Butch/Femme Dynamic vs "Masculinity" and "Femininity"

[EnderD_503]

I know that similar topics have been created in discussed on BFP and on the dash site before, but I'm hoping to take it a bit further than it usually goes. My desire to create this topic stems from the fact that often when I hear, read or participate in discussions on masculinity/femininity in the LGBTQ community (and specifically within the B/F community), there is frequently a lack in logical coherency as far as defining the words and their place within our diverse community. Do we even need these words, or should be creating our own language?

The issue, for me, stems from the actual definitions of "masculine" and "feminine," not only in the English language, but in French (masculin vs. féminin), German (maskulin/männlich vs. feminin/weiblich) and other languages where both as far as grammar and traditional use, both refer to two sexes and two gender identities, with one sexuality in mind. For example, in French masculin tends to refer more directly to the cissexed male than to a set of characteristics, with "le sexe masculin" also referring to the penis (translating to something like the masculine/male sex organ).

If we go further into the actual etymology of the words masculus and masculinus (the origin of our masculine) the former quite literally means man or male, while the latter means that possessed by a man.

Hence we have the creation of "manly/masculine" qualities, which are the "natural" qualities possessed by a man (bravery, physical strength, virility, honour appropriate to men etc.), and today we translate this into masculine = sports, strength, aggressiveness, promiscuity, virility etc.

I guess the place where I come to an issue is where we speak of anyone who is not a cissexed male as "masculine." Here I am including butch women, third gender butches, male identified butches, trans butches, transmen and so on. People may jump on me now and say that I am denying the identity of these identities. That they identify however they like. Please, before you jump on me for this, understand that I agree with you 100%. Anyone can identify however they like, and I will not think lesser of them nor will I try to deny their identity in my interactions with them. In fact, part of the reason I raise this question is because of my own identity, and the questions I cannot help but ask myself about my own identity.

When I first began identifying as butch I always took my own masculinity for granted and as natural fact. I based on my interests and personal appearance: my love of sports, the way I dressed, the way I communicated and generally things that are attributed to the men. However, I ask myself why these things need to be masculine at all. Why do sports need to be a male domain? Hope Solo was being discussed in another section, and how in the dance show she's in, the judges criticized her walk as too "manly." There is so much wrong with that on so many levels, but there is also the issue of why Hope Solo needs to be masculine or feminine? If she is an athlete, does she need to be "masculine"? Does she need to be "feminine"? Can she not just be an athlete without having to justify gender identity/characteristics?

As far as my own identity, over time I tacked on other identities I felt resonated with me or served some purpose as far as how I identified; stone, male identified, transguy/just plain trans. Yet as I developed my identity in order to further come to understand myself, I also began to feel the need to drop the "masculine" assumption surrounding my butch/trans identity. Especially now as I've come to see my physical sex (both as far as the body's sex characteristics and the brain's physical sex characteristics) as distinctly a trans sex, rather than a "masculine" or "feminine" sex. I'll come back to this later.

So when people talk about butches as masculine and femmes as feminine, I would really like to know what the means in concrete terms. What does it mean? What characteristics need to present in order for a butch or femme to be "masculine" or "feminine"? I've frequently heard people talk about "masculine energy," and when pressed it seems that "masculine energy" can be exactly the same as "feminine energy" (especially given the presence of strong and aggressive women within the LGBTQ community and beyond), but on a woman. Yet what defines this energy? I guess I've come to see the definition of "masculine/feminine energy" as flimsy, for me.

And what about "feminine" gay men? If the etymology of masculine and feminine are that which pertain to two sexes, then is a gay man who identifies as a man really feminine? Is his own way of being a man his own form of masculinity, if masculinity is all characteristics which pertain to a cissexed man?

And if we take on this subjective approach to the definitions of "masculine" and "feminine," then how can either word be accurately used as a descriptive term? If "masculine" means one thing to one person, and "feminine" another thing to another person, then how can we use these words to describe another person's features or our own? It loses any kind of common meaning. This isn't to say that all words need to have precisely the same meaning for everyone, however, in order for language to function we do need it to at least have something in common.

