[Parker]

Originally Posted by Merlin

Alot of butches I know are going through gender re-assignment surgery to become male,they are at varying stages of this.

My question is this :
Butches have you ever felt pressurised to have a sex change?

Have you ever felt it off other butches/transguys who want you to follow the path they have set ?

Everyone welcome to answer but I would like to hear off the butches too.

The pressure I felt was pretty subtle at first - mainly because being or becoming trans wasnt as well known back in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s - at least not in my world - I didnt know of anyone who transitioned or even knew what that meant or entailed.

But even as a kid, people thought I was a boy - my mom would never let me cut my hair short so even in high school with long hair (actually a mullet - it was the 80s after all lol), I got sir'd all the time and people thought I was a man most of the time.

So when I was in my early 20s and struggling with my sexual orientation (read: trying to accept that I was a big ol' dyke), I considered transitioning because so many people thought I was a man already, I figured I might as well go ahead and fit what society is already seeing and assuming.

That led to a lot of introspection and a lot of talking about things with friends and I decided that I would be transitioning for the wrong reasons - I cant spend my life giving a fuck about how society sees me - whether they see the woman that I am or the man that they assume I am.

The truth was simple: I liked being a woman and didnt want to be a man. I just had to become "ok" with being a woman who also happened to be masculine and who would be mistaken for a man 90-95% of the time by the world at large (sometimes, even in gay bars - talk about being invisible ).

There was also a time in my 30s when sometimes some people in the trans community would tell me I should transition - that I already passed so why not go all the way, as if the ID &/or gender of butch couldnt stand on its own but instead had to be a stepping stone for a more evolved state of being: FTM.

That was frustrating and I still get that sometimes - the "oh you're just envious" or the "why dont you just transition already" comments, but I figure that has more to do with the insecurities of the people saying those things than me, my ID, or how I present myself.

It's a constant struggle to be seen - a struggle that is exhausting and a struggle that I sometimes just want to give up, but I also feel that it's a necessary struggle so that the butches coming up behind me will know that butch *can* stand on its own and not be part of an evolution into something or someone else.