Third or Other Gender Butch

[imperfect_cupcake]

Originally Posted by BullDog

This certainly resonates with me. Being a woman in no way works against me being butch or masculine.

I was kinda waiting for someone to point that out for them as well. So thank you.

Inks see it the same way. sometimes one her genders gets in an argument with her *body* but never gets in an argument with her other gender. I expereince that. The body that goes with my femme gender it a bit off the mark. But that may be my own baggage with my own conceptions of masculine (for lack of a better word. there is no word for it and that one is a sucky second to what I mean) femininity - perhaps androgenised hyper-femininity? Nevermind I can't explain it. Anyway, inks has a good friendship between her two genders. Maybe one rolls it's eyes a bit at the other on occation but that's about it.

but for both of us, we do have problems with the body matching up to the brain self-picture on occation, but it's not about genders not aligning with each other. I think anyones mulitplicity of gender can have a fine team action going on, rather than polerised bad marriages. Meaning... sorry... it doesn't *have* to be opposites nor does it *have* to be intrusive and cross purposes with each other.

I do get that for some it is. I'm not saying they need to "fly right, jack and pull up your boots straps." all I mean is, more than one gender doesn't mean an internal dogfight *has* to be the result.

[AtLast]

Something that keeps coming up for me is that as a child (born in 1951), I had two friends (girls) that later transitioned into men (their identification). We grew up in a small town and to be honest, the term lesbian wasn't even part of the vocabulary there!

What has always struck me is that both of these friends at a very young age, said they felt they had the body of a female and the spirit of a male. Later as adolescents, it was body of a woman and spirit of a man. This is a phrase very common to transpeople and I believe throughout all of the levels of gender we are discussing.

This always fit for me in terms of the mind-body-spirit paradigm that just is a balancing force for me. Early in life this was simply an internal connection and place of balance and peace. Later, as science progressed in gender theory, and I was exposed to the world and education more, this became a more viable explanation for what these friends felt and struggled with. It also allowed me to ponder my own internal questions about being a masculine woman as well as dealing with my sexuality.

Sometimes when I have conversations with much younger people around all of this, I am so amazed at how far this has all come in my lifetime. Not everyone has the same three dimensional paradigm need for congruency. But, this certainly helped me understand my childhood friend's struggles and need to find their own harmony.

I do think, however, that transitioning without really investigating its many facets and risks (there are some) can be hurtful. Generalized oversimplification of this process is dangerous. I do see (and have experienced) a form of pressure within the B-F community to transition. It has become a cultural phenomenon, I believe, with a sub-culture concerning butches. There is much positive in this and there exists some negative as well in terms of really allowing a person to be who they are (has to go both ways). And as HoneyBarbara has pointed out in many posts, there exists a differences in US butches around this and other countries.

There are a whole lot of us that embrace being female-bodied and butch along with being of another gender that live in harmony and wouldn’t have it any other way. Because it is simply who we are.

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

I was kinda waiting for someone to point that out for them as well. So thank you.

Inks see it the same way. sometimes one her genders gets in an argument with her *body* but never gets in an argument with her other gender. I expereince that. The body that goes with my femme gender it a bit off the mark. But that may be my own baggage with my own conceptions of masculine (for lack of a better word. there is no word for it and that one is a sucky second to what I mean) femininity - perhaps androgenised hyper-femininity? Nevermind I can't explain it. Anyway, inks has a good friendship between her two genders. Maybe one rolls it's eyes a bit at the other on occation but that's about it.

but for both of us, we do have problems with the body matching up to the brain self-picture on occation, but it's not about genders not aligning with each other. I think anyones mulitplicity of gender can have a fine team action going on, rather than polerised bad marriages. Meaning... sorry... it doesn't *have* to be opposites nor does it *have* to be intrusive and cross purposes with each other.

I do get that for some it is. I'm not saying they need to "fly right, jack and pull up your boots straps." all I mean is, more than one gender doesn't mean an internal dogfight *has* to be the result.

I have said more than once in several places around the net that I claim at least 2 genders.........butch and woman being primary genders for me. I live in those 2 genders the large majority of my time.

I have also said that I do have a male id'd part of me (possibly another gender I guess) within the kink community. My leather Top/Dom space is Syr and really has nothing to do with woman and probably little to do with butch. And yes, sometimes it bites me and feels incongruent.....but I do like that space..........I just don't live it 24/7.

I rarely bottom (and don't have a submissive bone in my body) in the kink world.........when I do, I just don't think about it in terms of gender.........I think about in terms of bottom energy.

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Of course femme is also a gender.........I can't even figure why anyone would say it's not.......makes no sense to me.