Changing last names

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

And I hope you know I feel the same about you. I would hate to have said something upsetting. I always try to be respectful in my posts. And I certainly don't disagree with anything you are saying.

No worries that you are done with this. I don’t have to understand everything. And I can take no for an answer. Actually I hear it a lot because I ask a lot of questions. I know I can be exhausting. I'm learning not to .

I have nothing but respect for you.

MT,

Not upsetting at all. You are always respectful.

One of my issues is always explaining.

I always had to justify myself as a kid and frequently find myself doing that as an adult <<<<<<just like here

I try not to do that when I feel done with something.

I can with the best of them.

[imperfect_cupcake]

I know someone will jump in to say : "there is no shaming going on here".

I know what I feel.

I'm sorry you feel personally shamed. I know that when that comes up for me, ti's cause there's a trigger of past crap there. I don't believe I have shamed anyone in my questions. I don't think there is any shame in someone IDing as old school, liking heteronormative rituals and taking them as their own, with this one stipulation: as long as they are conscious that this is what they are doing

Wanna be heteronormative? bo-yaa. knock yourself out. but own it. I'd like to add I did give props to the one poster who came in and did this. when I read she was fully aware of it and she liked it, I thought "ok, fine with me. glad to know you are happy with doing that and aware of it." thumbs up.

I have a few heteronormative things that I personally find a turn on. and I'm happy to own them to whomever *asks*

What makes me irked is people not aknowledging what they are investing in, denying it and then saying it's a traditional butch-femme ritual "dance" and so there and we all get to act like best suits us, we should be proud.

that, to me, is like sand paper. And I know where that issue of *mine* comes from. It's the assumption that heterosexual norms are what I'm *supposed* to be doing and *that* is called the true "butch-femme" dance. And I'm bastardising it.

so when I ask a social science type question (why do we do X, where does this come from, are we cognisant of this) about us, and get "you are judging me" from people, I would really like it if they would actually show me where I personally have judged someone, so I can either a) clear that error of communication up or b) understand how that could be shaming.

so, if you feel like naming the shaming comments, it's much more helpful to me as a person than someone coming in and saying "I'm being shamed" and .... that's kinda it. I can't do anything about my behaviour if it's not pointed at. It's like someone saying "I was hurt when you were shitty to me today!" and that's it. Um. ok.

So, it would be really helpful if you could show me anything I've said you found shaming.

[Apocalipstic]

I grew up around the double last name thing and like it.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

I don't think there is any shame in someone IDing as old school, liking heteronormative rituals and taking them as their own, with this one stipulation: as long as they are conscious that this is what they are doing

Wanna be heteronormative? bo-yaa. knock yourself out. but own it. I'd like to add I did give props to the one poster who came in and did this. when I read she was fully aware of it and she liked it, I thought "ok, fine with me. glad to know you are happy with doing that and aware of it." thumbs up.

I have a few heteronormative things that I personally find a turn on. and I'm happy to own them to whomever *asks*

What makes me irked is people not aknowledging what they are investing in, denying it and then saying it's a traditional butch-femme ritual "dance" and so there and we all get to act like best suits us, we should be proud.

that, to me, is like sand paper. And I know where that issue of *mine* comes from. It's the assumption that heterosexual norms are what I'm *supposed* to be doing and *that* is called the true "butch-femme" dance. And I'm bastardising it.

I am not saying there is any shame in it but I don’t id as old school. I don’t like heteronormative rituals. I don’t take them as my own. So I will not be conscious that this is what I am doing, because it’s not. As a matter of fact I have put in enough time examining and unpacking to know this is absolutely not what I am doing. Yet I could cheerfully give Truly Scrumptious my name. And I don't have to knock myself out or own it.

I am not making the assumption that heterosexual norms are what I am supposed to be doing, nor am I bastardizing the true butch-femme dance. And I still will give my name to my wife if that is what she wants. I don’t think I have to admit to liking heteronormative rituals or iding as old school in order to give my wife my name. I have to look at it, examine what it means, understand what is behind the rituals, but I don’t have to be invested in the actual heteronormative ritual. I strongly object to that assumption. The patriarchy doesn’t own masculinity, marriage or naming. These things can be appropriated and made in another image. I just have to be cognizant of what I am doing and why. If I believed that I had to identify with heteronormative rituals to have what I want and to be who I am, then I might as well just hand over masculinity to the patriarchy and be done with it. It doesn’t make sense. If I can do woman the way I want regardless of heteronormative rituals and patriarchal rules of gender, then I can marry who I chose and give them my name if I want and still not be aping man/woman relationships.

