The Strong Butch Female/Woman in a Patriarchal World

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by Parker

Even after sitting on it for what, 4 days, I cant seem to get past my anger at the above post telling me that transwomen "feel more like a woman" and "experience more violence" than I do as a butch woman. I'm trying to let it go because I dont want to derail the thread even further, but it just reiterates to me how, to some people, butches are just not seen as women.

Then when it comes to the pronouns and how when I correct someone who calls me he/hy online, they get pissed off at me, like I did something offensive by telling them I am a woman who prefers she; or when someone tells me they prefer butches who use he/hy because they like their butches more masculine, it reiterates to me that, to some people, butch women are still seen as less than and not masculine "enough" because we are women .... or worse, like we arent really even butches at all.

I see variations of these things almost everyday and it makes me feel invisible as a woman AND as a butch.

It's interesting how this thread is well over 2yrs old and things havent really changed - I can read Metro/Jett's and Bulldog's posts from then and they resonate within me now. There were so many posts I wanted to quote, I had to finally just stop hitting the little multi-quote button. lol

It's one thing to be misunderstood by the world at large - hell, I expect that because in their heads, masculine = male and feminine = female so to see someone like me: a butch woman who, even though I dont bind or pack, I still unintentionally pass as male 90% of the time every single day ... it just blows their fucking minds and their belief system goes all haywire on them.

Even in the lesbian community at large, butches and femmes are still sometimes seen as emulating a male/female couple from the 1950's - outdated and conforming to the binary.

So it really bothers me when that same mentality crosses over into a community like this - where butches are treated as men, even if we dont ID that way. We are expected to dress, talk, walk, and act a certain way, have sex a certain way, etc. and if we deviate from that maleness, we are considered less than.

Intellectually, I understand it is all rooted in sexism - masculinity and maleness is valued more in this patriarchal society than femininity and femaleness - but it doesnt suck any less to see it laid out in front of me day after day.

Speaking from this femmes POV it frustrates me a bit to have to (sometimes repeatedly) correct people that my partner is a she. She does not want to be a he, never has. They seem shocked at that, probably because she is butch. i want to be with a she, i am myself more comfortable with that so we fit well.

i have never wanted to emulate the life of straight folks, i don't want to look like them, i don't want to have sex like them and i don't want to be referred to as MAN/WOMAN..i don't want it to be expected that i want to be with a *male* ID'd partner.