Male ID butch vs. FTM??

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Yes this is quite difficult when people have their own personal meanings for things. You don't associate stone butch with woman or lesbian, yet I am a stone butch, woman and lesbian. I know many other stone butches who are also women and lesbians.

Dapper says many consider butch to be inherently transgender. I am not at all transgender and I am a butch. I think to call me transgender would be inaccurate and would not help people to understand what transgender means for those who really are. Yet I am most definitely butch.

No, no, no. I said inherently THIRD gendered. Very different! And many do view butches this way, just like there are many who don't.

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

No, no, no. I said inherently THIRD gendered. Very different! And many do view butches this way, just like there are many who don't.

Well I am not third gendered either. It would be inaccurate to describe me as third gender and to say all butches are third gendered would not be any more true than saying all are transgendered.

[BullDog]

Well, I have had the same difficulty as HB with understanding the term male identified butch, whereas TG Butch has always made sense to me. I am not sure they mean the exact same thing and it will vary from individual to individual. I have always associated male= biological sex and man/woman/butch/femme etc = gender, so male being used in what seems to me to be gender terms does confuse me.

I just got into the habit that if someone says they are male then I consider them male. It doesn't have to do with biology, surgery, transitioning, hormones, etc. It has to do with who they say they are. Not everyone has the same options or makes the same decisions based on how to align their physical body and legal status with their gender, biological sex or physical body attributes. I think many who consider themselves to be male id'd butches- it is more about their mind than actual physical body, or where the two meet. Ender did talk about that.

I was reading something today about the Nikki Araguz case. It wasn't written by a scientist but it did make sense to me. The person was talking about how we tend to exaggerate the role that reproductive organs play in determining biological sex, when it fact they are actually, in many ways, a minor component of the physical body. There is of course reproduction of the species, which is quite important, but in terms of how we relate to our bodies our genitals are not the be all, end all. Then there's the fact that I'm a woman and have a cock whether it's strapped on or not.

OK the last paragraph may not make a lot of sense, but anyway I think biological sex is more than about what the textbook definitions of male and female are, lol. First of all we all know that intersex does exist. Also, there may be scientific basis for biological sex, but most of what we understand our biological sex and physical bodies to be and mean come from cultural and personal understanding. Most of us are not scientists.

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by BullDog

I was reading something today about the Nikki Araguz case. It wasn't written by a scientist but it did make sense to me. The person was talking about how we tend to exaggerate the role that reproductive organs play in determining biological sex, when it fact they are actually, in many ways, a minor component of the physical body. There is of course reproduction of the species, which is quite important, but in terms of how we relate to our bodies our genitals are not the be all, end all. Then there's the fact that I'm a woman and have a cock whether it's strapped on or not.

OK the last paragraph may not make a lot of sense, but anyway I think biological sex is more than about what the textbook definitions of male and female are, lol. First of all we all know that intersex does exist. Also, there may be scientific basis for biological sex, but most of what we understand our biological sex and physical bodies to be and mean come from cultural and personal understanding. Most of us are not scientists.

I agree with what you've said and that there is probably more to biological sex. But I just wanted to make a note on the last bit. There is also a scientific basis for "brain sex" or neurological sex. In the last decade or so it's been found that those born in biologically female bodies who consider themselves male tend to have somatostatin neuron numbers in the brain in the male range (men have double the number that women have), while biologically born males who consider themselves female have numbers in the female range. So there does seem to be a scientific basis in the feeling of maleness or femaleness despite biological sex or being neither one. I think it would be interesting to see further studies, since, as we've all discussed here, the spectrum of identification goes beyond male and female and there are likely answers regarding how we identify in all of our brains.

I think you've hit the nail on the head when it comes to the popularly viewed importance of reproductive organs.

@HowSoonIsNow, I don't think that it is necessarily all that recently that the term butch has expanded or that butch has always necessarily meant masculine lesbian. Just thinking of Stone Butch Blues (as far as I remember, Jess talked about not feeling like a lesbian, not feeling female or male but something else. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, my memory's foggy) and even some of what's been said by prominent butch or tg authors, people around these sites, at conferences like Butch Voices (from what I've had the chance to see of the conference on youtube...would love to go one day) as well who talked about the butch/femme scene in the 50's, 60's, 70's as well as how both older and younger butches see their identity. I can't say out of personal experience, I wasn't there, but that's what I've gathered from hearing and reading what others who were have had to say. Maybe those who did not identify as lesbian were not the majority of the butch population in the past, but from what I gather still present. Just as male id'd butches today are pretty much a minority among those who do identify as butch, but still present.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Well I am not third gendered either. It would be inaccurate to describe me as third gender and to say all butches are third gendered would not be any more true than saying all are transgendered.

Bully I don't think Dapper is saying that. Third gender is as much an identity on the spectrum as the rest of the identifications folks use to describe who they are to an audience that understands the concepts of gender.
Make since?

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

No, no, no. I said inherently THIRD gendered. Very different! And many do view butches this way, just like there are many who don't.

Originally Posted by BullDog

Well I am not third gendered either. It would be inaccurate to describe me as third gender and to say all butches are third gendered would not be any more true than saying all are transgendered.

True, it would be inaccurate. Which is why I didn't say that.

<---very confused.

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

True, it would be inaccurate. Which is why I didn't say that.

<---very confused.

I am not being argumentative. I am saying that to say inherently third gender would be inaccurate- emphasis on word inherently. I did not take it to mean that you, Dapper, thought that.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by BullDog

I am not being argumentative. I am saying that to say inherently third gender would be inaccurate- emphasis on word inherently. I did not take it to mean that you, Dapper, thought that.

Ohhh, ok, I think I get what you are saying, now.

You are saying that you disagree with the concept that butches are inherently third gendered. You were saying that this cannot be so b/c you are butch and you are not third gendered. Am I understanding you correctly?

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Ohhh, ok, I think I get what you are saying, now.

You are saying that you disagree with the concept that butches are inherently third gendered. You were saying that this cannot be so b/c you are butch and you are not third gendered. Am I understanding you correctly?

Yes, I don't believe all butches are third gendered. I also don't believe all butches are transgendered. I think it is misleading to say butch is inherently a third gender or transgender. A butch may or may not be third gender. A third gender person may or may not be butch.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Yes, I don't believe all butches are third gendered. I also don't believe all butches are transgendered. I think it is misleading to say butch is inherently a third gender or transgender. A butch may or may not be third gender. A third gender person may or may not be butch.

Ok in the context of this thread is where Dapper is using "inherently". No not all butches are third gendered, nor are they female, or male or transgendered. They are all over the spectrum and in the context of this male id'd/ FTM thread it may make more since than a strictly female lesbian butch thread. Yes? No?