Men with boobs.

[Gayla]

Originally Posted by Jaques

....Indeed you are not a f..ing cow and i dont define anyone by anything; of course it is a matter of choice whether someone feeds their young, but its an anatomical fact that breasts produce milk, whether in animals or humans for the purpose of feeding their young.

So we're back to it's just all about the anatomy?

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Jaques

....Indeed you are not a f..ing cow and i dont define anyone by anything; of course it is a matter of choice whether someone feeds their young, but its an anatomical fact that breasts produce milk, whether in animals or humans for the purpose of feeding their young.

Mine never did... The nurses were pretty fucking ugly to me, because I would not try, I know my body no milk was coming, just discomfort, someone got me a breast pump, so yes you did define by your statement.

Originally Posted by gayla

So we're back to it's just all about the anatomy?

Who the hell knows

[Jaques]

Originally Posted by gayla

So we're back to it's just all about the anatomy?

breasts ARE part of the anatomy - females, whether animal or human have mamories which produce milk for feeding their young - i see nothing wrong with that, in fact its wonderful as babies benefit enormously from their mothers milk................

[Gayla]

Originally Posted by Jaques

breasts ARE part of the anatomy - females, whether animal or human have mamories which produce milk for feeding their young - i see nothing wrong with that, in fact its wonderful as babies benefit enormously from their mothers milk................

No one in this thread is questioning breasts as anatomy. I haven't seen a soul question whether breasts are "good" or "bad". I haven't seen discussion of breastfeeding, milk production or any other issues around the anatomical function of breasts. Which leads me to ask...have you read the thread?

If your answer is "yes" then can you explain your original post in greater detail because I must be missing something in context.

If your answer is "no" then, well, yeah..go boobs.

[Bit]

Originally Posted by June

It is for me, how some folks will refer to their partners as "He and Him" >here< but at home, they are "Her and She", as though it makes THEM less than to be seen in public as a she, so it must be hidden. And you know, that's a personal choice, but for me, it buys into the "He is better than she" and that makes me mad. Like, if you're male, then by all means use the male pronouns all the time, but if you're flipping back and forth depending on the audience, then tell me why, because I do think it's pertinent to this conversation and how we get so riled up about ID's. (bolded for emphasis--Cath)

Because this right here, the online butch/femme community, is the one place in the world where it's safe to say "he" about a person who is living in a female body; more than that, it's immediately understood with little or no explanation. *shrugs*

It is not okay, accepted, understood, or in many cases safe to say "he" in any other community, except for the butch/femme community.

Also, sometimes it's the Butch's choice, not the partner's; so in that case, a person would not be flipping back and forth depending on the audience, but out of respect for the personal preference of the Butch.

Back in the day, when many of us were first talking about Butch as a third (independent) gender, we used to be really careful to always remember to include "BOTH female AND male; and/or neither one" as part of the description of Butch energy. Down the road it became more common in the community to say "female masculinity" as a description of Butch energy and we stopped using the "both female and male" descriptor--but many Butches still think of themselves as "both female and male." For some Butches, that means they really don't care what pronouns anyone uses about them.

For some Butches, it means they DO care, but they bow to the reality of living in a mostly heterosexual world--and that means this, this community right here, is the only place where they can be validated for the male side of their being.

It seems like a really crucial point to me. I think we as a community need to remember that for some Butches, what is invalidated and devalued out in the world is not their "womanness" but their masculinity; for some Butches, this is the place they come to find validation of themselves as whole people, as "both female and male."

As for partners using different pronouns at different times? For many people, it's easy to write one way and speak another--"he" online, "she" verbally--and very difficult to navigate speaking in two different ways about the same person. I never used to have any problems with that, but lately I find that I've been slipping; at first I was accidentally saying "he," but lately the overwhelming pressure the rest of the world puts on me to ONLY speak about Gryph as "she" means that I sometimes find myself saying or writing "she" when I would ordinarily use "he."

Here's the reason I accept that pressure: my allowing myself to be in the habit of saying "he" (in other words, saying "he" at home) could cause serious problems for Gryph--his co-workers, for instance, have sometimes been brutal about his identity--and his old friends, his family, my family, the local community, our neighbors, none of them would get it if I said "he." It would make life immensely more difficult for us both, and would not bring any benefits to either of us; it's better that I just say "she" when I'm speaking (verbally) to other people about Gryph.

