Do you *want* people to assume you're a man?

[Sparkle]

Originally Posted by IslandScout

StephFromMIT,

I've heard people outside the GLBT community ask questions like, "If you like masculine women, why aren't you with a man?" or "Why do they dress like that? Do they want to be men?"

To me, your question, "Do you want people to assume you're a man?" is kind of in that category. It's a question I would never have thought to ask, myself, and have never heard one LGBT person ask another, so it really caught my eye.

Steph, have you known butch women (who were not trans), who wanted people to assume they were men?

It would be interesting to hear about that.

I have never known a butch woman who wanted people to think she's a man.

And so far, no one responding on this thread has said she wants people to assume she's a man, though some have said that when it happens, they aren't bothered.

Thank you for answering my question, above.

Scout

Just a point of semantics not all male-ID'd butches identify as trans (gender/sexual), and yet they may still feel more male than female.

The ID: genderqueer is a good example, and there are many others.

There are as many variations as there are individuals, and along with that, I expect a spectrum of feelings/beliefs/preferences as regards how they are perceived and addressed by the public, by the queer community, by their families, and their co-workers, and their peers, and their partners -- one butch might, in fact, have a variety of different preferences when it comes to IF they are perceived as a man or not, even some female-ID'd butches.

I feel as though your question is rooted in the binary, and that may be *your* experience and *your* peers' experience of butch identity...but I don't think "a butch does not want to be seen as a man" is a truism that applies to all non-trans butches.