#Lesbiansafe

[riotkittiesarchive]

beware of attack lesbian!! reblog if you too are, indeed, an attack lesbian

[riotdyke]

2017 -> 2024

Butchness is about becoming, lesbianism is about growth, life is about transitions.

Take up your space.

[tenderanarchist]

Was feeling my fit today

[tactfullyinappropriate]

Ohhh boy, I'm gonna get a lot of flak for this one but... masc lesbian =/= butch. You can be the most masculine presenting person the world has ever known and that does not automatically make you butch.

Butch is an identity and you kinda need to fit that identity, not make the identity fit you. E.g. "lesbians" who are attracted to cishet men. Sorry, hun, you're just not a lesbian. Find your own identity that fits. You are allowed to be your own kind of bisexual or pansexual but what you are not, is a lesbian.

Sure, there is a lot of room for being your own person within an identity. I am not the same kind of lesbian as the next dyke. But if I did not fit (or if I no longer fit) the definition of the lesbian identity, I wouldn't call myself one and insist that lesbians expand the definition to include me.

'Butch' as an identity exists within a certain context. It *is not* a synonym to man, and it's also not a synonym to 'a masculine presenting lesbian'. If you don't vibe with the whole 'chivalry' concept and the specific ways in with butch/femme courtship (as an example) happens, maybe consider if this is the right label for you before insisting that we expand or rather completely rewrite the definition to exclude those things from it.

Some of the discourse around 'we should redefine butch!' reminds me of the discourse around redefining manhood. "It's not fair that men are expected to have masculine hobbies," they say. "It's not fair that men cannot wear glitter and makeup and retain their manhood. It's not fair that men are expected to open doors, and carry heavy things, and to-to---" Yes. You are exactly right. But butches are not men.

'Butch' is an opt-in identity, not something that society at large expects and requires from you. In other words: if you think femmes gushing about being courted by their butches in what to you appears to be a 1960s play-pretend of patriarchy, is silly, objectifying or demeaning toward one of the parties... consider that maybe 'butch' is not the identity for you. That maybe you are a masculine person with their own unique take on masculinity.

But insisting that we redefine butch is like me insisting that we redefine 'yoga' because I vibe with the gymnastics but I don't like the spiritual aspect of it. I can just go to Pilates instead. Or do yoga and accept that other people in the practice experience it differently.

What I am endlessly tired of, as a femme, is being lectured on what I *should* and *should not* find attractive. I am not somehow betraying feminism, objectifying people and degrading myself by daydreaming of a butch who opens the car door for me or - the absolute horror - brings me flowers on a date. I recognize that other people have the right to their own attraction and that masculine lesbians deserve the freedom to explore masculinity on their own terms and be treated with dignity and respect regardless of where that exploration takes them and regardless of who does or does not find them attractive.

That being said, the whole narrative of 'if you find chivalry hot, then you are objectifying butches and you are, in fact, an entitled selfish person' is tiresome. Not all femmes are women but in being chastised for our turn-ons and romantic daydreams (unless we're the Cool Girl who doesn't like flowers and rolls her eyes at romance) I see a lot of the admonishment directed toward cis straight women who dare to swoon when they read romance where the male lead is courteous and generous.

Except, again, butch/femme *is not* man/woman. It's a particular subculture within the lesbian identity and no one is pressuring anyone into conforming to it.

[depressed-lesbian420]

Show me who’s In charge mistress

[punkeropercyjackson]

Big if true

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

some people worry about lesbian identity being too ''limiting'' and i want you to know that if you feel that way you just might not be a lesbian!!

lesbians aren't forcing ourselves to ignore real desires to be with men, we're not cutting ourselves off from things that would be fulfilling or good for us.

i felt stifled and limited when i was trying to force myself to like men, when i was interpreting every feeling of anxiety or combativeness as "attraction", when i was dreading what felt like an obligation to entertain men sexually and perform for them romantically.

lesbianism is me finally giving up on limiting myself!!!

lesbianism is me finally giving myself permission to admit, to myself as well as others, what i actually want and do not want, and not trying to conform to the painfully limiting life mapped out for me by the cultural and economic coercion of compulsory heterosexuality.

lesbianism isn't for everyone. for some people, the lesbian label would be limiting and stifling because it's not what you genuinely want or need!! if you feel genuine desire for men of course trying to be a lesbian would feel bad, you're denying a desire you actually have!! there's no reason for you to force yourself to try to be a lesbian, just like it was bad for me to try to force myself to be bi!

but please understand that for those of us who need the lesbian label, it is freeing and healing, not restrictive.

[draculovemp3]

The femme voice is underrepresented in historical records, though markings of her presence abound. Often, she is the security behind the butch display, the one who makes the public bravado possible. Lady Una Troubridge's words to Radclyffe Hall, while spoken by a white, upperclass, Christian woman, capture some of the enduring aspects of femme power: "I told her to write what was in her heart, that so far as any effect upon myself was concerned, I was sick to death of ambiguities..." Yet to others, the femme woman has been the most ambiguous figure in lesbian history; she is often described as the nonlesbian lesbian, the duped wife of the passing woman, the lesbian who marries. Because I am a femme myself, I know the complexity of our identity; I also know how important it is for all women to hear our voices. If the butch deconstructs gender, the femme constructs gender. She puts together her own special ingredients for what it is to be a "woman/' an identity with which she can live and love.

— Joan Nestle, Flamboyance and Fortitude: An Introduction from The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader (edited by Joan Nestle)

[riotkittiesarchive]

[ art by @sweatermuppet ]

[pokebutch]

Finished up this gym leader design from way back in my drafts.. if gamefreak weren't cowards she could be real

[tenderanarchist]

🖤self-portrait as A Butch In Love🖤

[xxconnection]

[lautakwah]

happy lesbian visibility week from ur fav butch prince 💖

[depressed-lesbian420]

I fucking love you baby every inch

[toadsrbutch]

dyke protip: steal the charm from their belt so people know you are their’s 😌