Going back and forth between facebook (she) and BFP (he) sometimes trips me up; facebook is one of those places where the communities collide. A significant number of our facebook friends would be baffled by having to deal with Butch gender identification. (Our friends are certainly baffled by having to deal with my Femme gender identification--baffled to the point that I gave up trying to explain it long ago.) In that case, we figure our friends who are from the butch/femme community will get it about why we have to use the female pronouns for someone who has always been known in this community as "he," especially as it seems to be a pretty common occurrence among the Butches we're friended with.

Gryph, being a Two-Spirit, honestly does not care what other people call him, but I think if *I* stopped calling him "Daddy" and "he" it would puzzle and hurt him very much. I am the one person in his day-to-day life who sees him as he actually is, both female and male. We both need me to say "he," whenever and wherever it is safe to do so, and we both know that in order to avoid making mistakes, I have to be pretty consistent about where I say "she" and where I say "he."

Just to be utterly clear, I don't mean "when," I mean "where"--the actual physical places determine what pronouns I use, because my main concern with pronouns is avoiding jeopardizing his safety (both physical and emotional).

Those are the reasons I say "she" at home.

Also to be clear, saying that Gryph doesn't care about pronouns is not the same as saying that he doesn't care what people call him. It makes us both wince and grumble when people refer to us as "ladies," and this morning someone actually had the gall to call him "beautiful" as in, "good morning, beautiful." I have no idea what he would have said to her had she said it to his face, but he was at work and she said it to me, then specified she meant Gryph also.

I didn't say anything about it (although I was flabbergasted; "beautiful"? Has she never paid attention to his pictures, to his wonderful craggy face?) because I don't know what he would want, and that's what's most important in a situation like this: how Gryph wants to respond. The person is someone he cares for, someone he's shepherding through a rough time; he very well might have decided either to speak or to let that go, and I have no right to decide for him. (But it was damned hard to hold my tongue!)

I am finding that most of the people who pay these well-meaning but vastly inappropriate compliments (one of his friends is more and more speaking to him as if he were speaking to a "girly girl," and it's making me crazy) are people he cares for. They are all trying to compliment him by shoehorning him into the box marked Femininity, which once again devalues (erases, even) his masculine identity. Added to the force with which the rest of his world tries to insist that his femaleness cannot possibly contain maleness, it becomes overwhelming and leaves only one refuge for bringing his female-AND-male self back into balance: the online butch/femme community.

And that's the reason I say "he" here.

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by Bit

Because this right here, the online butch/femme community, is the one place in the world where it's safe to say "he" about a person who is living in a female body; more than that, it's immediately understood with little or no explanation. *shrugs*

It is not okay, accepted, understood, or in many cases safe to say "he" in any other community, except for the butch/femme community.

Also, sometimes it's the Butch's choice, not the partner's; so in that case, a person would not be flipping back and forth depending on the audience, but out of respect for the personal preference of the Butch.

Back in the day, when many of us were first talking about Butch as a third (independent) gender, we used to be really careful to always remember to include "BOTH female AND male; and/or neither one" as part of the description of Butch energy. Down the road it became more common in the community to say "female masculinity" as a description of Butch energy and we stopped using the "both female and male" descriptor--but many Butches still think of themselves as "both female and male." For some Butches, that means they really don't care what pronouns anyone uses about them.

For some Butches, it means they DO care, but they bow to the reality of living in a mostly heterosexual world--and that means this, this community right here, is the only place where they can be validated for the male side of their being.

It seems like a really crucial point to me. I think we as a community need to remember that for some Butches, what is invalidated and devalued out in the world is not their "womanness" but their masculinity; for some Butches, this is the place they come to find validation of themselves as whole people, as "both female and male."

As for partners using different pronouns at different times? For many people, it's easy to write one way and speak another--"he" online, "she" verbally--and very difficult to navigate speaking in two different ways about the same person. I never used to have any problems with that, but lately I find that I've been slipping; at first I was accidentally saying "he," but lately the overwhelming pressure the rest of the world puts on me to ONLY speak about Gryph as "she" means that I sometimes find myself saying or writing "she" when I would ordinarily use "he."

