[Nomad]

i'm really nervous about posting this question because i dont want to offend anyone but i'm so amazingly shaken by an experience i had last night that i want to ask people, especially femmes who might have had this experience, for their advice. the two most significant relationships in my life have been with transguys. one died recently and the other i love very much and speak to whenever we have a chance but our lives are separate for a myriad of reasons. i dont have a butch/femme or queer community outside of the planet. (i'm on the east coast). right now i'm surrounded by friends who identify as 'lesbian' and i love and respect them. i just dont feel like one of them. i dont use the word lesbian as my i.d. and i dont feel i'm being disrespectful because of that either. i i.d. as a femme. it's the word that's the rightest for me. sometimes it makes me kind of invisible and i hate that but there's nothing i can do about people's eyesight so i try not to worry about it so much when i know it's not ill intentioned.

last night, because i said i didnt i.d. as a lesbian i got a boatload of anger heaped on my head by 3 women (none of them members of the planet, which is how the conversation started in the first place because i was telling one of them about it when she said she was having a hard time finding people to date) who were so outraged at my 'blatant betrayal of women by reinforcing stereotypes that gay women really just need a good man' and how it was 'a slap in the face to the hard work' they'd done in the community 'to make being gay a safe and accepted lifestyle'. i was blown away by their hostility and by their assumptions and maybe especially by the use of the word lifestyle!

i'm the sort of person who kind of loves everyone. i dont really have any issues with anybody unless they're an asshole and that's usually something we can talk about and sometimes it turns out that i'm the one being the jerk. i dont have any issue with people of any variety. but when it comes to dating i dont date people. i date an individual. i dont want to date a cis-male. i have them as friends but that's it. i love femmes. i have them as friends but that's it. i love butches. i have them as friends and i'd date a couple of them if asked and the time were right. heres the hard where i want to remind people of my disclaimer. i swear to G*d i dont mean to be rude or dismissive and i really apologize if i'm being an ignorant yutz or hurtful without seeing it. but whenever i've been hit on by a female identified butch i typically dont feel chemistry. it just doesnt happen for me. and i dont get why that's wrong. the same 3 women aggressively criticized me last night for 'fetishizing masculinity in women' and i was so stunned and hurt that i actually cried in public which is something i despise doing.

i want to open up my brain to the idea that i'm being a jerk and i need to learn and grow and change and do whatever work is involved in that but i dont honestly feel that i'm turning anything or anyone into a fetish. to me that's like saying i'm turning someone into an object or that my feelings for them arent sincere or based in actual love. i love whoever i love and i'm thrilled by whoever thrills me right? isnt everybody? is there something wrong with me if i'm only attracted to what i think of as queer masculinity? do the angry women have a point? am i guilty of gender discrimination or fetishizing people or do i just know what powers my flower?

oseh shalom