Masculine of Center -- the term

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by Boots13

...
I don't know how to proudly claim Butch, without setting up an exclusionary dynamic. If the term Butch is white-centric, and if using the word Butch sets up a bias whats my next best-practice for disassembling that exclusion without diluting my identification ??? Or is it the ultimate goal to NOT have descriptors and live in a fluid world of humans "being"... in which case having NO words or descriptors is a slippery slope to homogeny.

my head is still trying to wrap around the white-centric dynamic of claiming Butch , when I was stuck on the white-MALE-centric association of Center !

I don't think there is any agreement, much less consensus, that there's anything white-centric or exclusionary about claiming 'butch'. I know many POCs who proudly claim it, and have no mixed feelings whatsoever about the word or the ID. As explained above, there are POCs who don't, for their own reasons, use the word for themselves. This discussion does seem to break along generational lines.

If a group of people decided to stop using the word 'femme' to describe themselves, and came up with a new identifier FOR THEMSELVES, I wouldn't be in a big hurry to change my own ID in response.

[Martina]

I always thought it made a lot of sense that many men -- African American ones I knew or knew about in Detroit -- did not claim gay even though they were out and exclusively homosexual. I have seen African American gay men in social and political groups suffer the slings and arrows of subtle and not so subtle racism. Even with their friends. It wasn't all the time, but there was never a time that they could anticipate when it would be over, when they could imagine it not coming up again.

I have had my own issues with the lgbt community, but it has been a home of sorts. I hate it that for many, because they are PoC, that never happened. But it's a fact -- of my generation anyway. And I respect the decision to NOT identify as gay. Again, one of the people I knew who did that organized the Hotter than July festivities for a few years -- the Black Gay Pride celebration. So he was not in any way not out. It was a statement, his ID. And I respected it.

[puddin']

for me, gender is fluid... some days i'm butch as, some days i'ma boi. some days i've even been known to squeal like a girl. lol.

i've neva much liked identities. it's too confinin' fo' me. i'm always in flux, and (at 54) i like it dat way.

i like to think i'm a mellow blend o' woman/man...