Maybe I'm missing something but I seriously don't understand why you would say this.

[Dude]

I'm wondering about how not sharing a last name will
affect hospital visitation stuff. If I do have a spouse in
the hospital , I pity the fool who wants me to prove that we
are really married.

[imperfect_cupcake]

she have your name listed as her spouse during hospital registration?

same.last.name.could mean you are her second cousin. same.last.name.doesnt prove much

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by Dude

I'm wondering about how not sharing a last name will
affect hospital visitation stuff. If I do have a spouse in
the hospital , I pity the fool who wants me to prove that we
are really married.

Medical power of attorney.

[BullDog]

To me, thinking that a femme taking a butch's last name is heteronormative is in itself heteronormative thinking. I am not a man or man-like. To me, masculinity does not equal male, and a butch is not a stand in or substitute or close approximation for cis male. Butch is butch and there are many different flavors of butch. So some of the discussion here does have me confused. If a woman took my last name in marriage, she would be taking a butch woman's last name who got it from her father.

[Ginger]

sorry, changed my mind

[Martina]

I'd like to take up the issue that butch-femme history was "masculine driven" or however it was put. That is simply not the case. For material reasons. Queer folk have not enjoyed institutional support for our unions. Few employers, churches and family members took an interest in how butch-femme couples ran their lives except to condemn them outright. The state granted no legal privileges to either partner as there was no legal marriage. (Most butch-femme couples were marginalized socially and economically.) And as was noted, butches were not economically more powerful than femmes; often they were less so.

So there was no great power disparity between butches and femmes. While many femmes deferred to butches in public and private, this was not a patriarchal institution. It just didn't work that way. I am old, and I knew some butch-femme couples from the fifties and even the forties. And they were not couples whose relationships were marked by real power disparities.

Butch-femme culture is, and has been, rife with sexism. And that matters, but our relationships have never been like heterosexual relationships because real power never rested with butches. And material power differences are what maintain oppression, not ideology alone.

[imperfect_cupcake]

I would buy that bulldog, if the thought was born out of thin air.

or

If just as many butches took femmes names and it was equal. but taking a tradition from a heterosexual past, and applying it Feminine to Masculine....

I understand what you are trying to say and that's not why I am trying to point out.

people do things, even me, that are because of what they have learned as feminine to masculine traditions. they may have deconstructed them, they may be Uber Queer and both are women, but they are still acting traditions they recognise as feminine to masculine.

they did not make them up themselves. they are following what they are taught, feminine to masculine.

I am *NOT* calling people sheep, telling them they are bad, or evil for doing so.

actually, know what?

fine. no one in butch or femme land ever does anything remotely heterosexual. we made all of our own dynamics up from thin air and out of our own bums. we were born blind to gender roles and created our own from scratch.

we are innocent and entirely unto ourselves.

amen.

later folks

[Martina]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

What makes me irked is people not aknowledging what they are investing in, denying it and then saying it's a traditional butch-femme ritual "dance" and so there and we all get to act like best suits us, we should be proud.

that, to me, is like sand paper. And I know where that issue of *mine* comes from. It's the assumption that heterosexual norms are what I'm *supposed* to be doing and *that* is called the true "butch-femme" dance. And I'm bastardising it.

When I was coming up, at the very beginning when I heard about and was exposed to the butch-femme dynamic, it wasn't about gender roles or norms. Also, while I am not butch and can't say what privately went on among butches, there didn't seem to be a lot of competition around who was more masculine. Same with femmes re femininity. There was competition around who was more good looking and who had a partner and whose partner was happy or straying. That sort of thing.

Butches would posture, but it was in the service of impressing a girl. It wasn't an identity thing. When I was coming up, a butch was cool if she 1) had a girl who was crazy about her and 2) had a reputation for being a really good lover (therefore was popular among femmes). It was sometimes very Rico Suave -- I put a spell on women -- that kind of thing. Femmes would roll their eyes, but lick their lips.

