Male ID butch vs. FTM??

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Not so fast, HB! <chuckle>

I am a TG Butch....meaning not male nor female in sex. And Butch is my gender (gender = woman, man, Butch, etc). I think that many TG Butches use this definition.

I separate out the terms transgendered from transsexed.

Haha, and so we come full circle Every label is different for everyone. There is no widespread or clear cut definition that applies to how everyone applies their own identity.

And so to the question the OP initially asked, we're back to the beginning. What is the difference between a male id'd butch and an FtM? Well, what's the difference between one FtM and another. Not every FtM sees themselves the same way or views the label FtM the same way. We've even had some guys who have "transitioned" here in this very thread who claim they don't see themselves as male despite the fact that they've "transitioned" (sorry for the quotations, I just dislike that word) physically and even changed their gender legally. Same way that not every male id'd butch understands that identity the same way. Some of us identify as 100% male, others feel differently. Or male but not in the same way someone born biologically male might consider themselves male (which is a whole other kettle of fish, since we shouldn't assume that every single biologically born male understands themselves in the same way as though they're all carbon copies of one another.). Some of us plan on transitioning/are transitioning/have transitioned while others have no such plan to do so while still considering themselves male. Some of us like the colour blue, others like yellow. Some of us hate brussel sprouts, others devour them like they're god's gift to humanity.

My point: sure we all have commonalities and dissimilarities. I may have more in common with someone who identifies as FtM than with someone who identifies as male id'd butch (talking about experiences, identity etc. here), or I may have more in common with another male id'd butch than with another FtM. There might not actually be a huge difference or any difference at all beyond terminology depending on the individual. Or the terminology and being male might be all we have in common. Or not. Often in order for discussions to occur there needs to be agreement on a common vocabulary...the problem is that having a common vocabulary with identical meanings doesn't really work when talking about how people understand themselves or identify themselves to others.

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

Often in order for discussions to occur there needs to be agreement on a common vocabulary...the problem is that having a common vocabulary with identical meanings doesn't really work when talking about how people understand themselves or identify themselves to others.

Yes this is quite difficult when people have their own personal meanings for things. You don't associate stone butch with woman or lesbian, yet I am a stone butch, woman and lesbian. I know many other stone butches who are also women and lesbians.

Dapper says many consider butch to be inherently transgender. I am not at all transgender and I am a butch. I think to call me transgender would be inaccurate and would not help people to understand what transgender means for those who really are. Yet I am most definitely butch.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Yes this is quite difficult when people have their own personal meanings for things. You don't associate stone butch with woman or lesbian, yet I am a stone butch, woman and lesbian. I know many other stone butches who are also women and lesbians.

Dapper says many consider butch to be inherently transgender. I am not at all transgender and I am a butch. I think to call me transgender would be inaccurate and would not help people to understand what transgender means for those who really are. Yet I am most definitely butch.

And you don't consider yourself male ID'd. And that is fine with me, just another color in the spectrum.

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by Corkey

And you don't consider yourself male ID'd. And that is fine with me, just another color in the spectrum.

Yes, agreed Corkey.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Yes, agreed Corkey.

Just as Butch has a spectrum, so does Transgender, those who are on it will have their own identity and definition of who They are. Isn't diversity fun.

[imperfect_cupcake]

Originally Posted by Corkey

Just as Butch has a spectrum, so does Transgender, those who are on it will have their own identity and definition of who They are. Isn't diversity fun.

rotflmao after the nerf bat bonking is over...

[imperfect_cupcake]

The only problem with the term (which I talked about in another thread on another site), is that it has the word gender in it when really in definition #2 we are talking about a person's sex. So, really we need another term (and no, genderqueer is not the same thing to me...and again, there is that pesky gender word again when really referring to a person's sex!)

agreed that it is easier for me to grasp if they are separated - in some people it *is* both though. I'm just thinking of some mates.

and yes the umbrella term of the genderqueer scene here in London is imprecise - here it refers to physical transformations in conjunction with genderblending or gender individuality or gender fluidity, usually with a strong dyke presence. However, I do know what a comfortable mixed bag (FtM, MtF, butch, boi, genderfuck, transexual to ones own thing, intersex, femme, bird, bear, just me's, dolly mixtures, ad infinitum) the club will be if it's advertised as such.

Club Wotever uses "wotever" for a reason. It's not so imprecise, it's just blurry and apathetic lol.


