Cause & Affect: A Femme's Influence On The Friendships Between Butches and Transmen

[Dylan]

I had no idea this was. Intended to be a femme only space. It was in the 'community' area and not the Femme Zone'. Truly had no idea it was for femmes only to talk about how they cause/affect communication/friendships/whatever between butches and men.

Would have respected the space had I known

I'm kind of confused about how people can have a conversation about their affect on a group to which they don't belong...as that to me seems rather privileged (which is what I *think* Firie was saying), because how would the people outside the group know what the issues are, but ok.

My apologies for invading


Dylan

P.S. hope things get better soon, Snow...cyberhugs

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Dylan

I had no idea this was. Intended to be a femme only space. It was in the 'community' area and not the Femme Zone'. Truly had no idea it was for femmes only to talk about how they cause/affect communication/friendships/whatever between butches and men.

Would have respected the space had I known

I'm kind of confused about how people can have a conversation about their affect on a group to which they don't belong...as that to me seems rather privileged (which is what I *think* Firie was saying), because how would the people outside the group know what the issues are, but ok.

My apologies for invading


Dylan

P.S. hope things get better soon, Snow...cyberhugs

Hence why I made the post about Metropolis community thread, I chose the wrong wording, my intent wasn't clear, and the space I put this in.

I should of thought it thoroughly.

Though I do have to at this point, this far into the thread, it's an everyone voice and it's been working, or we can have Linus yet again put it elsewhere so everyone is happy.

I for one, am signing out for the day I have bigger issues.

[firie]

Snow,

I wasn't saying you were priviliged. No, I apologize if it seemed that way!

I am sorry you are dealing with so much, so I'll keep this short, as you are in our thoughts, as is Super Femme.

Thanks for responding, truly.

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

No really.

Do you know what I am talking about?

There will be a subject/space and all of a sudden a Femme will start speaking and/or translating for a butch/trans person.

Telling the rest of the thread what the butch/trans person really meant and what they intended to say.

I find it very strange when this happens, because there seems to be a lot of gratitude.

In fact I feel kind of shitty for speaking about it right now.

Like my pompoms are gonna burn.

Sweet Baby Jeesus, I do this. Not often, thankfully, but I have done it in the past. I can't think of any recent times. Perhaps I'm growing up or maybe mellowing with the passing of another birthday.

I know that I am definitely protective of those I love and like a lot. I sometimes have to bite my tongue to not speak out in support of them. I try not to talk for another but if I see someone is not getting "it" and I do, then I may try to clarify. I'm getting better at doing this from my perspective, and that's definitely a good thing.

I've read the whole thread and everything I've wanted to touch on has already been highlighted, so I will try not to be redundant.

What I got out of something amiyesiam said was this: we all influence one another and I believe that to be true. One pebble, dropped into a pond, sends ripples all the way out to the farther edges of the water line on all sides.

One pebble. One person. One moment. One word.

One.

We are all connected and the sooner we realize it and figure out how to work with it, we can strengthen ourselves and our relationships with others.

Your pom poms are fine, beautiful. Just get better.

[AtLast]

I have had unfortunate situations in which a butch/trans friendships have been very stressed (and even lost) due to a butch/trans friend seeing a femme that doesn't care for me (I know, weird, huh- it happens).

On one hand, I get it in terms of the nature of relationships and what battles we all choose to fight or not with partners. On the other side, when I have been in this situation with a partner/someone I am dating, I am clear that my friends are my friends and I will be loyal to them. Of course, whenever we enter a relationship, there are shifts in time availability, etc. so usually there is a change in the time I spend with the friends I relate to outside of the relationship, but I don't cut them off.

I don't know if this is true for many butches/transmen, but I find it hard to make good friendships with other butches/transmen, often. So, when I do, it matters a lot to me.

There are issues I have run into with femme friends too when they start to see someone, but I think there are different variables at work there- and it isn't the topic of the thread.

