The Female Male ID "Wars"... or Great Divide

[Kobi]

[I'll address this from my place as an Admin on this site.

When I built the structure of these forums, I made a Butch Zone, a Femme Zone, and a Trans Zone because those are *gender* categories that this site focuses on.

What you are suggesting about "lesbians cant have a freakin' category" is not really on par with the idea that the *gender zones* are a "category".

"Lesbian" is implied in the way that we say this is a "Queer" site, meaning ALL identities be they Lesbian/Gay/Queer/etc.


Edited to add: The last sentence BECAUSE we have Lesbian Butches, Lesbian Femmes, and Lesbian Transfolks. BECAUSE we ahve GAY Butches, GAY Femmes, GAY Transfolks. BECAUSE we have Queer Butches, Queer Femmes, Queer Transfolks.[/QUOTE]

Thank you explaining this but I still dont get it. This approach is all new to me, I dont know the vernacular and what it means. I have been out of the loop for 20 years. Someone says third gender and Im like there is a third gender?

And Im not trying to be a bitch, Im trying to understand something and everytime I think I got a piece of it, I realize I dont.

When you say butch, femme, and trans are the gender categories that this focuses on and the rest of us are lumped into queer....I have a problem with that. You can categorize your site anyway you want lol, Im just trying to put the pieces together so I understand what ya'll are talking about. I dont know if I fit here. Im trying to figure that out.

The larger community everyone seems to point to is the GLBTIQ one. So gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, trans, I dont know what I is and Queer. I dont see femme or butch here. I do see lesbian and trans.

Femmes are a gender? Butches are a gender? And lesbians are what? Other? Miscellaneous?

It is your site, you can define it anyway you like. But to me, to say butch, femme, trans are the genders we deal with and the rest of you are a fruit salad seems sexist and misogynistic and misandriatic (I think thats right), and homophobic to me. It doesnt feel like those of us in the fruit salad are seen on an equal par with the rest of the identities that we are supposed to respect, accept, tolerate, and maybe honor.

And if you wished to cater to butch-femme-trans genders why not call it that? I would not have joined that cuz Im not a butch-femme-trans.

On the one hand, I hear we need to be excepting of all id's, male, female, butch, femme, male id, female id etc but we decided to categorize you so you cant easily self identify even tho we want you to but it doesnt fit the plan so dont ask questions cuz it doesnt make sense but that the way it is.

Again, I am trying to understand something that is not making sense to me. This is not computing and maybe it wasnt meant. Maybe I just dont belong here. Cuz no one is gonna tell me I, as a lesbian, must fit myself into preconceived notions. That is homophobic.

[Gayla]

Originally Posted by Kobi

And if you wished to cater to butch-femme-trans genders why not call it that? I would not have joined that cuz Im not a butch-femme-trans.
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I've read your various replies a couple of times and there is quite a bit that I don't understand. I picked this quote because it confuses me the most.

Please don't take this as me trying to silence you or tell you that you don't belong here because both would be wrong. This is simply me questioning for clarification.

The name of the site makes it pretty clear what it's all about. If you are not any of things the site caters to, then why join the site?

If I pulled this out of context or just completely read it wrong, please let me know!

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by gayla

I've read your various replies a couple of times and there is quite a bit that I don't understand. I picked this quote because it confuses me the most.

Please don't take this as me trying to silence you or tell you that you don't belong here because both would be wrong. This is simply me questioning for clarification.

The name of the site makes it pretty clear what it's all about. If you are not any of things the site caters to, then why join the site?

If I pulled this out of context or just completely read it wrong, please let me know!

The site is named butch femme planet. I am a butch. I didnt know how butch was defined here when I joined. I should have probably read the TOS with a little more attention. Or at least kept more current with whats new in the LGBTIQ community eh?

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Kobi

The site is named butch femme planet. I am a butch. I didnt know how butch was defined here when I joined. I should have probably read the TOS with a little more attention. Or at least kept more current with whats new in the LGBTIQ community eh?

