Hey, I figure that worst case, if you bring up something I don't see myself in, either
a) it will quickly become obvious that Butchness is a Magical Diverse Category of Diversity* and there are many potential experiences and variations within the category b) it raises interesting discussions and we can have a pretty cool conversation c) we will have One Cake to sit and talk about and converse over, rather than the zero we'd have without yours, or the theoretical Second Cake I might put together in response as we keep the conversation going? you know that thing, right?
*makes faces* There's also some weird shit about butchness I was talking to ladypolaris about the other day, where among queer women butch women are often held up as like, The Realest Lesbians/Queer Women Of All, but also no one is quite sure where the line is, and also also when do you know you've crossed it and you really count? And at the same time there is like zero representation out there--not zero exactly, but very very little even compared to lack of representation of queer women generally--and so I feel like many sets of queer women wind up awkwardly looking around and going "well, what does this even look like?" without mental references to real people in our lives. And on top of that, accessing community can be so tricky...
Like, I felt weird about claiming "butch" and still do--am I gender non-conforming enough???, despite the fact that when I look around to compare myself and my preferred gender shit to other people I invariably wind up comparing myself to people who do not identify as women.
Gender is hard, y'all.
*true facts: I know precisely one other person who IDs as a butch woman, and she's my therapist whom I sought out specifically for this reason; most folks I know who live along a FAAB-but-it's-complicated kind of spectrum ID as nonbinary when they're at home rather than female-but-a-specific-subcategorical-tradition-usually-lumped-in-that-whole-overarching-category like me
no subject
a) it will quickly become obvious that Butchness is a Magical Diverse Category of Diversity* and there are many potential experiences and variations within the category
b) it raises interesting discussions and we can have a pretty cool conversation
c) we will have One Cake to sit and talk about and converse over, rather than the zero we'd have without yours, or the theoretical Second Cake I might put together in response as we keep the conversation going? you know that thing, right?
*makes faces* There's also some weird shit about butchness I was talking to
Like, I felt weird about claiming "butch" and still do--am I gender non-conforming enough???, despite the fact that when I look around to compare myself and my preferred gender shit to other people I invariably wind up comparing myself to people who do not identify as women.
Gender is hard, y'all.
*true facts: I know precisely one other person who IDs as a butch woman, and she's my therapist whom I sought out specifically for this reason; most folks I know who live along a FAAB-but-it's-complicated kind of spectrum ID as nonbinary when they're at home rather than female-but-a-specific-subcategorical-tradition-usually-lumped-in-that-whole-overarching-category like me