Here's the reason I accept that pressure: my allowing myself to be in the habit of saying "he" (in other words, saying "he" at home) could cause serious problems for Gryph--his co-workers, for instance, have sometimes been brutal about his identity--and his old friends, his family, my family, the local community, our neighbors, none of them would get it if I said "he." It would make life immensely more difficult for us both, and would not bring any benefits to either of us; it's better that I just say "she" when I'm speaking (verbally) to other people about Gryph.

Going back and forth between facebook (she) and BFP (he) sometimes trips me up; facebook is one of those places where the communities collide. A significant number of our facebook friends would be baffled by having to deal with Butch gender identification. (Our friends are certainly baffled by having to deal with my Femme gender identification--baffled to the point that I gave up trying to explain it long ago.) In that case, we figure our friends who are from the butch/femme community will get it about why we have to use the female pronouns for someone who has always been known in this community as "he," especially as it seems to be a pretty common occurrence among the Butches we're friended with.

Gryph, being a Two-Spirit, honestly does not care what other people call him, but I think if *I* stopped calling him "Daddy" and "he" it would puzzle and hurt him very much. I am the one person in his day-to-day life who sees him as he actually is, both female and male. We both need me to say "he," whenever and wherever it is safe to do so, and we both know that in order to avoid making mistakes, I have to be pretty consistent about where I say "she" and where I say "he."

Just to be utterly clear, I don't mean "when," I mean "where"--the actual physical places determine what pronouns I use, because my main concern with pronouns is avoiding jeopardizing his safety (both physical and emotional).

Those are the reasons I say "she" at home.

Also to be clear, saying that Gryph doesn't care about pronouns is not the same as saying that he doesn't care what people call him. It makes us both wince and grumble when people refer to us as "ladies," and this morning someone actually had the gall to call him "beautiful" as in, "good morning, beautiful." I have no idea what he would have said to her had she said it to his face, but he was at work and she said it to me, then specified she meant Gryph also.

I didn't say anything about it (although I was flabbergasted; "beautiful"? Has she never paid attention to his pictures, to his wonderful craggy face?) because I don't know what he would want, and that's what's most important in a situation like this: how Gryph wants to respond. The person is someone he cares for, someone he's shepherding through a rough time; he very well might have decided either to speak or to let that go, and I have no right to decide for him. (But it was damned hard to hold my tongue!)

I am finding that most of the people who pay these well-meaning but vastly inappropriate compliments (one of his friends is more and more speaking to him as if he were speaking to a "girly girl," and it's making me crazy) are people he cares for. They are all trying to compliment him by shoehorning him into the box marked Femininity, which once again devalues (erases, even) his masculine identity. Added to the force with which the rest of his world tries to insist that his femaleness cannot possibly contain maleness, it becomes overwhelming and leaves only one refuge for bringing his female-AND-male self back into balance: the online butch/femme community.

And that's the reason I say "he" here.

Thank you for your post Bit, and I appreciate your experiences shared and your points about how some male identified butches need to change pronoun usage in different contexts to negotiate comfortably and safely in a hostile world.
Just a quick note about something you said which I've enlarged in your quote above. You mentioned " ..for some Butches, what is invalidated and devalued out in the world is not their "womanness" but their masculinity"...
and I wanted to mention that for me as a woman, my butchness is part and parcel of my womanness.

It is not separate from that of which it is part, nor is it in opposition to itself. (I realize that you may have been speaking here not of butch women but of transgender or two-spirit butches ? but thought I'd use the opportunity to express something about my experience as a woman.)

What IS in opposition to my butch womanness is a social construct that denies the naturalness and authenticity of my very existence as a woman. And yet here I am. Here we all are. Perfectly natural women. I look forward to the day when all women are accepted as they are and that butch women are not neutered by the language used to describe us.

(Bit I know I veered wildly from your post and hope you don't mind me using it as a jumping off point to share my reflections).

