Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow
I don't experience any lumping in until I come onto these sites. When I am out in my own personal queer bubble or even in my D/s bubble my peers treat me differently. I am not shunned for not being girly or femme enough and my masculinity and use of male pronouns if I so choose is not questioned.
I feel we all have more than just female and male flowing through us, and we tend not to express this due to being judged, not accepted and hell just trying to fit in with community.
I think to be an inclusive community we have to be open to accepting these variations, odd behaviours and communication styles. Key word being acceptance.
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Yep! it took me awhile to adjust to the on and off-site stuff. I still have trouble with some of it, but, i think it is just one of those things. Also, posting in threads is just not the same as the give and take of real-time conversations when we can adddress things right away.
This whole thing was started due to some folks believing (one way or the other) that butch cannot (or can be) used by trans people, no matter if they choose to augment (ie., hormone therapy, surgery, etc.) aspects of male or female.
Since both butch & femme are used outside of our community (gay and straight people use these terms, too), this struck me as proprietary and, well, Although, my personal history is not claiming butch in younger days, there are many here that have transitioned (in various forms, or claim male or masculine), that continue to identify with butch for themselves and have a long history with this identity. So, I was kind of taken back that other's would take issue with this. I also don't get some of the femme identity boxes.
Mainly, I wanted to try and get into another realm- outside of transitioning in any form altogether and have these identifications be recognized without negative judgement. What I continue to find (here and in real-time, inside and outside of queerdom) is the same old binary wall. Conversations always flow to trans issues or remain tied to male or female, masculine or feminine concepts rooted in traditional thinking. Kind of amazing when I think about all of the really well informed people here that bring so many different ideas to forums.
Of course, I can only speak to my own perceptions and actually, I am not feeling negative. Sometimes, I feel that many that fit into other types of minority groups are silenced by
our own narrow binary- butch or trans, etc. And there are times when I have felt that folks (no matter their chosen identification) are challenged to change themselves to fit into this very sub-binary like box.
This isn't an easy subject for me at all. So, I don't know if I am being clear- Then again, one of the things that keeps me plugged into the site/community is the fact that it does offer a place to work through things and get feedback. Even with the blow ups, we usually get somewhere, here.