Men with boobs.

[Jaques]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

Can we get back on topic? Seriously?
This is not a thread about breasts and what they can or cannot do.
You are taking away from a great conversation with this ridiculousness.

....i wouldnt say breast cancer was ridiculous...............anyhow its l.20 am in england and im off to bed...nitey nite!

p.s. love the baby!!!

[Dylan]

I hate to encourage ridiculous behavior, and I promise this is all I'll say on this most ludacrous of sexist derails, but your logic fails jacques in the fact that men have breasts too... a condition known as gynoplasia


Seriously This Is A Useless Derail,
Dylan

[Jaques]

Originally Posted by Dylan

I hate to encourage ridiculous behavior, and I promise this is all I'll say on this most ludacrous of sexist derails, but your logic fails jacques in the fact that men have breasts too... a condition known as gynoplasia


Seriously This Is A Useless Derail,
Dylan

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

What about breast cancer? It is no longer just a women's cancer.


ABSOLETELY......................men can have it too...............in fact, though i have had a double mastectomy, being TG, i had a lump which had to be investigated, turned out to be i'd caused a bruise due to some heavy physical work i'd done, and not noticed it...........luckily!

[Dylan]

I like when things make sense


I Think Somebodddddddddy's Tiiiiiiiiiirrrrred,
Dylan

[Gemme]

It would beneficial to me if I knew Jacques was responding to the initial topic or the 'are men and women different, really?' topic.

*knits brow*

I would be more lenient in my response to Jacques if it were the latter.

[MissItalianDiva]

Here is a prime example of what irritates me. We as LGBT and others...label ourselves and put ourselves in boxes of some sort all the time but the moment someone uses a label that they don't deem appropriate a finger is always pointed.

If she wants to call her butch a short man than boobs then so be it. Like others have stated perhaps this is how the butch identifies. So the real question....so lets assume for a moment this is how this particular butch/woman identifies, does that make it wrong? Why, because it isn't in our usual boxes of labels hmmm.

I think sometimes we can get a little carried away with the whole feminist movement issues. I am willing to bet money that when she called her butch a short man with boobs it didn't cause any damage to the progressive movement

[apretty]

how much money?

[MissItalianDiva]

Originally Posted by apretty

how much money?

LOL.....name your price this could get fun

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by apretty

how much money?

that's not a fair bet.

[Bit]

Originally Posted by June

It is for me, how some folks will refer to their partners as "He and Him" >here< but at home, they are "Her and She", as though it makes THEM less than to be seen in public as a she, so it must be hidden. And you know, that's a personal choice, but for me, it buys into the "He is better than she" and that makes me mad. Like, if you're male, then by all means use the male pronouns all the time, but if you're flipping back and forth depending on the audience, then tell me why, because I do think it's pertinent to this conversation and how we get so riled up about ID's. (bolded for emphasis--Cath)

Because this right here, the online butch/femme community, is the one place in the world where it's safe to say "he" about a person who is living in a female body; more than that, it's immediately understood with little or no explanation. *shrugs*

It is not okay, accepted, understood, or in many cases safe to say "he" in any other community, except for the butch/femme community.

Also, sometimes it's the Butch's choice, not the partner's; so in that case, a person would not be flipping back and forth depending on the audience, but out of respect for the personal preference of the Butch.

Back in the day, when many of us were first talking about Butch as a third (independent) gender, we used to be really careful to always remember to include "BOTH female AND male; and/or neither one" as part of the description of Butch energy. Down the road it became more common in the community to say "female masculinity" as a description of Butch energy and we stopped using the "both female and male" descriptor--but many Butches still think of themselves as "both female and male." For some Butches, that means they really don't care what pronouns anyone uses about them.

For some Butches, it means they DO care, but they bow to the reality of living in a mostly heterosexual world--and that means this, this community right here, is the only place where they can be validated for the male side of their being.

It seems like a really crucial point to me. I think we as a community need to remember that for some Butches, what is invalidated and devalued out in the world is not their "womanness" but their masculinity; for some Butches, this is the place they come to find validation of themselves as whole people, as "both female and male."

