[BullDog]

Originally Posted by Toughy

I don't know if I said this on this site or a different one, but I have said this before.

My insecurities have never been about my masculinity. That is the obvious, visible part of me. My insecurity lies in being a woman. Little kids ask me if I am a boy or a girl and that includes my nieces/nephews and their kids. I pass as man at least 75% of the time and probably 90+%, but I don't want to see that.

The first time I remember being called Sir was when I was 18 and on a date with my fiance (yes I was engaged to a man).............you can only imagine what he had to say to me about that.......

My point is............this butch/femme on-line community could be the first exposure to and sometimes the only place where a very masculine woman could be recognized as woman. To not be pigeon-holed to being a man simply because I don't happen fit in 'normal society' as a woman. A place to be accepted and loved for who I am......a masculine female.....a butch woman.

I thank Angie and Jack for intentionally creating a space where this can happen.

Thanks for this Toughy. It's been gnawing at me for a few days. Yes male identified butches need a place for support and being understood. So do butch women. So do femmes and trans people and everyone.

Coming into a place as a butch woman where you think you are finally with your community and then being He'd all the time and always compared or likened to men- what does that do for the validation for butch women? We are called the right pronouns in the outside world (although still quite misunderstood), but the wrong ones in our own community? That's what it was like for quite some time before this site. So the first exposure many butch women had to an online b-f community (and many people have a limited or non-existence real time b-f community) was to immediately be called He.

All of us need validation. All of us need support. I don't feel that male pronouns are the default here at BFP. I am very happy about that. I also have no problem referring to anyone as He who wants to be referred that way.