Oh btw, the "I" is inter-sexed, or shouldn't they be here either? Me being sarcastic.

[Medusa]

Kobi,

I wanted to address the quote above as well as a quote from your last post to me.

Kobi said: "I see exactly what you are saying. You are saying I must fit my identity into what you predetermined were my choices based on your perception of what my choices should be. After all, a butch is a butch is a butch. That is sexist, homophobic and misandriatic. "


I wasn't actually saying that your identity needed to fit into a box. I was saying that this website is ButchFemmePlanet.com. It caters to Lesbians, Queers, Genderfuckers, and other colorful people who identify as Butch, Femme, Trans, Stud, Diva, etc. etc. etc.
You said you identify as a Butch - that means that you belong here.
When you were asking about a "Lesbian" Zone, I was trying to illustrate the thought process behind why I built the zones that I did when we first built the site.
Having a Lesbian zone is redundant to me. This IS a website for Lesbians who identify as Butch, Femme, Stud, Diva, etc, but nevertheless, we added a zone for people who identify as Lesbian. It's there, it's open, and people are posting there.

This website caters to a special set of people. Unlike Lesbianation.com or pinksofa.com or planetsappho.com or grrl2grrl.com or any of the other websites that cater specifically to Lesbian women in a women-only space, we cater specifically to a Butch and Femme populace that includes a plethora of identities. (and this is where male-identified Butches, boi-identified Femmes, Trans men, Trans women, and genderfuckers come in)

We are never going to be a website only for women and women-identified people. Those websites already exist. We are never going to just ignore, marginalize, or throw away the large percentage of our membership who identify as males, who live as males, who have lived as males, or who live as something they haven't yet defined but that may one day be male in order to feel "safe". I don't think we have to do that. I think that to be safe, we need to learn to help each other, learn to understand each other, learn to embrace each other.
The throwing away? Not so much.

We are never going to do that. We are also never going to do shitty things like have events in places that male-identified people and Transpeople aren't welcome to. That includes MichFest (unless their policy has changed) and Olivia cruises.
Because guess what? All of the people who come here are valued, loved, and needed for this to be the awesome place that it is. That includes you, Kobi.


I also wanted to address this:

Originally Posted by Kobi

The site is named butch femme planet. I am a butch. I didnt know how butch was defined here when I joined. I should have probably read the TOS with a little more attention. Or at least kept more current with whats new in the LGBTIQ community eh?

I just wanted to say that it doesn't matter who I define Butch or how Dylan defines Butch or how Adele defines Butch or how UofMfan defines Butch. It matters how YOU define it for yourself, and guess what? However you define it is correct. Just like UofMfan's way of defining it is correct. Just like Jackhammer's way of defining it is correct.

This has been a tough conversation but I think this is always worth it. I like understanding new people and I like being expanded by how other people think. That's hot.

m

[Daryn]

Originally Posted by Kobi

The site is named butch femme planet. I am a butch. I didnt know how butch was defined here when I joined. I should have probably read the TOS with a little more attention. Or at least kept more current with whats new in the LGBTIQ community eh?

WOW. It sounds like you think there is only one definition of butch on this site and I bet there are well more than half a dozen. It sounds like you want one definition of butch that matches how you see yourself as butch. It's never been that way for as long as I can remember and that's more than 35 years of being OUT.

[Stoney]

Originally Posted by Daryn

WOW. It sounds like you think there is only one definition of butch on this site and I bet there are well more than half a dozen. It sounds like you want one definition of butch that matches how you see yourself as butch. It's never been that way for as long as I can remember and that's more than 35 years of being OUT.

Well it sounds to me that Kobi is merely trying to open her mind to the differences and take them in. because someone relates to something particular doesn't mean they shun the rest.

I see Kobi's posts as a person who is trying to understand differences and more ( forgive me Kobi )up to the times .