As for partners using different pronouns at different times? For many people, it's easy to write one way and speak another--"he" online, "she" verbally--and very difficult to navigate speaking in two different ways about the same person. I never used to have any problems with that, but lately I find that I've been slipping; at first I was accidentally saying "he," but lately the overwhelming pressure the rest of the world puts on me to ONLY speak about Gryph as "she" means that I sometimes find myself saying or writing "she" when I would ordinarily use "he."

Here's the reason I accept that pressure: my allowing myself to be in the habit of saying "he" (in other words, saying "he" at home) could cause serious problems for Gryph--his co-workers, for instance, have sometimes been brutal about his identity--and his old friends, his family, my family, the local community, our neighbors, none of them would get it if I said "he." It would make life immensely more difficult for us both, and would not bring any benefits to either of us; it's better that I just say "she" when I'm speaking (verbally) to other people about Gryph.

Going back and forth between facebook (she) and BFP (he) sometimes trips me up; facebook is one of those places where the communities collide. A significant number of our facebook friends would be baffled by having to deal with Butch gender identification. (Our friends are certainly baffled by having to deal with my Femme gender identification--baffled to the point that I gave up trying to explain it long ago.) In that case, we figure our friends who are from the butch/femme community will get it about why we have to use the female pronouns for someone who has always been known in this community as "he," especially as it seems to be a pretty common occurrence among the Butches we're friended with.

Gryph, being a Two-Spirit, honestly does not care what other people call him, but I think if *I* stopped calling him "Daddy" and "he" it would puzzle and hurt him very much. I am the one person in his day-to-day life who sees him as he actually is, both female and male. We both need me to say "he," whenever and wherever it is safe to do so, and we both know that in order to avoid making mistakes, I have to be pretty consistent about where I say "she" and where I say "he."

Just to be utterly clear, I don't mean "when," I mean "where"--the actual physical places determine what pronouns I use, because my main concern with pronouns is avoiding jeopardizing his safety (both physical and emotional).

Those are the reasons I say "she" at home.

Also to be clear, saying that Gryph doesn't care about pronouns is not the same as saying that he doesn't care what people call him. It makes us both wince and grumble when people refer to us as "ladies," and this morning someone actually had the gall to call him "beautiful" as in, "good morning, beautiful." I have no idea what he would have said to her had she said it to his face, but he was at work and she said it to me, then specified she meant Gryph also.

I didn't say anything about it (although I was flabbergasted; "beautiful"? Has she never paid attention to his pictures, to his wonderful craggy face?) because I don't know what he would want, and that's what's most important in a situation like this: how Gryph wants to respond. The person is someone he cares for, someone he's shepherding through a rough time; he very well might have decided either to speak or to let that go, and I have no right to decide for him. (But it was damned hard to hold my tongue!)

I am finding that most of the people who pay these well-meaning but vastly inappropriate compliments (one of his friends is more and more speaking to him as if he were speaking to a "girly girl," and it's making me crazy) are people he cares for. They are all trying to compliment him by shoehorning him into the box marked Femininity, which once again devalues (erases, even) his masculine identity. Added to the force with which the rest of his world tries to insist that his femaleness cannot possibly contain maleness, it becomes overwhelming and leaves only one refuge for bringing his female-AND-male self back into balance: the online butch/femme community.

And that's the reason I say "he" here.

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

if there was indeed no difference, then why would anyone feel they were in the wrong body? because i don't think that is only related to biology, is it?

Well, I wouldn't know since I've never felt that I am in the wrong body (aside from that month in 4th grade where I started putting my hair up in baseball caps and introducing myself to people as Brandon - no idea what that was about for me...aside from the fact that my friends were all boys and I liked to do "boy things" so it probably seemed perfectly sensible to me at the time).

But it seems to be that there's an incongruency between how one looks and how they would like to look, and how one is perceived in / treated by society and how they want to be perceived / treated - neither of those things have anything to do with changing who you are on the inside, rather they're both about changing physically.

