Here come the lesbians, here come the leaping lesbians...

[Chazz]

Originally Posted by Slater

In reading the BV open letter, this, to me is the most telling line:

"Anyone knowledgeable about BUTCH Voices’ missions or initiatives can see that we have, and will continue to, work hard to include female identified, woman identified, and feminist Butches in all that we do ... "

If you are having to work that damn hard to include female-identified butches in a butch organization (and still failing pretty spectacularly, by the looks of things) then you have some huge, core, fundamental problems. Seriously, I can't even believe they could write this sentence like it's an okay thing. It clearly portrays female-identified butches as outsiders that the good folks at BV are trying so hard to include.

If they were serious about this, if they had integrity about this, after the conference they would suspend all other activities until they had this sh!t sorted out. How can anything that Butch Voices does be seen as legitimate if they are, by their own admission, struggling to include female-identified butches? They need to either suspend operations while they restructure and redistribute power or they need to change their name/focus and stop pretending to be something that they're not.

Yeah, we'll see about the "restructuring and redistributing of power and name/focus" business, maybe we will. Then, again....

Okay, let's review....

We know what is happening. We know who is doing it (including Cordova). The only thing left to explore is the why of it.

I think the WHY OF IT goes to the core of Heart's post about leadership and "women's communities (including lesbians, female identified butches, femmes, feminists, etc) and trans communities (particularly FtM trans-masculine folks, etc), are skating over some deep and serious stuff that needs to be worked through....

Heart is absolutely right. The issues she's raises are huge and not for the faint of heart. (No pun intended.)

Originally Posted by Heart

Hmmmm.... maybe.... perhaps there is a core conflict that is not being confronted head-on -- that of female leadership vs. trans leadership.

That could possibly translate as "old guard" vs. "new guard." I said possibly, cause I don't really know. But I wonder....

I think maybe women's communities (including lesbians, female identified butches, femmes, feminists, etc) and trans communities (particularly FtM trans-masculine folks, etc), are skating over some deep and serious stuff that needs to be worked through....

Heart