Additionally, if we take the traditional definitions of "masculine" and "feminine" and recreate them so that they extend to all features which a man or woman possesses, then what happens to trans people? What happens to intersexed people? What happens to genderless, gender neutral or gender fluid people? What happens when these people participate in the butch/femme dynamic, if we see butch as strictly a masculine entity and femme as a strictly feminine entity.

The above is where I get back to talking about my own thoughts and changing perspective on the butch/femme dynamic. If the origin of "masculine" is that which pertains to men or cissexed males, then is it not a denial of many butch's identities to refer to them as "masculine"? That use of the word "masculine" and its reference to butches seems to ride off the heterosexist assumption that queer identities (and in this case, butch/femme identities) are mimicking heteronormative and cissexist presumptions of gender. That butches and gender-variant AFAB identities are just "trying to be men." Evidently, this is completely false. No queer identity, nor gender-variant identity is an imitation of heterosexual or cissexed normalized identities. Yet I feel that we often play into it, and are we not doing ourselves a disservice by using the word "masculine" to describe woman identities, or identities that vary from cissexed male identities?

On the other hand, I also feel that the reclaiming of "feminine" by many queer women, and particularly queer femmes is something that I feel good about. For too long, "feminine" and "what pertains to women" has been far too caught up with what heteronormative society has made it.

But conversely, does feminine always mean "all characteristics pertaining to women"? If so, where does this leave woman-identified butches who don't feel that the word "feminine" defines them or who they are? So feminine is also a bit problematic as it pertains to woman/female identities.

I guess the problem I see with all my general "musings" on the subject is wondering where that leaves my thoughts on the butch/femme dynamic. Evidently, I am attracted to femmes, but because I now run into the problem of "feminine" not describing all women (even in the wake of a movement that is retaking the word "feminine" so that no woman and what she does is negated, which is good step, imo), I question how I explain my attractions. Am I attracted to femmes because they are "feminine" or because they are queer femmes with their own characteristics outside of the traditionally defined "feminine"? There is also the issue of not all femmes using the term "feminine" to describe themselves. Which I think is cool and perfectly fine.

So where does that leave our dynamic? Do we need the words "masculine" and "feminine" to define our dynamic? Can the words "butch" and "femme" not only take the place of "masculine" and "feminine" in the way we navigate language and how we describe ourselves, but become "labels" that are limitless as far as who and what they define? Labels separate from conventional gender terms? I feel that that is the approach many queer folks have taken to "masculine" and "feminine," but it always seems to backfire. So do we really need these terms?

Is our dynamic entering a new age where it no longer needs strict definition in order to justify attraction? Is it really the "masculinity" or "femininity" that we are attracted to, or the "femmeness" or "butchness" (or something entirely different) of an individual?

I'm not sure I've expressed exactly what I want and in the way I want, but there it is.

[The_Lady_Snow]

As a femme who is non tafiditional when it comes to binary terms I as a person who's gender is Femme and encompasses both feminine and masculine traits find that until binary language is broken down and people stop putting expectations based on gender presentation a hierarchy will always be valued more when masculine is reiterated. If we're talking hook up specific then somehow Femme, Butch, Guy, Girl, Boy Man have to be viewed as equal on the value scale and once again I say this that the binary hetrenormative expectations of what is feminine / masculine are erased it is then that fluidity and non gender confirmation will be accepted. If we're talking dating I have to say it's ridiculously hard to date because a Femme has to be like..

XYZ pink rainbows glitter farts and all, same goes for butches/guys/boys gawd forbid they have 2.3oz of swish or like penetration value drops.
I hope I made sense:/
It's crazy I tell ya!

[Slater]

Interesting post, EnderD. There's a lot there and I will need to chew on it some before I can respond more thoroughly but here are a few thoughts off the top of my head.

While it is interesting to look at the etymology of the words masculine or feminine, I don't think we need to feel too strictly constrained by original meanings. Language evolves as society evolves. Our culture is not the same as it was centuries ago so it is no surprise that our language needs to change along with it to reflect new realities and new understandings.

I don't see masculine and feminine as highly precise words and they depend on cultural context (which is going to be frustrating to someone trying to come up with a concrete definition). They get us in the neighborhood but they aren't by themselves going to get us to the very doorstep of someone's identity.

Finally, labels that are truly limitless are also labels that are useless. If it can include anything then it tells us nothing.

