they relate to lesbian, gay, trans-gendered, and other "marked" Native Americans. Focusing on the concept of two-spirit people - individuals not necessarily gay or lesbian, transvestite or bisexual, but whose behaviors or beliefs may sometimes be interpreted by others as uncharacteristic of their sex - this book is the first to provide an intimate look at how many two-spirit people feel about themselves, how other Native Americans treat them, and how anthropologists and other scholars interpret them and their cultures.

[imperfect_cupcake]

Originally Posted by Rope

I'm not quite sure why being interested in your gender identity as a butch makes one obsessed.

It doesn't. I don't think that's what any of us meant.

What I *personally* find tiring and annoying is a constant reference to one's gender (femme or butch or man or woman) included in everything that is talked about. I have had evening with people who do this kind of thing.

for example inki gave this shy girl a compliment on her dress when we were at a genderqueer event, to acknowledge how much work she had put into her outfit and because she was standing next to us and she wanted to at least acknowledge her being there and to possibly draw her into the conversation.

M, who was standing next to inki said "when a butch compliments you, that means she wants a compliment back."
inki: "actually I don't care why you do things M, but leave me and my gender out of it, would you?"
everything M does is somehow in comparison to being butch. That's obsessed in my books.

when people constantly encase everything they do in their gender - which M does. As does one of our friends who is femme. femme femme femme femme this femme that.

But I'm getting off the topic of fluidity. apologies.

[Jett]

Originally Posted by Rope

I'm not quite sure why being interested in your gender identity as a butch makes one obsessed. Some of us took AND take a lot of shit for looking male and trying to "trick" straight people. We took a lot of shit for being who we are from the lesbian community back in the day. These things color your world. Being butch isn't something we put on for the day or when we feel like it, it's just there.

The discussion of butch and all it's stuff (tranny butch, femmy butch, queer butch, feminist butch, butch that's female id, butch that's male id, including the fluidity that some butches feel around their gender, ETC) is just the interesting mutations of a shared experienced on some level that we get to talk about.

Rope--

Hey Rope, right and I can't see where anyone's really said anything different... but I took things more like referencing specific experiences like I did.

And just for posterity sake, I took AND take a whole lot of shit for looking male and from parts of the lesbian and feminist and hetero community community as well (including almost 90 stitches on my face from the latter).

I Id'd as butch for over two decades, not for a day or when I felt like it, but right I haven't identified with butch as an ID for a some time even know I'm a masculine queer female... but for a long time it was the available nutshell language I had for myself. Not using that exact word now doesn't mean I don't feel, live, and and have that shared experience things very much as other masculine female bodied queer people. I've personally shared these life stories here for years and probably started more sex/gender conversations here than 98% of the peeps on the forums, including this conversation.

And because I feel a sense of "us and you" in your post (and b/c you didn't quote I'm not sure who it's directed at) I feel the need to say, I didn't separate myself from the B-F community, I would hope the B-F community wouldn't separate me from it because I feel more in sync with a cousin identity (not referencing being gender fluid, that's not so much an ID to/for me) more than butch. Though I suppose that could be a reality I didn't foresee...

And btw there's no animosity in this post, I'm just not quite sure where your coming from with all this, but then again I'm not even though my first cup of coffee...

Metro

[imperfect_cupcake]

I didn't separate myself from the B-F community, I would hope the B-F community wouldn't separate me from it because I feel more in sync with a cousin identity (not referencing being gender fluid, that's not so much an ID to/for me) more than butch. Though I suppose that could be a reality I didn't foresee...

I haven't either. I have many many friends who ID as butch and femme (among other genders) and I myself still ID as femme.

There has been described gender fluidity mentioned with butch and femme since I fist joined the communities in 1998/9

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Ropes misunderstanding of what was said (sorry rope, it appears to be a misunderstanding. I shouldn't assume, but I'm confident you'll let me know!) may be coming from the assersion Atlast made about the difference between North American Queer Gender concepts and UK ones. I think that's a valid assertion of difference.

I also note that North Americans *in comparison* are far more "obssessed" with their teeth. To what seems amsuing an absurd levels by people here. And? So what? It's just a difference. I'm nervous about returning to greater consumerism, focus on a longer work week and less holidays as well.

I don't think it's unfair to point these differences out and to voice my hesitation and nervousness about return to North America when there are some cultural markers I won't feel very comfortable about and will have a hard time re-adjusting back into. it's a valid fear.

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I'm not aware of a division between genderfluid or butch and or femme. Like you Met, I don't personally ID by my gender fluidity. it's just a traight like being blue eyed. Some people are. some people are not.

I'm personally having a gender/sex neutral day today so my tits are *REALLY* getting on my nerves. Some days I really do wish I could bind comfortably to get them the hell out of my own face. This doesn't stop me from being femme (a softwear program that constantly runs in the background at the same time). I know some people will have a problem wrapping their heads around that. it's not important though. Their brain math isn't my problem and I understand that occationally things don't make sense to others in personal core realms- it happens to me too. As long as I'm still accepted for me, that's all that really matters.

But the above isn't something that would occur to me to really talk to people about. It just kinda is, I'm used to it. it's sort of like talking to someone about my bowel movements. In context, it's fine. but it would be wierd to keep putting everything around me in my life in context to my bowel movements.

[Lady_Wu]

Great thread! I have some gender fluidity in my own life. For instance, when I was little and about until age thirteen. I insisted I was a boy. I played exclusively with boys, made fun of "icky girls", etc. It was until my let me know that I was wrong that I began to reluctantly acknowledge that I was a girl. I've been told that this was a case of my having jumped the guff (I was a 3 month preemie) too soon. I had not truly made the transition from one incarnation to another. But it left me confused as to who and what I was.
For a long, long time I dressed as an androgyne. I had extremely short hair (still do), wore clothing that could be worn by any gender, and was ambiguous in my attitude and actions. Until I spoke, one did not realize I was in fact a girl. And even then was left somewhat wondering.
The only thing I knew for sure was that I was attracted to butches. Was I a fag? I did not know. They surely were attracted to me! Yet I had femmes chasing me, too. (No interest for me there, sorry.) But I never wore dresses or any other femme things. I DID enjoy mixing things up, like camo pants and Doc Martens with a laced, ALMOST femme shirt. I liked to keep people guessing.
Then one day I wandered into a boutique. NOT my normal habitat! The salesperson persuaded me to try on a Flax dress. I liked it. So I bought it and gradually acquired more and more femme items. I let my fingernails grow and began polishing them. I began wearing lipstick. Gradually I morphed into a femmy femme.
This process took place over time and soul-searching. Just wh/what was I? Did it matter to me? I decided that it did, and embraced my femme identity. Yet traces of my androgenous self remain. I wear my hair extremely short, though now for religious reasons. I think of myself as a "Taoist monk", rather than a bhikkhuni. Somes I find myselg longing after men;s clothing. For instance, I would LOVE to dress like Ellen sometimes! Though I would femme that up with jewelry, nail polish, lipstick, ect. I still have my Docs and will occasionally wear them with a dress. I can do anything around the house a butch can do, though would rather not.
The one thing I have never, would never do is act the part of a butch in bed. There I have always been a stone femme! Perhaps that is why I sought out butches! I still don't know why this is so but do not question that anymore. I am who I am, whatever that is. For me that is a femme, with power and the abibity to live on my own terms!
Lady_Wu

[Lady_Wu]

Sigh. Tried to embed "Miskakes Like Me* by Melody Guy from YOU TUBE. Can't figure out why. Anyway that's my theme song. I'm the Yin in the Yand and the Yang in the Yin.