To be honest, since I have joined the B-F dynamic fully (wasn’t so for many years), I have found thought that there is quite a bit of interference with friendships all the way around within the dynamic. It has not felt the same as it was in my more lesbian-only days or as a heterosexual in a couple or dating. Have no idea why this is so- and I in now ay know am generalizing about this- just speaking from my own experience. Jealousy has seemed to be much more prominent to me. None of this has felt good at all and I keep trying to figure it out. I am a boundary motivated person, always have been. I don’t cross them, especially romantically. Why? I have seen the adage “if she cheats with you, she will cheat on you” happen around me far too many times! No drama. please! Obviously, I am from the monogamous variety, not everyone is, so this could play out quite differently for other people.

I have never experienced a femme speaking for me as some posters have talked about. not even in the very long-term relationships I have been in. But, both of these women were fairly reserved, so that might have something to do with it. Although, both were good conversationalists and had huge knowledge bases to draw conversation from. Then there is just the usual kinds of things around how we all may feel more or less comfortable at certain gatherings, etc. and who we are around that influences how much we engage.

maybe I am not seeing things clearly, dunno.

[Nat]

I have been in a few situations where a person close to me did everything they could to isolate me from my friends and family. This was achieved in a variety of ways by a few different people and it was effective. One person actually lied about the behavior of those I was close to - and was a convincing liar! I only figured out how convincing that person was, when that person began lying about me to other people (also convincingly!) - which further isolated me (and freaked me out). Other more normal methods of isolating a partner just involve criticizing whomever that partner has as a friend or family member. If the person you're with keeps stating that whatever person is not a real friend or doesn't really care about you or *fill in the blank* and they seem like reasonable people, it can get to you after a while.

I guess I'm saying all this because my first impulse was to say that your butch and trans friends are responsible for their own behavior. But then I began thinking back on the times when I was in situations where I dropped friendships due to the influence of another person, and although it was ultimately my responsibility to stand up to the onslought and maintain my friendships better, there was a fair amount of emotional abuse I was dealing with as well which made me unfit for friendship and unable to discern what was actually true due to the gaslighting.

So I guess I think butches, femmes and transmen should all make it a point not to discourage a partner's friendships whether or not they themselves jibe with a particular friend. I think there's a difference when a person has a problem with only one of the person's friends or of that person is actively isolating that person from others - which is an abuse pattern.

I also saw my best friend's straight cisgender boyfriend completely drop his long-term friendship with another man because that guy was really rude to my friend.

Since you mentioned boundaries -

I stopped hanging out with a (straightish) friend since I've been in my current relationship because she asked me to kiss her and when I told her no, I'm in a monogamous relationship, she started crying and asked why we had never been in a relationship. She was drinking at the time, and I consider her a friend, but I also feel like I can't hang out with her anymore without violating my relationship.

When I was new to the bf dynamic, I made friends with a couple and ended up totally crushing out on one of them. I never did anything about it, never said anything to this person about it, never attempted to break them up, would in fact talk them up to each other as a rule, never made a pass, never stated my feelings until they had themselves been broken up for many months and the other party had moved on - i thought at the time that I maintained a boundary by acting as though it was only friendship that I felt - but I figured out that the amount of availability, deference, care toward that person (and the lack of those things toward that person's partner) was invasive of that relationship.

I decided after that, if I ever have feelings like that again for a friend and either of us are in a relationship, I will put distance between us until those feelings fade. When a person has feelings, it shows and it's different than being a friend even if you're doing only friend stuff with that person. I couldn't tell that at the time - I had never run into a situation like that before. In my straight friendships, there had never been a need for a boundary other than, "don't do anything physical with this person." But in the queer world, so much emotional betrayal seems possible without physical intimacy being a factor. It's probably like that in the straight world too, but I just didn't have enough feelings about any of it for that to be a danger in my world back in my "straight" life.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Nat

I have been in a few situations where a person close to me did everything they could to isolate me from my friends and family. This was achieved in a variety of ways by a few different people and it was effective. One person actually lied about the behavior of those I was close to - and was a convincing liar! I only figured out how convincing that person was, when that person began lying about me to other people (also convincingly!) - which further isolated me (and freaked me out). Other more normal methods of isolating a partner just involve criticizing whomever that partner has as a friend or family member. If the person you're with keeps stating that whatever person is not a real friend or doesn't really care about you or *fill in the blank* and they seem like reasonable people, it can get to you after a while.