[Bit]

Originally Posted by Cyclopea

(Bit I know I veered wildly from your post and hope you don't mind me using it as a jumping off point to share my reflections).

Not at all; thank you for mentioning that. Sometimes it's hard to know whether someone is building on previous thoughts or disagreeing, so I always appreciate when someone tells me which it is!

You said: "and I wanted to mention that for me as a woman, my butchness is part and parcel of my womanness.

"It is not separate from that of which it is part, nor is it in opposition to itself."

Gryph has never mentioned anything like this to me, so I don't know if he would share this viewpoint with you or not; he very well might. And yes, he does identify as a Two Spirit, although I have known others who said they were "both female and male" who simply identified as Butches.

[AtLast]

I think we as a community need to remember that for some Butches, what is invalidated and devalued out in the world is not their "womanness" but their masculinity

For me, its the opposite... and especially so in the B-F community and on B-F sites. And I don't want either to be invalidated. Yes, this is true for some butches, not all. And the thread is dealing with female/woman aspects based on the short man with boobs statement.

We all just don't fit neatly into a box or have the same life's experiences. Which is rather kewl. And when I say all, I mean every butch identification that a member might have on this site.

I'm not meaning to be snide, but, it seems that every time butch gets discussed, it ends up male in some form even when the OP posed a conversation about the female/woman aspects of butch!

Hummmm, the point, right?

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by Cyclopea

Thank you for your post Bit, and I appreciate your experiences shared and your points about how some male identified butches need to change pronoun usage in different contexts to negotiate comfortably and safely in a hostile world.
Just a quick note about something you said which I've enlarged in your quote above. You mentioned " ..for some Butches, what is invalidated and devalued out in the world is not their "womanness" but their masculinity"...
and I wanted to mention that for me as a woman, my butchness is part and parcel of my womanness.

It is not separate from that of which it is part, nor is it in opposition to itself. (I realize that you may have been speaking here not of butch women but of transgender or two-spirit butches ? but thought I'd use the opportunity to express something about my experience as a woman.)

What IS in opposition to my butch womanness is a social construct that denies the naturalness and authenticity of my very existence as a woman. And yet here I am. Here we all are. Perfectly natural women. I look forward to the day when all women are accepted as they are and that butch women are not neutered by the language used to describe us.

(Bit I know I veered wildly from your post and hope you don't mind me using it as a jumping off point to share my reflections).

The parts of Cyclopea's post in bold are the crux of the matter for many butch women. We are butch and women- all at the same time- the two go hand in hand. Butch does not modify woman, woman does not make us butch-lite. We are both. When we are compared to men it does feel like we are being neutered.

There is the problem of valuing male over female- the male defaults. There is also the huge gap in understanding or conceiving what woman is and can be. Butch woman is one of the myriad possibilities that broadens and stretches and trangresses what woman can be. I personally believe Femme does as well.

Butch Woman- We live it. It's not something we "identify with." She is not just a pronoun choice.

[BullDog]

AtLast, I've seen you referred to as He a number of times on this site and it has completely baffled me every time. You are very clear that you are a She.

[AtLast]

[QUOTE=BullDog;105751]The parts of Cyclopea's post in bold are the crux of the matter for many butch women. We are butch and women- all at the same time- the two go hand in hand. Butch does not modify woman, woman does not make us butch-lite. We are both. When we are compared to men it does feel like we are being neutered.

There is the problem of valuing male over female- the male defaults. There is also the huge gap in understanding or conceiving what woman is and can be. Butch woman is one of the myriad possibilities that broadens and stretches and trangresses what woman can be. I personally believe Femme does as well.

Butch Woman- We live it. It's not something we "identify with." She is not just a pronoun choice.[/QUOTE]

No, it is not about pronouns at all and runs far deeper than an identifier. It transcends far more than I ever knew it could. This says it all, Bully. Thanks for helping me find yet another voice to sing with.

[apretty]

i have a few questions, they're in black...

Originally Posted by Bit

Because this right here, the online butch/femme community, is the one place in the world where it's safe to say "he" about a person who is living in a female body; more than that, it's immediately understood with little or no explanation. *shrugs*

but it's not understood--it actually adds to the confusion. and what does that do to the entire *person* while we (as a community) shove aside the *female* and pay some homage to "HE" of said person?


