This is beautifully stated.

This has been interesting reading. I just want to share something with ya'll. I grew up in the midwest. We referred to everyone as 'you guys'. My mother, however, was insulted when a waitress in a restaurant greeted her, myself, and my sisters with how are 'you guys' today. My mother retorted 'do you see any guys at this table?' Though none of her daughters even realized the wording, it did make me aware that it really was not appropriate for our server to address us that way. She meant no disrespect I am sure, but I would hope that my mother speaking up made her more aware of how she could be preceived. So ya'll take a lesson! Being respectful, is not about what is comfortable for you. It's about what is comfortable for the person you're addressing. As well as, being compassionate is 'not assuming disrespect' is about assuming ignorance of the part of other person. We need to be more tolerant and kinder to each other while we as a non-hetro group are emerging into a cohesive force to be reckoned with.
Love and Light.

This is an interesting topic. I identify as a boi...although most of the heterosexual people in my life refer to me as butch. I am slowly educating them. My dad and best friend both get it and call me a boi. However, at work(i am a chef) I am aware of the woman in me. There are no other women that work in the kitchen. My co-workers view me as a woman, but again I am slowly educating them on the boi construct. On a few occasions some of my co-workers have told me that I cook like a guy, or that I am like a guy because I engage in the conversations about which servers are hot, and because I am not obviously upset by their banter and name calling amongst one another. So, I guess that this thread as got me thinking about how I identify. I know I am a boi...but I have been called both he and she. Neither one really matters to me. I guess I have some more thinking to do.

Martina,

If you started a thread to discuss femme/your gender and to discuss how sometimes your gender is sometimes lumped erroneously with another's gender, and a bunch of butches came into that thread and started discussing how A) your gender is automatically disrespectful to theirs, and B) why don't you ID as butch? and C) celebrated being butch and D) mocked you and started having poking and jabbing conversations about femmes/your gender...would you feel your femme/your gender thread were the right place for that celebration?

Aside from that, you're right...I generalized your personal post. For that, I apologize. It's not fair to you. Again, I'm sorry.


Dylan

P.S. Butler is heinous

I never realized this before.