[AtLast]

Two-spirit thought on gender has always struck me as a way to explore many of your thoughts and ideas here, Ender. Something that I have learned for myself is that fluidity in gender feels like "home." Fluidity in gender concepts and language, although terribly difficult to find in western thought, is right there in front of us in native cultures. This is true all over the world.

[Daywalker]

There are parts of the World that recognize and celebrate 3rd, 4th, and
5th Gendered folks. We could learn a lot in the Western World by studying
this 'phenomenon'; but we seem to be busy sweeping it all under the rug,
viewing it as a 'complication' or Taboo or as something that needs to
remain buried so that our laws, and ways can still function as is.

We can see how far that has gotten us.

[dark_crystal]

i kind of like the way gay men use the terms "butch" and "nellie" (despite the pejorative connotations of "nellie"). Those two words describe culturally queer concepts that have parallels with "masculine" and "feminine" but still stand apart.

"femme" is too close to feminine for this to work on our end

[Jett]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the organic state of masculinity, femininity or mascuninity etc., or acknowledging their existence. Just more with how we as humans sometimes think we are the gatekeepers of them, or project them in an unhealthy and outwardly harmful manner- assign them concretely to ones or others sex, gender or identity. Masculinity, femininity, like a baseball bat in your hands you can hit a ball out of the park with it... or hit yourself or someone else over the head with it... either way it's not the baseball bats fault.

On a personal note the thought of using the words Butch/Femme (or butchness/femmeness) to somehow "take the place" of masculinity/femininity (OP)? I myself have inward and some outwardly feminine attributes that do not alter or affect my masculine ones and it does not make me a Femme in any way... so I'm not a Femme nor is it "femme-ness" but I still cherish those attributes as much as my masculine ones, they are as strong, powerful and beautiful and I wouldn't wish to obscure them with another word or lose my ability to convey that in favor of anything else that doesn't mean (IMO) the same thing.

Hopefully conveyed the jist of what I'm trying to say, I know I confused the hell out of myself the first time I wrote it and had to make some hellish editing xD. Dunno *shrugs* I just think we leave ourselves even more open to stereotypical assumptions when we limit our language rather than expand it.

Peace

[PumaJ]

We Femmes & Butches got treated very poorly & disrespectfully, during the "Women's Liberation" time of second wave feminism, by those we knew as "political" lesbians. That is, those who chose to be lesbian as a political action/statement against the patriarchy. In their eyes, we Femmes & Butches were merely imitating the world of the dominant heterosexual culture. Butches were viewed as mimicking men, or "pretending" to be men. The relationship between Butches & Femmes was totally misunderstood. These "political" lesbians were completely ignorant regarding the erotic, sexual, & relational dynamic between Butches & Femmes. They were completely clueless about how the power intrinsic in such relationships between women, had less than zero to do with men & everything to do with a different way of being women.

I came out when the Butch-Femme community was still strong in San Francisco. It would be at least another year or so before much ruckus would be raised by the "political" lesbians about Butch & Femme. Second wave feminism has given us a lot, but the carry over from, what in my opinion was a form of homophobia, still seems to trouble us.

A dictionary definition of butch is this:

butch
A (traditionally) masculine man or woman, and especially a masculine lesbian. Often the "dominant" partner in a lesbian relationship, and especially of a butch/femme lesbian relationship.

Women being Butch, owning Butch, & claiming their own lesbian masculinity has less than zero to do with the masculinity of men, or of the dominant heterosexual culture. Rather it is a masculinity of women. It is male energy expressed through the female form, thus is entirely female, though male. As such, it bends gender, & to my way of thinking creates a way of being that is neither female or male, but both in one, i.e., Butch or Boi, or Stud, or AG, or any of the other terms currently in use to define it.

This is long, I realize, but I do want to close with some words on the subject of Butch by poet Judy Grahn from her book, "Another Mother Tongue".

"…the butch is ceremonially speaking, Puck. Cross dressing is a magical function, & the butch is the equivalent of the traditional cross dresser who may become a magical/shaman of the tribe. She is the one who cross-dresses, becomes a hunter or a soothsayer or a prophet or the first woman in a formerly all-male occupation. She keeps the idea of biological destiny untenable".

[lisa93]

I think everyone has a bit of both qualities in them.