Being known for being able to please a woman -- that was the rep butches sought after. That was almost the core of butch identity. If you asked someone what made her butch, after being surprised at the question, I bet most of the time she would have answered because she could make a woman come back for more -- beg for more. That kind of thing. There was a lot of arrogance and trash talk about that. Very little about markers of masculine gender presentation.

The dance was more about sex than it was about gender. I don't think it's just because gender roles were a given or because people lacked the language to talk about it back then.

Our history is not well-documented, and we project our current preoccupations onto the past without much thought. But I recall. I was not femme when I met some of these women. Just a baby dyke. But I recall.

From the stories I heard, there wasn't a lot of policing of gender or how people ran their relationships. Everyone struggled, and everyone was at risk to one extent or another.

That incredible self-righteousness and tendency toward intense self-examination -- that came with my generation of dykes. I think that older folks had enough serious economic and physical threats to their well-being that they didn't look for silly reasons to exclude.

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by Martina

...

That incredible self-righteousness and tendency toward intense self-examination -- that came with my generation of dykes. I think that older folks had enough serious economic and physical threats to their well-being that they didn't look for silly reasons to exclude.

...

Hey Martina great post. I excerpted this one section because "serious economic and physical threats" still exist many butch/femme folks. It feels silly to say that; it's such a given. I must have misunderstood something but still, here's my comment. Scout

[Ginger]

I would have been this kind of straight woman: I keep my own name; we have shared resources but I also have my own money; my career matters as much as his; neither "defers," but we make decisions about our life together, together, etc.

And that's the kind of femme partner I would have been.

[Chancie]

My sister changed her name when she married her (cis male) husband and I was shocked to hell.

[Okiebug61]

Red would not take my last name nor would I take hers.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Martina

When I was coming up, at the very beginning when I heard about and was exposed to the butch-femme dynamic, it wasn't about gender roles or norms.

That incredible self-righteousness and tendency toward intense self-examination -- that came with my generation of dykes. I think that older folks had enough serious economic and physical threats to their well-being that they didn't look for silly reasons to exclude.

That’s not how I remember it.

I grew up in a poor and working class neighborhood with the usual variety of society’s throwaways. In the projects it was all families on welfare but the surrounding tenements were a mish mash of fringe. I learned a lot about alternative life styles. I learned a lot about a lot of things really. I was always a watcher and I processed what I saw in depth even as a kid. I saw queens tormented and beaten for fun. I watched homeless guys get beaten for fun. I watched drunks get rolled and beaten for fun and profit. I watched junkies on the nod get left alone. I watched bull daggers get tormented and sometimes beaten, but much differently than queens. Kind of like one would poke a junk yard dog, carefully and always with a back up plan. There was this one butch everyone talked about how tough she was, how she could kick any guy’s ass. They despised her because she was different, queer and masculine presenting, but there was also reverence and grudging respect because she was dangerous and tough. She was impressive looking that’s for sure.

I identified mightily with the neighborhood butches called bull daggers or diesel dykes. I wanted to grow up to be like them. They were tough and they lived like men. As I got older I watched the butch/femme couples in the neighborhood. They may not have said gender roles or norms but they sure as shit acted them out. Butches didn’t cook and do laundry or go grocery shopping and they sure as hell did not do housework. They drank in bars, worked manual labor and fixed their own cars. And when their femmes got home from working in factories they took care of the house and their butches. When I got old enough to get away with drinking in bars I had occasion to see butch-femme dynamics a little closer and it sure looked like heteronormative behavior to me. And without any of the accompanying examination or soul searching to water it down that we see nowadays. No nod to gender equality or angst over misogyny. How I processed what I saw led me to deny that I was a butch who loved femmes. I often dated and/or partnered with women who were attracted to female masculinity, but like me they did not identify with the butch femme dynamic. I refused the dance. I thought it was sexist and misogynistic and not at all in line with the person I wanted to be. It was a long road home. And I’m happy to have arrived a proud butch woman married to a proud femme woman. It’s our dance and sometimes I lead and sometimes I follow. And I’m happy either way. I do not live the butch femme relationships I grew up seeing, I don’t share the ideals of the butches I knew and listened to as a kid. They may not have spoken about gender roles or gender norms but they lived them. And they did so unapologetically without any thought to what they were perpetuating. So personally I’m glad we do some naval gazing nowadays. At least there are alternatives to the hyper masculinity I saw growing up. There may have been then too, but I never saw it and nobody talked about stuff like that. So I’m glad we talk about it now.

