Friendship Circles: Gender Differences in How We Do It?

[imperfect_cupcake]

I get what Martina was saying. My friends are my friends and I don't like gender labeling them. I did think this was great before I left for the UK, but once I got to a place where sorting people into "gets me" by gender didn't work (too much variance) it was really, really pointless.

I have extremely close friends that are: trans, intersex, femme (of the "meh" ID kind, meaning yeah, I'm femme, meh), butches (of the afore mentioned meh), some who are quite proud of their ID but other than when they are shouting it on the stage really never ever bring it up, some who call themselves "dolly mixture/liqourice all sorts", butch (of the strongly ID'd but not really into dicussing it too much as it seems a bit moot), bisexual cis queerdos, I can go on.

I just don't ever say "this is my femme friend" as tbh they would find it just as weird as if I introduced them as "my lesbian woman female friend".

I don't see femme as a point of pride. I'm not ashamed of it. It just is. kinda like my tits. It's there, it's what it is, it's perfectly acceptable and ... meh.

So although I don't cringe when people do it, it does seem "foreign and clunky" and not really something I can relate to much. I know I used to... but I don't really have that anymore.

My friends are more divided, to be honest, in my head, by introvert/extrovert scales. I can talk to my friends who are butch about fashion and politics just like my mates who are femme. And my cis straight bloke mates are THE BIGGEST GOSSIPS EVER, honest to fuck if I was going to base one gender trait on my own grouping... cis heterosexual men are massive gossips. and Unca ted (a ver old mate of mine) never shuts up. like, ever.

but he's an extrovert, like me.

I just don't see it reflecting my life, that's all. the diversity between anyone of them and another intersex man, or another femme or another post-modern butch, or another transwoman or another ... it is really... there are more differences intragender than intergender.

If I get asked that "well why do you come here then" my big answer is "I have no idea. cause I know people here?" cause a lot of the stuff I read sometimes makes me go "huh??? since WHEN?"

I tend not to date butches that are all about being butch and me being femme. or whittering on about "the dance"
I like sex with butches. b-f is my sexuality. that's about as far as it goes. b-f really, for me, all it is, is about the sex. I'm going to be totally honest. I like a female person who has a cock (in it's various forms, flesh and silicone) and sometimes it's nice if they have a vagina and a clit, though it doesn't have to be stated that way. that's kinda it.

I also like them to dress in men's/tomboy clothes, be sexually dominant and kinky dirty fukers, but that has nothing to do with gender.

so, like some people are lesbians but don't eat lentils or listen to tracy chapman, I'm b-f sexual but I don't dig the binary gender behaviour assumptions. I guess I'm not Old School American b-f. that's ok. I'm totally fine with that.

if someone finds me a chair, it's for me, and because they adore me and care about me, not because I'm a femme - or it bloody well better be for me and not cause of my gender grouping. I do things for people because I love and care about them. I don't care what gender they are. I got so confused with this when I got back... all the rules I forgot about during dating... I just forgot about how things are done here. I got used to just being Babs who happens to be femme. and we are friends because of our connection. I had close mates who were butch that I slept with in the same bed and cuddled with.
And talked about stuff. I still do. it doesn't *feel* like I'm talking to someone of another gender... I'm talking to another *person* independant from me.

However, if I'm talking to someone who keep gendering me, I really feel it. and I get annoyed. One of my friends always unlocks my bike for me. But she does it with such care that it doesn't feel like "Must Unlock Femme Bike" which coming home, I have to say I can *really* pick up on. And it feels weird to me. But a lot of girls like it here. Cool. If that's how you reach your bonna, Tally Ho! and all that.

But it feels clunky, odd and foreign to me. And I feel lonely when someone does that. I feel like a cardboard cutout of a femme unit. I feel erased as a person. I like being someone's *friend*. ME. then, later, you can, yannknow, look down my top. that's fine lol.