I don't believe that just stating the things about herself and her feeling deserve an accusation of exclusion.

In all honesty and I have said this before back ten years ago when I joined B-F ( the other) I honestly found it looking for womyn only site.
In my personal life, I did not think too much about identity, in fact I knew next to nothing about trans gender people. this doesn't mean I don't care about them, or disapprove, or think they shouldn't be on butch-femme website, I just never really gave it much thought. I have been wrapped up into being a lesbian and a feminist for a long time now so that is the history I studied and what I related to.

I have been reading this thread and I have to say we defend what we know and we reach to learn more,, that is what I see Kobi doing here.
Trying to understand , Trying to expand her understanding while holding on to her root beliefs,
Every one has there own experience in this life, I entertain the thoughts of things that resonate with me...that help make-up who I am. I am learning everyday that there are all different kinds of people besides me.

It's like never studying about giraffes, but you have done major research on zebras. I can only relate to giraffes according to what I know about Zebra's and what the two may or may not have in common.

It doesn't mean I don't like giraffes, it doesn't mean I feel threatened by giraffes, it doesn't mean I don't want giraffes in the Zoo cause I never knew anything about giraffes......

Because I don't know anything about giraffes I may ask people about giraffes, I may ask the giraffeabout himself,what he likes or doesnt, what he wants.... how to care for him.


He might just get pissed off at me and tell me I must not like him, and dont want him around , claim I only like one Zebra's because I know more about zebras.... and accuse me of being prejudice against girraffes
When I try to explain I only had time to learn about Zebras because I have been around only zebras and it wasnt that I never cared about girrafes it was that I had to make time for Zebras because I live my life among Zebras.

Eventually if the girrafes go on long enough about how careless and selfish I am for not knowing how to care for them, I might just leave the whole damn Zoo,

I never heard much about giraffes but apparently they seem to get pissed off and accusatory if you havent read the manual before you engage with them.


I want to expand what I know about people, because trans-gendering hasnt interested me, I know little about it, that doesnt me mean I am not supportive, It means I have been busy learning and creating the life that directly relates to me. I try to know a little about alot of things and alot about a few things......



I think most of us are like that.
lack of interest does not equal
bias or dislike.


Peace to everyone......

Stoney

[Hack]

These are just some observations I am making about the discourse in this thread.

It seems that some folks, the admin of this site included, view this site as an umbrella for a very broad spectrum of people who identify as part of the femme/butch/trans/queer/lesbian/gay/inter-sexed/and even questioning community. I think I fall in to this particular group. Maybe it's my lifelong work in politics and always trying to build a bigger tent of acceptance in many different communities across society that makes me proud to be able to traverse in this online community and generally feel acceptance and tolerance -- more so than I do in my offline life, frankly.

It seems that there are some folks on this site, such as Kobi, whom I admire so much for speaking her truth and for putting it out there. These folks, it seems, want to find that comfortable space in a larger community and who have very specific things they are seeking in that space.

Truth be told, I think this site serves both. What I find comforting about this space is that it is run by two of the more open-minded and accepting people I know. There are no rules of identity here. Which is one of the things I like. But I do think there are rules related to respecting each other's i.d. I've not always found that to be the case in online communities similar to this one. And there are some online communities that don't speak to diversity at all, and I could not be a member of those communities because of that.

I am saddened that some people expressed they don't feel comfortable in some "zones" on this site. I tend to walk between two zones here -- butch and trans. I cannot fully embrace one as much as I embrace the other because for personal and career reasons I choose not to fully transition. Nonetheless, I have not been derided or made to feel uncomfortable by any FTM on this site.

I do believe there is room for all on this site. I think we can work together as a community to self-police issues such as respect, acceptance and making people feel welcomed and valued. I feel the site owners already do a fine job of that, and it is incumbent upon all of us to share in that mission.

Jake

[Kobi]

June

I dont think people were refusing to continue to be engaged. I, personally, was exhausted LOL and had much new information to sift through.