Masculinity has always been revered. It didn’t just happen with gender conversations. Roles were always a part of the butch femme dynamic, at least in my part of the world. They weren't thought about they were just done, just lived. But now we have an awareness of what it means to play that way. There are many of us who don’t think femmes equal hetero women and butches equal men. Just like I'm sure there were many who never thought that way when I was growing up either. But nobody talked about that. It was assumed to be exactly how it looked. Examining stuff is empowering. Masculinity has been separated from men and patriarchy. Femmes parse femininity in their own image. It’s not perfect but it’s better.

[Cin]

I am talking about the 70s not the 40s or 50s so that might make a difference.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

I am talking about the 70s not the 40s or 50s so that might make a difference.

I doubt it. I think it's all true, what I am saying AND what you are. I think a lot of those femmes had a lot more power than it may have looked like from the outside, as did some straight women. There was not much social reinforcement of the power of butch women in their relationships. And no economic or state. I definitely saw women adopt roles in their relationships. Of course they did. But it was different from heterosexual relationships, and their understanding of it was very different from what we imagine it was like.

Yes, gender roles were a given, and some folks were pretty entrenched in them. Probably some of those relationships were made miserable because of that. And some worked well. But I think that folks worked out all kinds of variations on a theme. Straight people did too, but lesbians had less social pressure on them and therefore more freedom to do what worked for them.

And it looked way different to me. So much emphasis on making the femme happy. And not just from stone butches. And not just in the courting phase. That was kind of the center of the connection, not the butch's masculinity or the femme's femininity. Yeah, people grooved on that. That was the source of a lot of the heat. And of course it was part of people's personal identity. But it wasn't as defining as it is now. Nor was it defining of the dynamic. It just wasn't.

I will say that the women I knew at the time were older. Older folks in long-term relationships work things out and mellow. Plus times were already changing.

What I was reacting to was the statement that the dance was somehow first and foremost about gender roles. We emphasize some parts of these identities and interactions more than they did. They emphasized others. Pleasing the femme is still important. But if you watch some unreflective young butches now, you'd never get that. It would seem to be ALL about gender performance. It was about gender performance then too. There were codes of dress. But it WAS different. Every social construct changes over time, and if it is maintained, people later in the timeline assume what they experience was always the case. Not so.

I will add that -- not just to you -- but can you imagine how brave femmes were at the time? How incredibly brave. These were not, in general, people who were thrown out of their families for being dykey-looking. They stepped away from privilege and safety by choice. And while the old ethos was that butches "protected" their femmes, it seemed to me that in many ways, it was the other way around. Femmes patched up butches up emotionally and physically, but they also stood with them side by side and took all the social disapproval and some of the violence meted out to such couples.

And the butch and femme women I met -- mostly through politics -- were on the left, members of unions and long-time fighters for social justice. They believed in the equality of women. That had to have affected the way they lived their personal lives.

I will also add that I sure never denied the degree of violence and hatred directed toward gay people from the outside. So that part of your post puzzled me.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Martina

I will also add that I sure never denied the degree of violence and hatred directed toward gay people from the outside. So that part of your post puzzled me.

I didn’t mean to make it about violence directed toward gay people. There was violence directed toward lots of people. Violence was part of the fabric of people’s daily lives. It still is I’m sure. But violence directed toward gay people was not the point I was making. I can see I do way too much meandering when I write a post. Sorry. It was about how butches dealt with the violence that I was talking about and how that affected me as a kid. It was impressive to me at that time. I wanted to be that. I wanted to be a dangerous butch when I grew up. And then I talked about how as I got older I moved away from wanting to emulate the butches I knew because of some of the things I saw in their relationships. And then how I worked through that and back out the other side.

And for me it still is about making my wife happy. Even though I know I cannot be responsible for another person’s happiness, I just make damn sure I am never responsible for her unhappiness. That seems to work pretty well.