I guess I'm saying all this because my first impulse was to say that your butch and trans friends are responsible for their own behavior. But then I began thinking back on the times when I was in situations where I dropped friendships due to the influence of another person, and although it was ultimately my responsibility to stand up to the onslought and maintain my friendships better, there was a fair amount of emotional abuse I was dealing with as well which made me unfit for friendship and unable to discern what was actually true due to the gaslighting.

So I guess I think butches, femmes and transmen should all make it a point not to discourage a partner's friendships whether or not they themselves jibe with a particular friend. I think there's a difference when a person has a problem with only one of the person's friends or of that person is actively isolating that person from others - which is an abuse pattern.

I also saw my best friend's straight cisgender boyfriend completely drop his long-term friendship with another man because that guy was really rude to my friend.

Since you mentioned boundaries -

I stopped hanging out with a (straightish) friend since I've been in my current relationship because she asked me to kiss her and when I told her no, I'm in a monogamous relationship, she started crying and asked why we had never been in a relationship. She was drinking at the time, and I consider her a friend, but I also feel like I can't hang out with her anymore without violating my relationship.

When I was new to the bf dynamic, I made friends with a couple and ended up totally crushing out on one of them. I never did anything about it, never said anything to this person about it, never attempted to break them up, would in fact talk them up to each other as a rule, never made a pass, never stated my feelings until they had themselves been broken up for many months and the other party had moved on - i thought at the time that I maintained a boundary by acting as though it was only friendship that I felt - but I figured out that the amount of availability, deference, care toward that person (and the lack of those things toward that person's partner) was invasive of that relationship.

I decided after that, if I ever have feelings like that again for a friend and either of us are in a relationship, I will put distance between us until those feelings fade. When a person has feelings, it shows and it's different than being a friend even if you're doing only friend stuff with that person. I couldn't tell that at the time - I had never run into a situation like that before. In my straight friendships, there had never been a need for a boundary other than, "don't do anything physical with this person." But in the queer world, so much emotional betrayal seems possible without physical intimacy being a factor. It's probably like that in the straight world too, but I just didn't have enough feelings about any of it for that to be a danger in my world back in my "straight" life.

WOW, you speak to many layers I have struggled with and was trying to discern in my post. Some points that do help in trying to wade through these dynamics. Thanks.

I agree that at times, one does have to do some distancing if there are any "other than friend" feelings.

In the lesbian relationship I was in for 21 years (and began when I was 27), what you bring up- so much emotional betrayal seems possible without physical intimacy being a factor- was something that happened between my partner and me that I never experienced in my straight relationships. It was very difficult to figure this out at the time and get her to see it. She believed that since she wasn't "doing anything" physical with another woman, that there was "no betrayal." It wasn't until we were in therapy together that she finally got this.

Yes, emotional abuse factors can be part of control issues in a relationship and isolating a partner. On the other hand, what I have felt mostly is simply what can happen when a friend couples with someone and there is just dislike between me and that person. Or, our personalities just don't jive- which happens. But, if that person engages in lying about me to others as a means to isolate me from a friend and even to destroy my reputation, that is over the top and a sign of instability and viciousness as far as I'm concerned.

Yikes... it is all quite complicated! I have learned through the years that true friends that are stable and possess an inward sense of justice and are not prone to narcissism in these matters do not listen to gossip (actually halt it) and actually end up distancing themselves from people that engage in it. And when I think about it, I don’t want friends that will gossip about people anyway!