I learned a lot yesterday about how the community has evolved over the years, and remember conversations I had with pioneers before me and how much easier I had it because of the fights they fought.

And, I remembered that we all hear things and speak from unique places and frames of reference that can change at any given moment i.e. am is something I am hearing being filtered thru my woman frame of reference or my lesbian frame or reference or my activist frame of reference or whatever. Communication is a very complex and intricate beast.

And I began seeing people here in a different light. Some who have rubbed me the wrong way in the past, I began to see with a different set of eyes.

Like you, I saw a lot of personal honesty being brought forth and a lot of respect being given for that honesty.

Evolution is a funny thing whether it be on a personal, societal, or worldwide basis. We go two steps forward, one back, on and on, over and over until we stop and look back and see how each step of the way brought us to the reality we have today and is leading us to create the reality of tomorrow.

Sometimes I wonder, when I am sitting in the sunroom of the butch-femme-trans nursing home, what I will be seeing as the reality of the day and what the process of how we got there would look like.

Maybe this is a collective breath break while we mull the direction in which the conversation will proceed. I have faith that it will.

[SassyLeo]

Originally Posted by June

I went to bed really sad and frustrated last night because I see people stubbornly refusing to engage further because their way isn't the agreed upon "Right Way". As if we all don't get to choose our own paths to identity. As though they must all be the same path and the destination must be reached at the same time or everything is just hopeless and will "Never Change".

I saw two really significant changes occur yesterday. One was Kobi asking questions and being listened to and answered in really thoughtful, respectful ways, the other was a post made by Gayla late last night where s/he acknowleged that s/he has been guilty of defaulting to he/him for Butches, why s/he thought that happened and how even though change was hard, all of these conversations had made her think, and s/he was committed to change.

And also, I saw people breaking down their personal facades and disclosing behaviors that they personally thought of as masculine/feminine that they did or didn't do. Frankly, I was humbled by that.

Sure, we can rail against the fucking patriarchy and society at large for automatically assigning us "Jobs" according to our birth sex. Girls play with dolls, boys play with trucks, masculine = male, feminine = female. It's easy to act disdainful and dismissive of people who have bought into that, much easier than trying to understand why people, Queer people do that. How so many of us are trying to do the best we can to fit in, find love and get laid.

And how do we do that? We try on different clothes, attitudes and personalities till we find a combination that fits us. One of the things I rail about all the time is how Femme is personal, it is not one way. It is not, for all of us, high heels, fishnets, cleavage and lipstick. I'm sorry, it's just not. For some Femme's, it is, but that is not the only way to "Do" Femme. Some Femme's don't wear makeup. Some Butches (Hi, Met!) do wear eyeliner. Met's eyeliner, which I have witnessed up close and personal, does not make her less Butch to me. It's fucking eyeliner, and that does not define her Butch-ness. But I know, there are people on this site, Butch folks who will say "Oh, I would never wear makeup of any kind!" As if the act of doing that could erase them or make them less than because they percieve it to be feminine, and they think for them, feminine is bad. And yeah, that's kind of infuriating. In the same way (for me) it's infuriating when I see Butch and Trans folks taking on what I think are the very worst of the masculine traits i.e intense objectification of women based on appearances, excessive swagger and bravado or the denial of what I think of as natural human traits. Boys don't cry? Bullshit.

Having a name like Rose (Hi, Massive!) instead of Rodney, does not make someone less Butch. And yet, how many Butch folks, both male and female ID'd will "Butch up" their names? So, are there degrees of "Buying into it"? Who gets to decide how far is too far, how much makeup is too much or too little?

I have some thoughts, sparked by Kobi yesterday on Feminism, and how far we stray from our collective roots -- How we can forget that part of the reason we can all be here either having this discussion, or walking away from it, is because of the women (and men) who have been in the trenches for decades fighting for social justice so that even though it's still really hard and a huge struggle to own our identities, it's easier for us than it was for them.