Also, sometimes it's the Butch's choice, not the partner's; so in that case, a person would not be flipping back and forth depending on the audience, but out of respect for the personal preference of the Butch.

it is the butch's choice, she does have control over choosing her pronoun (which includes the 'when/where' option), so it actually is flipping back and forth dependent on 'audience'. and do you think it's at all reasonable to request a femme to ping-pong between pronouns, dependent on some arbitrary set of rules? (this becomes no longer about gender--it's about something else, entirely--and not just safety tho i can understand that that is a concern--but when you have multiple rules surrounding pronouns i have to wonder about what that means.)

For some Butches, it means they DO care, but they bow to the reality of living in a mostly heterosexual world--and that means this, this community right here, is the only place where they can be validated for the male side of their being.

could you walk me through how using a MALE pronoun is anymore validating than using a FEMALE pronoun?

It seems like a really crucial point to me. I think we as a community need to remember that for some Butches, what is invalidated and devalued out in the world is not their "womanness" but their masculinity; for some Butches, this is the place they come to find validation of themselves as whole people, as "both female and male."

it feels actually less 'whole' to me because it seems like the "butch" is being parted-out like a junkyard truck. (not that i'm trying to console/mother/care-take anyone, here.)

As for partners using different pronouns at different times? For many people, it's easy to write one way and speak another--"he" online, "she" verbally--and very difficult to navigate speaking in two different ways about the same person. I never used to have any problems with that, but lately I find that I've been slipping; at first I was accidentally saying "he," but lately the overwhelming pressure the rest of the world puts on me to ONLY speak about Gryph as "she" means that I sometimes find myself saying or writing "she" when I would ordinarily use "he."


this has me curious, what is the 'he' that the 'she' doesn't encompass?

Here's the reason I accept that pressure: my allowing myself to be in the habit of saying "he" (in other words, saying "he" at home) could cause serious problems for Gryph--his co-workers, for instance, have sometimes been brutal about his identity--and his old friends, his family, my family, the local community, our neighbors, none of them would get it if I said "he." It would make life immensely more difficult for us both, and would not bring any benefits to either of us; it's better that I just say "she" when I'm speaking (verbally) to other people about Gryph.

is 'she' less-than? did Gryph use 'she' prior to meeting you?

Going back and forth between facebook (she) and BFP (he) sometimes trips me up; facebook is one of those places where the communities collide. A significant number of our facebook friends would be baffled by having to deal with Butch gender identification. (Our friends are certainly baffled by having to deal with my Femme gender identification--baffled to the point that I gave up trying to explain it long ago.) In that case, we figure our friends who are from the butch/femme community will get it about why we have to use the female pronouns for someone who has always been known in this community as "he," especially as it seems to be a pretty common occurrence among the Butches we're friended with.

Gryph, being a Two-Spirit, honestly does not care what other people call him, but I think if *I* stopped calling him "Daddy" and "he" it would puzzle and hurt him very much. I am the one person in his day-to-day life who sees him as he actually is, both female and male. We both need me to say "he," whenever and wherever it is safe to do so, and we both know that in order to avoid making mistakes, I have to be pretty consistent about where I say "she" and where I say "he."

...

I didn't say anything about it (although I was flabbergasted; "beautiful"? Has she never paid attention to his pictures, to his wonderful craggy face?) because I don't know what he would want, and that's what's most important in a situation like this: how Gryph wants to respond. The person is someone he cares for, someone he's shepherding through a rough time; he very well might have decided either to speak or to let that go, and I have no right to decide for him. (But it was damned hard to hold my tongue!)

can't a butch be beautiful? can't Butch, be beautiful?

...

And that's the reason I say "he" here.

[SuperFemme]

Butches ARE beautiful. How can anyone negate THAT?

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

Butches ARE beautiful. How can anyone negate THAT?

Duh, cause that word only belongs to femmes.... Where ya been?

[PapaC]

Forgive me for this critical statement, because lord knows I write one-liners and off topic/drive by commentary (because I'm sometimes a huge brat)...

but I'm feeling like we're getting off topic in this thread, and once again we're de-constructing identities within this community and moving away from discussion stemming from the OP.

