#Man I'm only just now realizing how few lesbians I had hung out with before I got back to Chicago

[stardustedknuckles]

Years I've spent as friends with people who have Real Taste in music, feeling vaguely defensive and embarrassed about how the autism seems to only like the kinds of songs that register as basic to everyone else, with few exceptions.

Then I met another lesbian and every time she turns on her music, half the songs are on my playlists.

[cowboyjen68]

Hi Jen, and hello every butch reading this. I need your help.

I don't know where to begin, this has veen a problem for me for almost a decade now. I've followed you (Jen) for a few years now, and you're a very comforting figure to my brain, so I was hoping you and possibly others could help me out a bit. If not answers, then some good advice, open mindedness, patience, and possibly links to resources and helpful places. I've wanted to reach out to older butches and such about my issues with gender for a while, because I've flipped between a few and always have my mind coming back to butch in some form or another. Whether I act on it between each circle back or not, it stays.

I came out as some flavor of trans around 13, and then moved towards binary FtM around 14 or 15, which is when I met my first partner ever. I've had a ton of jumps back to being just kind of butch but in a weird middle butch state of not lesbian, not ftm, not anything but butch. I grew up in the midwest for 10 years (starting at 10,) and came out as a lesbian at 11 or 12. Regardless of how I was identifying in highschool, I was bullied and catcalled as a lesbian my whole childhood, seen as a d/ke, called it, I got the worst of it all, had girls try to kick my ass and dudes try to "turn me." I hung out with the fem cishet alt girls half my height and half my weight, carried them around, I was the ugly tall bitch that protected them. Had a wicked shaved head, wearing mens clothes handmedown, mens boots, brought a swiss army knife everywhere and my own wallet and housekeys. Getting pencils thrown at my head, smoking weed in the girls room, forced to change in the gender neutral stall for gym cause the school didnt know what to do with me. Guys would honk as they went past and shout dyke at me, so I started trying to blend in with highlighter shirts and jeans etc. Typical midwestern shit. I feel that despite now living as a man, i had the lived experience since a very young age (even before moving to the midwest,) of a butch. I am now fully living life as a cis man, stealth, and dating an amazing queer trans dude whose possibly genderfluid, and also very fem. He also identified as a lesbian for a long time and experienced a lot of toxicity there, and was nonbinary in his past, and I met him when he was agender and queer. He's amazing, I'm going to marry him, and he's everything I love in a partner. Feminine, went to cosmetology school, pretty nails, chubby, likes to bake and shop and wants to cook me steak, wants me to carry his stuff and his groceries, calls me his scary dog privleges, wants to scratch my sideshave. He realized he was trans and came out after we met, and I've been his biggest support against everything else, and I always will be. I love him, I'm attracted to him and he's the only person i ever have been. So I dont think I qualify anymore as a butch, despite using the term and being a butch for so many years. I was a butch, I still feel it even if I'm not really into many people at all including women (also on the aro/ace spectrum haha), but now I'm a man, I have a beard, I have a boyfriend I will never leave, who knows how I feel and loves me and we both know no matter where we end up gender wise or sexuality wise that pretty much me and him are it, and if it contradicts, who gives a shit, yknow?

My dating history has always been feminine nbs, feminine trans boys, and femme lesbians. I have never dated a masculine cis man, masculine nb, anyone masculine at all. For lack of better terms due to my situation, I have always been butxh4femme and at least masc4fem. I have always been the guardian and gentle giant of my fem partners, I also am mostly a stone butch due to sexual trauma and asexuality. Due to my aroace-ness, I've also hardly dated literally anyone lmao! Maybe 3 people longterm and seriously in my entire 21 years. This is getting really long, and I'll be honest, I've been yelled out of all communities I've been in for being so damn complicated. I'm scared I'll hurt mt partner and he'll feel I don't see him as he is, I'm scared I'll hurt lesbians despite living and growing as one most of my life, I'm scared I'll hurt me by identifying as butch because I feel like I'll have to detransition. I also kinda look fuck ugly without a beard nowadays, cause lord knows I've shaved that shit fullon twice now because of this exact issue.

I want to be called sir, and I love being on T. I hate getting a period, and my bottom dysphoria is agonizing, but I probably wont get bottom surgery. I want to not be catcalled. I want to get top surgery eventually, and maybe I don't want a full beard. I wanna cut all the sleeves off my shirts again and get some sexy workboots and jeans. I know I want my pretty femboy boyfriend on my arm forever, I don't care how he ends up identifying or me either, and to see him wear his dress on our wedding day. I want to be butch but still be seen as a man, but I don't think I'm allowed because so many people have shit on me for it and said I'm not. But I still wear my keys on my belt. I still lift the heavy shit, emotionally or physically, every day for him. I still do my role, I still protect the people around me. But I don't want people to look at me when I say butch and assume me or my boy are women, out of respect for him and me too.

Advice needed, please, anybody that's willing to help me and help me find my path. It's been so back and fourth so long. Thank you.

- R

i am sorry for taking so long. Fall is a very busy season with all my jobs ramping up and getting ready for winter on the homestead.