I don't see it getting defined here in London more though. Nobody really uses qualifiers even with butch or femme. I don't personally know anyone who publicly calls themselves "stone butch" - privately maybe, in a relationship. Genderqueer is more the name of the community, I think... *ponder* Ish.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

agreed that it is easier for me to grasp if they are separated - in some people it *is* both though. I'm just thinking of some mates.

and yes the umbrella term of the genderqueer scene here in London is imprecise - here it refers to physical transformations in conjunction with genderblending or gender individuality or gender fluidity, usually with a strong dyke presence. However, I do know what a comfortable mixed bag (FtM, MtF, butch, boi, genderfuck, transexual to ones own thing, intersex, femme, bird, bear, just me's, dolly mixtures, ad infinitum) the club will be if it's advertised as such.

Club Wotever uses "wotever" for a reason. It's not so imprecise, it's just blurry and apathetic lol.


I don't see it getting defined here in London more though. Nobody really uses qualifiers even with butch or femme. I don't personally know anyone who publicly calls themselves "stone butch" - privately maybe, in a relationship. Genderqueer is more the name of the community, I think... *ponder* Ish.

Yes, I have heard about your Club Wotever. If I ever make it to London I am SO going there! Sounds fantastic! (As does the rest of your queer culture).

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

agreed that it is easier for me to grasp if they are separated - in some people it *is* both though. I'm just thinking of some mates.

and yes the umbrella term of the genderqueer scene here in London is imprecise - here it refers to physical transformations in conjunction with genderblending or gender individuality or gender fluidity, usually with a strong dyke presence. However, I do know what a comfortable mixed bag (FtM, MtF, butch, boi, genderfuck, transexual to ones own thing, intersex, femme, bird, bear, just me's, dolly mixtures, ad infinitum) the club will be if it's advertised as such.

Club Wotever uses "wotever" for a reason. It's not so imprecise, it's just blurry and apathetic lol.


I don't see it getting defined here in London more though. Nobody really uses qualifiers even with butch or femme. I don't personally know anyone who publicly calls themselves "stone butch" - privately maybe, in a relationship. Genderqueer is more the name of the community, I think... *ponder* Ish.

Frankly, it sounds much less stuck in old patriarchal gender distinctions and uptight sexual mores (unfortunately, major US fundamentasl of society) to me! It has been years since I was in the UK, but, when you and HB and others talk about it in terms of this, I long for anbother visit! I was het when there last.

[julieisafemme]

I know for myself a lot of the frustration and confusion comes when trying to define my partner's gender within the context of male and female. Sometimes it is more defining what he is not. He is not a woman. Never was and never felt like one. He is a transmasculine butch. That is his gender. Not female. Not male. He has legally transitioned and yet still retains butch as his gender. He does not use the term FtM to define himself.

If feels uncomfortable to me when we discuss how others choose to change their bodies. The problem I have seen with the Harry Benjamin guidelines is that they are too rigid in defining gender and the wide range that encompasses.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Yes this is quite difficult when people have their own personal meanings for things. You don't associate stone butch with woman or lesbian, yet I am a stone butch, woman and lesbian. I know many other stone butches who are also women and lesbians.

Dapper says many consider butch to be inherently transgender. I am not at all transgender and I am a butch. I think to call me transgender would be inaccurate and would not help people to understand what transgender means for those who really are. Yet I am most definitely butch.

No, no, no. I said inherently THIRD gendered. Very different! And many do view butches this way, just like there are many who don't.

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

No, no, no. I said inherently THIRD gendered. Very different! And many do view butches this way, just like there are many who don't.

Well I am not third gendered either. It would be inaccurate to describe me as third gender and to say all butches are third gendered would not be any more true than saying all are transgendered.

[BullDog]

Well, I have had the same difficulty as HB with understanding the term male identified butch, whereas TG Butch has always made sense to me. I am not sure they mean the exact same thing and it will vary from individual to individual. I have always associated male= biological sex and man/woman/butch/femme etc = gender, so male being used in what seems to me to be gender terms does confuse me.

I just got into the habit that if someone says they are male then I consider them male. It doesn't have to do with biology, surgery, transitioning, hormones, etc. It has to do with who they say they are. Not everyone has the same options or makes the same decisions based on how to align their physical body and legal status with their gender, biological sex or physical body attributes. I think many who consider themselves to be male id'd butches- it is more about their mind than actual physical body, or where the two meet. Ender did talk about that.