I've never had even -one- friend, during or "after" (is there really an after?) transitioning, who has said "oh yippie! now my instincts, emotions, habits, and personality match how I always wanted them to be!" I've only ever heard variations of "Now my outsides match my insides" and "Now people treat me / see me the way that I wish to be treated / seen."

Originally Posted by Jaques

BOOBS FEED BABY HUMAN BEINGS..................they are wonderful on all who enjoy them - just not on me!

Wow. When did this become the "function of breasts" and/or "some people enjoy having them, others do not" thread? My breasts also function as a vehicle/excuse to wear pretty bras. Gooooo boobs? What is going on here?

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by betenoire

Well, I wouldn't know since I've never felt that I am in the wrong body (aside from that month in 4th grade where I started putting my hair up in baseball caps and introducing myself to people as Brandon - no idea what that was about for me...aside from the fact that my friends were all boys and I liked to do "boy things" so it probably seemed perfectly sensible to me at the time).

But it seems to be that there's an incongruency between how one looks and how they would like to look, and how one is perceived in / treated by society and how they want to be perceived / treated - neither of those things have anything to do with changing who you are on the inside, rather they're both about changing physically.

I've never had even -one- friend, during or "after" (is there really an after?) transitioning, who has said "oh yippie! now my instincts, emotions, habits, and personality match how I always wanted them to be!" I've only ever heard variations of "Now my outsides match my insides" and "Now people treat me / see me the way that I wish to be treated / seen."

I am really just trying to make sense of it. Cal thinks it is a *chemical* difference in the way hy thinks and processes things. I dunno. But Cal just told me you are always right. So there I have it.

[SuperFemme]

I think we also need to remember to value the woman-ness of female id'd butches and not let the valuing of male in others overshadow that.

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

I am really just trying to make sense of it. Cal thinks it is a *chemical* difference in the way hy thinks and processes things. I dunno. But Cal just told me you are always right. So there I have it.

I'm trying to make sense of it, too.

I recognise that my assertion that men and women are essentially the same and that there is no such thing as a female character trait v a male character trait is gonna make me pretty unpopular. That's cool, I'll live.

I'm still waiting for someone to be all like "omg, if men and women are the same then why are there gay people and/or then why aren't we all bisexual?"

p/s - Cal is so smart.

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by betenoire

I'm trying to make sense of it, too.

I recognise that my assertion that men and women are essentially the same and that there is no such thing as a female character trait v a male character trait is gonna make me pretty unpopular. That's cool, I'll live.

I'm still waiting for someone to be all like "omg, if men and women are the same then why are there gay people and/or then why aren't we all bisexual?"

p/s - Cal is so smart.

I really can NOT assign sex to TRAITS. It's making me a little crazy for some reason.

OMG. We're all bisexual....

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

I really can NOT assign sex to TRAITS. It's making me a little crazy for some reason.

OMG. We're all bisexual....

I know, right?

Nothing to see here!

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by Bit

Because this right here, the online butch/femme community, is the one place in the world where it's safe to say "he" about a person who is living in a female body; more than that, it's immediately understood with little or no explanation. *shrugs*

It is not okay, accepted, understood, or in many cases safe to say "he" in any other community, except for the butch/femme community.

Also, sometimes it's the Butch's choice, not the partner's; so in that case, a person would not be flipping back and forth depending on the audience, but out of respect for the personal preference of the Butch.

Back in the day, when many of us were first talking about Butch as a third (independent) gender, we used to be really careful to always remember to include "BOTH female AND male; and/or neither one" as part of the description of Butch energy. Down the road it became more common in the community to say "female masculinity" as a description of Butch energy and we stopped using the "both female and male" descriptor--but many Butches still think of themselves as "both female and male." For some Butches, that means they really don't care what pronouns anyone uses about them.

For some Butches, it means they DO care, but they bow to the reality of living in a mostly heterosexual world--and that means this, this community right here, is the only place where they can be validated for the male side of their being.