Your writing was a lot to absorb and I admit I read it several times and had to come back because it weighed on my emotions and heart heavily. I was driving tractor last night so I had lot of thinking time. I went over in my head how you much feel, how I could possibly answer this with any coherant advice or even just some comforting words.

You are only 21, my advice if you were my child (i have 3--25 year olds, a 22 year old and a 16 yo), would be to slow your roll. 3 serious relationships by 21 is a lot. At a time when we are sort of socially and mentally programmed to be free and using our energy to exlplore our individuality you were putting efforts into maintaining viable relationships with other people who were probably also trying to figure themselves out. I was 23 before I even had one serious relationship and i was probably still NOT ready for it.

When we never live a single life or a life on our own it becomes hard to separate who we are from our partner. It is normal to bounce off of each other and to both want badly to share the same values, identity and interestes EVEN if as individuals those things might never have lined up.

I am NOT a therapist nor can I possibly know you or your exact feelings, I can only go by what you told me. When I am asked for advice I am honest but kind, go from my experiences and or those stories I have been told by friends. Sometimes what I say is NOT what you want or expected to hear. That is okay. You can take what I say or leave it. Or use what helps, ignore what doesn't . So here it goes.

My point about you both meeting young,and thus relying on each other to work on your individuality comes into play here. You are both, I am guessing around 21. Neither of you have had any time to forge exactly who you are. Stastically what are the chances of two women who both lived as a lesbian meeting after you transitioned  and the partner ALSO being trans but not coming out until AFTER the fact. Until after the relationship has progessed.? Speaking in terms of how many trans people are in the population that feels like quite a statistical anomally. What are the chances? Now I suck and math and I know the percentage of any given population in the LGBT+  community as compared to greater society seems sketchy, based on shitty research and at best a bad guess. It just gives me a bit of pause and might give you some food for thought, a chance to think over outside influence vs life long dysphoia or other factors. 

 I preface this by saying I can in no way know you or your partner or pasts or any actual feelings, only what you have told me. I appreciate your stark honesty and your willingness to admit you are struggling. Reaching out is hard even as an anon. Is it in any way possible your partner was influenced heavily by wanting badly to share your life, your values, to feel more inline with you and to feel more close to you and to solidify the relationship in a space that she perceives as more comfortable to you. OR perhaps even your friend group?  

You talk aboout pressure from all sides to be this or be that and if you are a trans man I am sure she was getting not too subtle pressure to not use lesbian even though she was maybe just fine with that, it felt right. There is a vicious push from inside the house to tell people how to describe their sexuality and relationship when it is no one’s business. Others feel uncomfortable when two people live their lives as they see fit and don’t rely on how people perceive them to be happy. It makes some people nuts  in fact. 

To your concern about detransitioning or not or what makes you happy. I know detransitioners and they slide just fine back into the lesbian community they used to have or they have found their own new lesbians friend group. It is not impossible. At many events I have been to in my life, women’s festivals included, there were tans men there who lived soley as men outside the protective walls of women spaces but were happy to be seen as women within the safety of the limited time and space of the event. You can find community among lesbian no matter how you land, it just takes a little bravery and ultimately being okay with yourself. 

I am not going to tell you it is easy no matter the path you choose. Reidentifying as a woman with a full beard and staying on T is never going to be as easy as just saying “I am THIS “. You would have to spend time coming back out, explaining etc until such a time you formed a community who knows you and understands your past. 

Everything you described that you love is everything I love about being butch, I am short, 5′3 so I didn’t experience some things like you have as tall woman in high school, BUT I was definitely clocked as a lesbian even with great effort to be seen has just wearing “typical midwestern shit”. My entire wardrobe was T shirts, sweatshirts, jeand and tennis shoes. I gave up my beloved cowboy boots because others said they made me “look even more like a boy” and in the 1980′s I tranlated that to “butch lesbian” even if I did not have those words. I knew damn well what they were inferring.  

I also know lesbians who take T and remain in the lesbian community, they just feel they need to pass more as men in the larger world for their peace of mind, safety, job, whatever. So deciding that lesbian and butch is right for you does not mean you can’t continue to utilize tools that help you to feel okay. 

This is getting a bit long and I will admit I am unendingly biased, I have never denied that and don’t hide the fact that I think being a butch lesbian is wonderful. GIven all the factors and insecurities you have shared with me being a butch seems like the path of least resistance. Cutting back on T, not constantly worrying about “am I or am I not” and getting back to the basics of what you seemed to understand as you were coming out, before there was transitioning on your table. EVEN in the face of bullying and knowing being a lesbian was not desirable to the outside world you could not escape it and you came out. Perhaps because when you can’t escape you meet something head on and embrace it since that pulls power from the outsiders. 

When you and your partner are alone, away from all others. In the safety of you bed, talking softly and about your day or your plans tomorrow, the world gets no say. You both know that is true in your hearts and please don’t let those in the world, in our own community poison that with pressure and accusations. DO NOT give them control of  your heart, of your love. 

Best of luck and butch hugs to you.