I was reading something today about the Nikki Araguz case. It wasn't written by a scientist but it did make sense to me. The person was talking about how we tend to exaggerate the role that reproductive organs play in determining biological sex, when it fact they are actually, in many ways, a minor component of the physical body. There is of course reproduction of the species, which is quite important, but in terms of how we relate to our bodies our genitals are not the be all, end all. Then there's the fact that I'm a woman and have a cock whether it's strapped on or not.

OK the last paragraph may not make a lot of sense, but anyway I think biological sex is more than about what the textbook definitions of male and female are, lol. First of all we all know that intersex does exist. Also, there may be scientific basis for biological sex, but most of what we understand our biological sex and physical bodies to be and mean come from cultural and personal understanding. Most of us are not scientists.

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by BullDog

I was reading something today about the Nikki Araguz case. It wasn't written by a scientist but it did make sense to me. The person was talking about how we tend to exaggerate the role that reproductive organs play in determining biological sex, when it fact they are actually, in many ways, a minor component of the physical body. There is of course reproduction of the species, which is quite important, but in terms of how we relate to our bodies our genitals are not the be all, end all. Then there's the fact that I'm a woman and have a cock whether it's strapped on or not.

OK the last paragraph may not make a lot of sense, but anyway I think biological sex is more than about what the textbook definitions of male and female are, lol. First of all we all know that intersex does exist. Also, there may be scientific basis for biological sex, but most of what we understand our biological sex and physical bodies to be and mean come from cultural and personal understanding. Most of us are not scientists.

I agree with what you've said and that there is probably more to biological sex. But I just wanted to make a note on the last bit. There is also a scientific basis for "brain sex" or neurological sex. In the last decade or so it's been found that those born in biologically female bodies who consider themselves male tend to have somatostatin neuron numbers in the brain in the male range (men have double the number that women have), while biologically born males who consider themselves female have numbers in the female range. So there does seem to be a scientific basis in the feeling of maleness or femaleness despite biological sex or being neither one. I think it would be interesting to see further studies, since, as we've all discussed here, the spectrum of identification goes beyond male and female and there are likely answers regarding how we identify in all of our brains.

I think you've hit the nail on the head when it comes to the popularly viewed importance of reproductive organs.

@HowSoonIsNow, I don't think that it is necessarily all that recently that the term butch has expanded or that butch has always necessarily meant masculine lesbian. Just thinking of Stone Butch Blues (as far as I remember, Jess talked about not feeling like a lesbian, not feeling female or male but something else. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, my memory's foggy) and even some of what's been said by prominent butch or tg authors, people around these sites, at conferences like Butch Voices (from what I've had the chance to see of the conference on youtube...would love to go one day) as well who talked about the butch/femme scene in the 50's, 60's, 70's as well as how both older and younger butches see their identity. I can't say out of personal experience, I wasn't there, but that's what I've gathered from hearing and reading what others who were have had to say. Maybe those who did not identify as lesbian were not the majority of the butch population in the past, but from what I gather still present. Just as male id'd butches today are pretty much a minority among those who do identify as butch, but still present.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Well I am not third gendered either. It would be inaccurate to describe me as third gender and to say all butches are third gendered would not be any more true than saying all are transgendered.

Bully I don't think Dapper is saying that. Third gender is as much an identity on the spectrum as the rest of the identifications folks use to describe who they are to an audience that understands the concepts of gender.
Make since?

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

No, no, no. I said inherently THIRD gendered. Very different! And many do view butches this way, just like there are many who don't.

Originally Posted by BullDog

Well I am not third gendered either. It would be inaccurate to describe me as third gender and to say all butches are third gendered would not be any more true than saying all are transgendered.

True, it would be inaccurate. Which is why I didn't say that.

<---very confused.

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

True, it would be inaccurate. Which is why I didn't say that.

<---very confused.

I am not being argumentative. I am saying that to say inherently third gender would be inaccurate- emphasis on word inherently. I did not take it to mean that you, Dapper, thought that.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by BullDog

I am not being argumentative. I am saying that to say inherently third gender would be inaccurate- emphasis on word inherently. I did not take it to mean that you, Dapper, thought that.

Ohhh, ok, I think I get what you are saying, now.

You are saying that you disagree with the concept that butches are inherently third gendered. You were saying that this cannot be so b/c you are butch and you are not third gendered. Am I understanding you correctly?