It seems like a really crucial point to me. I think we as a community need to remember that for some Butches, what is invalidated and devalued out in the world is not their "womanness" but their masculinity; for some Butches, this is the place they come to find validation of themselves as whole people, as "both female and male."

As for partners using different pronouns at different times? For many people, it's easy to write one way and speak another--"he" online, "she" verbally--and very difficult to navigate speaking in two different ways about the same person. I never used to have any problems with that, but lately I find that I've been slipping; at first I was accidentally saying "he," but lately the overwhelming pressure the rest of the world puts on me to ONLY speak about Gryph as "she" means that I sometimes find myself saying or writing "she" when I would ordinarily use "he."

Here's the reason I accept that pressure: my allowing myself to be in the habit of saying "he" (in other words, saying "he" at home) could cause serious problems for Gryph--his co-workers, for instance, have sometimes been brutal about his identity--and his old friends, his family, my family, the local community, our neighbors, none of them would get it if I said "he." It would make life immensely more difficult for us both, and would not bring any benefits to either of us; it's better that I just say "she" when I'm speaking (verbally) to other people about Gryph.

Going back and forth between facebook (she) and BFP (he) sometimes trips me up; facebook is one of those places where the communities collide. A significant number of our facebook friends would be baffled by having to deal with Butch gender identification. (Our friends are certainly baffled by having to deal with my Femme gender identification--baffled to the point that I gave up trying to explain it long ago.) In that case, we figure our friends who are from the butch/femme community will get it about why we have to use the female pronouns for someone who has always been known in this community as "he," especially as it seems to be a pretty common occurrence among the Butches we're friended with.

Gryph, being a Two-Spirit, honestly does not care what other people call him, but I think if *I* stopped calling him "Daddy" and "he" it would puzzle and hurt him very much. I am the one person in his day-to-day life who sees him as he actually is, both female and male. We both need me to say "he," whenever and wherever it is safe to do so, and we both know that in order to avoid making mistakes, I have to be pretty consistent about where I say "she" and where I say "he."

Just to be utterly clear, I don't mean "when," I mean "where"--the actual physical places determine what pronouns I use, because my main concern with pronouns is avoiding jeopardizing his safety (both physical and emotional).

Those are the reasons I say "she" at home.

Also to be clear, saying that Gryph doesn't care about pronouns is not the same as saying that he doesn't care what people call him. It makes us both wince and grumble when people refer to us as "ladies," and this morning someone actually had the gall to call him "beautiful" as in, "good morning, beautiful." I have no idea what he would have said to her had she said it to his face, but he was at work and she said it to me, then specified she meant Gryph also.

I didn't say anything about it (although I was flabbergasted; "beautiful"? Has she never paid attention to his pictures, to his wonderful craggy face?) because I don't know what he would want, and that's what's most important in a situation like this: how Gryph wants to respond. The person is someone he cares for, someone he's shepherding through a rough time; he very well might have decided either to speak or to let that go, and I have no right to decide for him. (But it was damned hard to hold my tongue!)

I am finding that most of the people who pay these well-meaning but vastly inappropriate compliments (one of his friends is more and more speaking to him as if he were speaking to a "girly girl," and it's making me crazy) are people he cares for. They are all trying to compliment him by shoehorning him into the box marked Femininity, which once again devalues (erases, even) his masculine identity. Added to the force with which the rest of his world tries to insist that his femaleness cannot possibly contain maleness, it becomes overwhelming and leaves only one refuge for bringing his female-AND-male self back into balance: the online butch/femme community.

And that's the reason I say "he" here.

Thank you for your post Bit, and I appreciate your experiences shared and your points about how some male identified butches need to change pronoun usage in different contexts to negotiate comfortably and safely in a hostile world.
Just a quick note about something you said which I've enlarged in your quote above. You mentioned " ..for some Butches, what is invalidated and devalued out in the world is not their "womanness" but their masculinity"...
and I wanted to mention that for me as a woman, my butchness is part and parcel of my womanness.

