[Jett]

Revel in your strength... there's nothing weak about a female and/or women who flips a bird to the naysayers, the peer pressure, binary expectations and walks into "a mans world" every single day with masculinity and a proud swagger to boot without giving up any part of being respected as a female and/or women. This is a space is for rapping about living life openly as a female and/or woman who holds by societal standards "too much" masculinity for the world to be comfortable with... and how we deal with the good the bad and the just plain ugly that comes our way.

The world we live in already is inherently deeply mired in misogyny and sexism, fallacies of masculinity and who owns/wears the boxers and who owns/wears the panties in the arena of the sexes. Sexist innuendo based on a patriarchy's cultural misnomers that women can't be masculine, can't wear the boxers and if they do it's easier to understand if they claim man in them. When we speak and take space in the outside world and in our own communities it's often challenged, we're often put to task to explain as to reason or need, considered insubordinate radicals, wave-makers, put on the defensive, patrolled... insecurities abound.

For good reason? Perhaps... because the patriarchy has something to defend... has something to lose. Something that seemingly has to be taken as it's been proven it not going to be graciously given, and females/women are more than able, and less than willing to be bullied out of it. I find even we here in our own communities we haven't escaped it and it's even more ridiculous, frankly sad to see it played out in LBGQT, Butch Femme communities.

I think something that's not recognized is that Butch Women/Female ID face a special unique set of challenges internally in (but not just limited too) struggling to integrate who we are against binary and patriarchal teachings masculinity = man, but also outwardly/externally being recognized in for both masculinity and female/women simultaneously and seamlessly. It isn't an easy road to navigate or explain. In the real world our women-hood is challenged and we often find ourselves on the outside of women looking in, in Butch Femme communities our masculinity is challenged and we find ourselves relegated a lesser form of masculinity, put on a spectrum, and often replied to with masculine pronoun by default. Is this so bad? It is when it's shrugged off and treated as not as important an issue, not equally offensive or defended as intensely as a male being called a women... it is when it's serving to make us less visible just in it's erasure of the s in she... cyberspace and real world.

Add to that the here and there sexist covert remarks from individuals of all identity... I've heard from "I date X-ID only b/c I want to be the only one in bed with the panties" and from... "I don't identify as relate as female because I "- always played with trucks? Only wears man's clothes? Don't feel feminine? Are masculine? Take a masculine role in life/relationships? Guess what!... stand in line, me too.

Something I find a very personal affront, and again making Women or Female ID seem less visible, and seems to act as silencing, is when our experiences are dismissed as less valid or universal. That somehow because we're butches and we're all born female with masculinity, that it's been the same for XYZ... the "don't forget X's knows what it's like they used to be there too" (except when the shoes on the other foot then their/it's not the same).

I'm sorry but when I'm treated by a patriarchal society like "a woman", treated differently with inequality I don't have the defense of saying (or even thinking) don't treat me that way I'm a man, treat me like a man. It's in no way the same internal experience. I have to take it upon me as an affront on me, not that they've mistaken my gender. I'm the one who has to deal internally with living woman in a mans world, with knowing, yes I am, what they're dissing. I'm the one who'll take that head on from the trenches my entire life.

Bottom line I've looked at that and life through a female existence, a masculine woman's internal space. Yes, there is real experience shared by butches, in treatment we received at a glance from the outside, from strangers... but after that experience is internal perspective and the lens you view the world from. I won't try to claim another's personal experiences as always having viewed the world from a male view, growing up as a boy in a female body if one doesn't try to claim to have looked through my eyes as a female/woman, growing up struggling internally to first understand, then preserve and exert my identity as female when by society standards I acted/behave lived like a boy... and continual fight for my right to do so without being a man or referred to as one... to have my masculinity accepted/respected as valid as a female.

That all trickles down differently, unique perspectives, trials, stories... lived experiences... not a worse or better issue, difference. Maybe this all would be understood better if not dismissed and essentially derailed, droned over by "me too's" that are actually out of place and I often find suspect because of it's sided fashion... "I know what it's like to be you... but you don't know what it's like to be me". Frankly that's not possible.

So... this is about masculinity owned by females/women, those who own it unapologetically without attributing it to anything except who they are as strong Butch Female/Women. Many ID's, certainly some, can relate to some of the experiences here, as we can strongly to some of theirs but this space is intended to discuss our unique perspectives, and as we respect others space, ours is no less valuable and I believe necessary.

That said, I think we have a responsibility to ourselves, and to all women to stand up too, take space, speak on the non-equality in the unique spaces we occupy. If Women ID Female ID butches are treated differently it's solely because of the word women and female... and I can guarantee you the sexist and misogynistic messages aren't focused to just the butches, they extend right though out to all females and women by default.

Ok, to be clear, this is a Butch Female ID and or Butch Woman ID positive space, if you just want to say "I'm a Butch Female (ID) and I don't give a shit what anybody thinks!" say just that. It's about our minds, our bodies, unique experiences, comradery, dead seriousness (and occasional nonsensical general ridiculousness hopefully)... and for supporters and allies of our identity to speak of their own experiences.

This is taking equal space, that we and those who support us come here to find we have some, as I've heard expressed needed... this is not intended to be divisionary. I hope everybody does their best to speak from the "me - I" place and refrain from making judgments about or generalizing others identities. Call me crazy, but, in the end I believe we'd fight together better for our spaces in a homophobic misogynistic world and be a better example if we started by defending each other equally in our own spaces.

Strength and Pride.

Metropolis
*talked out (perhaps for life ; )) but will return*