I'm a Feminist and a Femme. I understand many of us are stuck in a binary hell based on assumptions that this=this, but I am not willing to throw people or communities away because not everyone thinks the way I do. I don't get that part at all. I think it's worth it, even if there are only small changes.

Goddammit June-y

And thank you

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Thank you explaining this but I still dont get it. This approach is all new to me, I dont know the vernacular and what it means. I have been out of the loop for 20 years. Someone says third gender and Im like there is a third gender?

And Im not trying to be a bitch, Im trying to understand something and everytime I think I got a piece of it, I realize I dont.

When you say butch, femme, and trans are the gender categories that this focuses on and the rest of us are lumped into queer....I have a problem with that. You can categorize your site anyway you want lol, Im just trying to put the pieces together so I understand what ya'll are talking about. I dont know if I fit here. Im trying to figure that out.

The larger community everyone seems to point to is the GLBTIQ one. So gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, trans, I dont know what I is and Queer. I dont see femme or butch here. I do see lesbian and trans.

Femmes are a gender? Butches are a gender? And lesbians are what? Other? Miscellaneous?

It is your site, you can define it anyway you like. But to me, to say butch, femme, trans are the genders we deal with and the rest of you are a fruit salad seems sexist and misogynistic and misandriatic (I think thats right), and homophobic to me. It doesnt feel like those of us in the fruit salad are seen on an equal par with the rest of the identities that we are supposed to respect, accept, tolerate, and maybe honor.

And if you wished to cater to butch-femme-trans genders why not call it that? I would not have joined that cuz Im not a butch-femme-trans.

On the one hand, I hear we need to be excepting of all id's, male, female, butch, femme, male id, female id etc but we decided to categorize you so you cant easily self identify even tho we want you to but it doesnt fit the plan so dont ask questions cuz it doesnt make sense but that the way it is.

Again, I am trying to understand something that is not making sense to me. This is not computing and maybe it wasnt meant. Maybe I just dont belong here. Cuz no one is gonna tell me I, as a lesbian, must fit myself into preconceived notions. That is homophobic.
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I will be 58yrs old the end of June. I feel you on this. About 10 years ago (after my 16 yr marriage broke up) I entered the butch/femme community again.........online at the dash site. I have always been butch and always been woman and always been a lesbian/dyke.

Frankly I was horrified and baffled and not understanding what had happened to 'my community'.....Male pronouns as default for butches....transmen who identified as straight.....butches who id'd as male....the list goes on.

It was a struggle at first. I had to learn new things. The first being gender as something other than biological sex of female and male.

I got my ass chewed up and spit out more times than I can count. I stuck it out and listened and learned. It was damn hard to open my mind and understand a new way of talking about butch/femme.

One thing I did find to be crucially important. In this new world there seemed to be this sense of butch=man. I wanted young butches coming out to know they could still be a woman and be butch. It was ok and they are not less than. There was a time on the dash site when I was the ONLY butch who insisted on female pronouns.

Now we have this new home on the Planet. Here things are truly different. There is a lesbian zone....it came about because it was asked for. The butch zone has room for all us butches, not just the butch brothers. There is a pronoun place in your profile so each us can use respectful pronouns. There is transparency and accountability on the part of Medusa and Jack. This Planet is growing and changing for the better. This Planet is growing and changing for the better.

Kobi my sister....read with an open mind. I know the knee jerk reactions you are having. I had them and once in a while still have them. What I have learned and gained from listening and learning is a broader community and a greater sense of understanding of my fellow queers. My butch brothers have as much right to be here as my butch sisters. Transmen and Transwomen belong here. They do not dilute my community, they enrich it.

The presence of a broad spectrum of gender identity gives folks coming out a place where they can grow and learn about who they might be. It was a struggle to understand this and I still have trouble on occasion.

Feel free to PM me at anytime and I am glad to talk to you about this. Like I said........I feel ya........I've been there.