It is not separate from that of which it is part, nor is it in opposition to itself. (I realize that you may have been speaking here not of butch women but of transgender or two-spirit butches ? but thought I'd use the opportunity to express something about my experience as a woman.)

What IS in opposition to my butch womanness is a social construct that denies the naturalness and authenticity of my very existence as a woman. And yet here I am. Here we all are. Perfectly natural women. I look forward to the day when all women are accepted as they are and that butch women are not neutered by the language used to describe us.

(Bit I know I veered wildly from your post and hope you don't mind me using it as a jumping off point to share my reflections).

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Arwen

Personally, I ask folks how they id if they are of the butch persuasion. Yes, I will default to he because I'm lazy--not because I devalue women. However, I also ask people which pronoun they prefer because that's important to me--to use the language they want used.

However, I often feel as though in threads like this, I'm supposed to feel guilty or sorry for female-id butches who are called he. I also feel that I'm supposed to feel guilty or sorry for masculine-id butches who get called she.

Here's what I don't get.... we have a pronoun spot now. People wanted it. People got it. But, most butches do not use it. Why?

I think there could be lots of reasons:

1) They are unsure which pronoun matches them the best.

2) They feel that "she" should be the default and so it is insulting to even have the pronoun space there (Toughy's always makes me smile!)

3) People worry that others will judge them/make assumptions about them, based on their pronoun choice.

4) Other reasons

The reality is that some butches prefer he, some she, some hy, some shi, and some zie. I don't think that we have any other choice than to work within that reality.

I say, write it in the space, or take what you get. It is not fair to get upset if someone calls you by the wrong pronoun when we all have a very easy and visible way to let everyone know what they prefer. I feel that it is almost unfair to expect others to have to work within a guessing game. If it is important to you, write it in.

Be proud of your pronoun!

Disclaimer: I went against my usual rule of never posting prior to reading a whole thread first, so I hope this still fits in with the current "groove" of the thread! I haven't read past the above quoted post. This has been in my head for a long time, and seeing Arwen's post triggered these thoughts.

[Bit]

Originally Posted by Cyclopea

(Bit I know I veered wildly from your post and hope you don't mind me using it as a jumping off point to share my reflections).

Not at all; thank you for mentioning that. Sometimes it's hard to know whether someone is building on previous thoughts or disagreeing, so I always appreciate when someone tells me which it is!

You said: "and I wanted to mention that for me as a woman, my butchness is part and parcel of my womanness.

"It is not separate from that of which it is part, nor is it in opposition to itself."

Gryph has never mentioned anything like this to me, so I don't know if he would share this viewpoint with you or not; he very well might. And yes, he does identify as a Two Spirit, although I have known others who said they were "both female and male" who simply identified as Butches.

[Martina]

This sounds fine, but that's not the way it works. Often the DEFAULT is male pronouns. Some people's default is "she," but on the previous site anyway, that was much less common. So that's the situation. It's not sometimes -- randomly someone gets called by the wrong pronoun.

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Here's what I don't get.... we have a pronoun spot now. People wanted it. People got it. But, most butches do not use it. Why?

I think there could be lots of reasons:

1) They are unsure which pronoun matches them the best.

2) They feel that "she" should be the default and so it is insulting to even have the pronoun space there (Toughy's always makes me smile!)

3) People worry that others will judge them/make assumptions about them, based on their pronoun choice.

4) Other reasons

The reality is that some butches prefer he, some she, some hy, some shi, and some zie. I don't think that we have any other choice than to work within that reality.

I say, write it in the space, or take what you get. It is not fair to get upset if someone calls you by the wrong pronoun when we all have a very easy and visible way to let everyone know what they prefer. I feel that it is almost unfair to expect others to have to work within a guessing game. If it is important to you, write it in.

Be proud of your pronoun!

Disclaimer: I went against my usual rule of never posting prior to reading a whole thread first, so I hope this still fits in with the current "groove" of the thread! I haven't read past the above quoted post. This has been in my head for a long time, and seeing Arwen's post triggered these thoughts.