How Do You Self-Identify...and why.

[Scots_On_The_Rocks]

As I answered in the "Butch Pronouns - A Questionaire" thread:

Originally Posted by Scots_On_The_Rocks

I chose to answer only the following question as that based upon my answer to it, all other questions seem to be answered by proxy.

So here is the question I referenced and my answer.

1. How do you identify?

This is an interesting question.

The need within the queer community to quantify and validate our existence and identities into neat, organized categories, has caused us to label things to the point that we have become some long string of pronouns, adjectives and nouns. And oft we are touting off this diatribe of words to people who have stopped listening after the first two words of our identity, where we are striving through words to be seen as "different, unique, and new".

Sadly, language is both evolving and stagnating to the point that people still fall through the cracks between descriptors.

And that is where I fall into this.

There are no descriptors that I feel accurately describe me without my having fallen into the "alphabet soup" and come out covered in layer upon layer of adjectives.

So, oft, "for the sake of conversation", I momentarily don the name-tag of "male-identified butch", and then promptly take it off after introductions are made, because it is my actions that determine who I am, not a string of ill-fitting words.

And due to this aforementioned need to quantify and validate that is so rampant within the queer community, I refrain from throwing gender based monikers around when referring to others in that:

1. People tend to get rather defensive and aggressive around mis-usage of the "proper" descriptors of their choice.

2. I want to be as effectively respectful of others as I possibly can in the hopes that they in turn will respect my gender expression, gender identity, and gender preference.