Men with boobs.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

I And I keep seeing statements about most butches identifying as female. What is this based upon? Are there some site stats around that I don't know about? I have no idea what the breakdown is. I honestly don't believe this to be true, but could certainly be wrong.

You have been in the Bay Area too long.

Even here, i run into butches who ID as butch and know what femme means, but otherwise are pretty oblivious to all the other gender politics we are so savvy to. For a while i was dating a lot. And i ran into a number of butches who were completely befuddled when i mentioned all this.

Back home, it's rare for a butch to male-identify. That's something associated with transitioning. i know people from back home who do, but most are people i met through the dash site. i really rarely ran into a butch who male-identified. Most people are pretty oblivious to all this.

i don't have any statistics tho. i think your sense of being in the minority may have more to do with the online community and the Bay Area butch-femme crowd. That's just my sense.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Martina

You have been in the Bay Area too long.

Even here, i run into butches who ID as butch and know what femme means, but otherwise are pretty oblivious to all the other gender politics we are so savvy to. For a while i was dating a lot. And i ran into a number of butches who were completely befuddled when i mentioned all this.

Back home, it's rare for a butch to male-identify. That's something associated with transitioning. i know people from back home who do, but most are people i met through the dash site. i really rarely ran into a butch who male-identified. Most people are pretty oblivious to all this.

i don't have any statistics tho. i think your sense of being in the minority may have more to do with the online community and the Bay Area butch-femme crowd. That's just my sense.

Well, I'll be! This just didn't occur to me. I have never been out as butch outside of the Bay Area and only for a few years really (late bloomer). OK, time to take some road trips!

[BullDog]

Even in the Bay Area, I am in an online group of butch women that has hundreds of members. Many of them are from the Bay Area. Most of them are not associated with either the Dash or this site that I am aware of.

Even at the Dash site- with the male defaults and all the anti-lesbian sentiment, there were 2 long term polls with hundreds of votes cast over many years. One was one butch identity- over 60% who voted said they were female. One poll was on lesbians (not just butch)- over 60% said they identified as lesbians. In fact most of the times that I looked at the polls over the years it was roughly 2/3 in each poll. And this in what was at times a very hostile environment for both groups (in some cases overlapping).

I don't believe male identified butches are in the majority in real life or online, but there is often the perception that they are. I don't say this to make male identified butches feel bad or anything. I'm a stone butch. I don't believe very many butches are. So in that instance I am in the clear minority. It's just that the perception and reality are very different when it comes to female/male or she/he and to me it's very jarring.