[BullDog]

What Heart says resonates with me. It's not really just a question of do you or do not feel pressured to transition. It's more the "pressure cooker" she describes. The conflation of butch with male/man drives me insane. The conflation of masculine with male drives me insane. This comes from within butch femme communities.

Also within butch femme communities, the definition of woman seems to get narrower and narrower to the point where so many butches feel they don't fit the definition of woman. I claim woman. I am invested in expanding what woman is and can be. To me that is liberating for myself and hopefully helps other women feel liberated as well (not just butch women). I would like to see as much exploration of what woman can be and mean in terms of gender as much as seems to be paid to male/masculine.

This pressure cooker is not coming just from transmen or just femmes- it comes from all genders in the bf community.

In the outside world, visibly queer/lesbian butches have to face the world both as queers and women (and women going against the grain to boot).

So, there's lots of factors going into this, not just yes or no to transition.

Thank you very much for your post, Heart.