(I'm not a moderator, so if this comment isn't cool, my bad)

I realize there's a tie-in of sorts between discussing the dynamics of pronoun usages and general misogyny that exists in the world, but I for one would like to see more discussion about how misogynistic statements like 'short man with boobs' can affect us ALL as human beings, particularly those of us growing up in the female form.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by PapaC

Forgive me for this critical statement, because lord knows I write one-liners and off topic/drive by commentary (because I'm sometimes a huge brat)...

but I'm feeling like we're getting off topic in this thread, and once again we're de-constructing identities within this community and moving away from discussion stemming from the OP.

(I'm not a moderator, so if this comment isn't cool, my bad)

I realize there's a tie-in of sorts between discussing the dynamics of pronoun usages and general misogyny that exists in the world, but I for one would like to see more discussion about how misogynistic statements like 'short man with boobs' can affect us ALL as human beings, particularly those of us growing up in the female form.

I think it almost funny that we are STILL having to do this, you would think as a community we would evolve and not continue to perpetuate the binary. I don't think it will happen unless we are open to listen and put into practice what is being talked about.

What chu think>?

[apretty]

Originally Posted by PapaC

I realize there's a tie-in of sorts between discussing the dynamics of pronoun usages and general misogyny that exists in the world, but I for one would like to see more discussion about how misogynistic statements like 'short man with boobs' can affect us ALL as human beings, particularly those of us growing up in the female form.

because it reduces the woman to "almost a man" and chunks of flesh, like this:

[Bit]

Originally Posted by June

Bit -- No, I get it about work and other places, family, friends who don't get it. I was speaking specifically to people referring to their partners >here< as He, then at >home< they are she.

And I know of a few couples who do this, and my conclusion, and I was not clear about this in my initial post - My conclusion is that somehow referring to our female ID'd partners as "he" here elevates them for the general populice >here< as if referring to them as "She" here, lessens their Butch-ness, hence, their value because of the female pronouns.

I had to read this twice and then walk away and think about it before I had even a glimmer what you're talking about.

Are you saying there are happily female-ID'd Butches who go by male pronouns only online (or whose partners refer to them by male pronouns only online)--and that these Butches are not in any way male identified?

I've not come across anything like this, so I'm mystified.

Did I totally miss your meaning?

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by Bit

I had to read this twice and then walk away and think about it before I had even a glimmer what you're talking about.

Are you saying there are happily female-ID'd Butches who go by male pronouns only online (or whose partners refer to them by male pronouns only online)--and that these Butches are not in any way male identified?

I've not come across anything like this, so I'm mystified.

Did I totally miss your meaning?

No, I don't believe June is happy about it.

I think what June is saying is that it is grody bullshit that we have created an environment where Female-ID'd Butches are perceived as "less Butch" than Male-ID'd Butches, and that this grody bullshit environment causes some Butches to succumb to the male pronoun even though they aren't necessarily feeling it, in order to avoid bullshit/drama/ridicule/etc.

EDIT - duh. you weren't saying that June was happy about it.

yes, I do believe you heard/read June correctly. yes, I am QUITE positive that happens.

[apretty]

grody bullshit is a perfect term--i like this whole post. and i like that we're talking about it.

Originally Posted by betenoire

No, I don't believe June is happy about it.

I think what June is saying is that it is grody bullshit that we have created an environment where Female-ID'd Butches are perceived as "less Butch" than Male-ID'd Butches, and that this grody bullshit environment causes some Butches to succumb to the male pronoun even though they aren't necessarily feeling it, in order to avoid bullshit/drama/ridicule/etc.

EDIT - duh. you weren't saying that June was happy about it.

yes, I do believe you heard/read June correctly. yes, I am QUITE positive that happens.

yes! and i was also making the same reference, though not as concisely, here:

Originally Posted by apretty

1. with regards to pronouns: i ask, prior and i default 'she' for butches because i know more 'she' than 'he/hy' butches and while 'he' seems a the go-to pronoun 'online' --i like continuity (and newsflash: she does not equal less-than).