#a butch dyke wants to know man talk to me

[that-butch-archivist]

I'm not sure if this will take off but I'd love to be indulged. I just read through an old reddit thread where butches talked about what colognes they wore and liked, and got to thinking that it'd be fun to do the same.

[saintlesbian]

hm. having a mini gender crisis in the middle of my shift again

[genderqueerdykes]

trans men and women learn a lot from each other when we get close and it's a wonderful thing. it's okay to be dysphoric about manhood. it's okay to be dysphoric about womanhood. it's okay to not like he/him pronouns, to not like she/her pronouns. it's okay to not like how strangers gender you. it's okay to talk about these things with each other, to share mutual disgust, to see how it affects one another and how it shapes our identities and experiences.

it's okay to talk about the things that make you uncomfortable together. it's not invalidating each other's experiences to have conversations like saying "i'm so tired of being seen as a man no matter what, and being around people who treat me like a man" to a trans man and having the trans man respond by saying "i feel the same way about people who treat me like a woman" and agree to not project one's trauma on to the other

it's okay to be vulnerable. it's okay to admit when we don't understand certain parts of each others experiences, too. we do NOT have to act like experts and like we've "read the book" on what another person's gender is. even if we think we know a lot about that gender, we don't know everything, because we don't know everyone. literally. it's okay to go "i don't understand, but I'll call you whatever you identify as." and be receptive without knowing exactly what they mean.

we don't understand many things in life. that's fine. it's okay to just listen and not talk for once. you don't have to try to speak as though you've lived as a trans man when you're a trans women, and you don't have to speak for trans women if you're a trans man. we are allowed to advocate for our own experiences and simultaneously listen to other queer experiences and respect their boundaries, spaces, and needs.

there is a lot to learn about the challenges that trans women face, the unique struggles that come with some being raised as boys and the troubles that come with that, being seen as a feminine boy, being subjected to homophobia- getting called faggots and other slurs. some were raised as girls, some are intersex, and some are afab or other birth sexes, and the mixing of masculinity and femininity and cause a lot of issues when it comes to how society treats that person

there are lots of conversations that have to be listened to when it comes to the transmasculine experience and how nobody but transmasc people can articulate what it's like to live as a transmasculine person. no one can speculate on it, because it is such a unique experience. it is a complicated matter of several different types of prejudice that no one else can quite understand where it comes from and how it feels unless they've been there

it is so deeply rooted in misogyny, where people treat us like "stupid, confused women," like we're "destroying children" that we're 'destroying our bodies', that our hormones make us "unstable, irritable and emotional," and that we are unreliable narrators. we get called hysterical. we get told we're "ruining a pretty girl" or wasting our "pretty" features. we get lectured about how we need to be attractive and how testosterone will ruin that by our own parents. we get told we can't dress masc because it will make us "ugly" or "butch" or "dykes".

people hate it when we bind our breasts, cut our hair, hide our curves, change our gait, and stop wearing makeup. they lose a "girl" to ogle and become enraged, upset or uncomfortable. while the transmasc person is trying to navigate life in a way where they don't feel objectified, it becomes a matter of even worse objectification because now antimasculism is introduced into the mix and the experience becomes transandrophobia.

people are so hateful and bitter toward manhood and masculinity. people ask us "why would you EVER want to be a man? NOBODY wants to be a man." they tell us "men are ugly, violent, and mean." people tell us that men are sexual predators, that they're inherently abusive. people tell us that testosterone makes people ugly. they tell us that men aren't or can't be queer. they tell us we can't be a feminine man. they tell us we can't be men at all, that transmasculinity isn't even a thing, that transmanhood isn't a thing. we even get told that the only way to be trans is to be transfeminine, and what we are experiencing is a delusion, hysteria, or a result of us being hormonal from being on our periods and/or HRT.

when we listen to each others' experiences we realize how people who are othered by society are treated. we learn that not only we experiencing this, but so is everyone around us. we do not have to try to make one side's experience more important than another's. we can hold each other up by having conversations and being vulnerable about what's going on, how we're being treated, how we want to be treated, and how the community is failing us and how we can do better.

we deserve to have conversations. there's a lot to learn, a lot to laugh about, a lot to relate to, and a lot to be curious about. these conversations are good to have. it's good to admit when you know nothing about transmasculinity or transfemininity or any other identity. it's okay to ask respectful questions. it's okay to tell people when you appreciate their identities, and them explaining it to you. it's okay to just listen. it really is. we have to learn to listen it's not something that can be avoided perpetually for life. listening to someone else's conversation does not erase yours, it does not take it away from the equation. they exist together.

[genderkoolaid]

the funny thing about being called an MRA is that long before i had thoughts about anti-transmasculinity i had thoughts about butches & how other leftists/feminists/queer women would talk about us. i would see people talking about butches having male privilege, about how butches are chauvinistic and act oppressively towards femmes, all with idea that feminine women are the ultimate oppressed women and butches are, like, above that. and it made me want to fucking bite someone. i wanted to shout at these people, have you ever fucking spoken to a butch? do you know what its like to be seen as a pathetic imitation of masculinity? despite what hollywood would have you believe, we aren't all conventionally attractive, sexy, consumably-androgynous Ruby Roses- we're ugly dykes, the embodiment of female failure because we have completely and utterly failed to be even remotely fuckable. we're unnatural predators of the good, natural feminine women. we're womanhoods trash! frankly there's a good reason why a lot of assigned-female butches relate to trans women, because masculinity on a female body- whether that's "feminine presentation" female or "vulva" female, "penis" masculine" or "no makeup and hairy" masculine- is seen as horrific, disgusting, a broken promise to cishet men!! but butches also relate to trans men because there's also the experience of being completely erased from history & society, told over and over again through cultural silence that you are an isolated mistake and should not exist and that there is no place or community for you, and having seemingly every goddamn person have their own Hot Take on how misogynists actually love that you exist and would prefer every woman be like you and you know that feminine people have it worse, right????????????

its like. people can understand the idea that a male-coded trait, like assertiveness, will be seen as a negative when a woman does it, even if its praised on a man*. yet for some reason people love leaping to the assumption that masculine presentation is always seen as valuable and good, and that women & people seen as women who are masculine are seen as Doing A Good Thing. like i don't know how to tell y'all this but if you are placed in the "woman" box literally nothing you do will ever be good enough!!!!!!! women & "women" are only praised when and if it will benefit the patriarchy, and when it doesn't they are mocked and degraded!!!!!!!!!

[gatheringbones]

[“Too many of us have chosen to live in sexually ambiguous, sexually boring, sexually dead lesbian relationships because it wasn't safe to talk about desire---desire for cock, desire for pussy, desire for leather, desire for diversity. Exploring my desire for men has led me in an interesting circle---back to my incredible passion for womyn. My queer world will have to stretch (again) to make room for my fantasies, and perhaps even an affair or two. It will have to stretch to make room for whatever I desire.

Finally I realize what I am so afraid of. I am afraid that men and penises have so much power in this heteropatriarchal world that simply desiring one can invalidate 25 years of deep womon-loving. I'm afraid that lesbianism is so fragile that it needs to be protected by an iron fence. I am afraid that by desiring a cock, I will be excommunicated, torn away from the world of womyn. I am afraid that if I allow myself to open, perhaps I will want more. This is why a lesbian wanting a man demands so much courage. Courage to stand outside of identity politics, to insist that our community grow to accept all of us.

My lesbianism is as sure and solid as the Himalayas, as predictable as the seasons and the phases of the moon, as familiar as a womon in my arms ("Wherever I go, there's one thing I know, I'm sure to have a womon around me"). My desire for men is as fleeting as good chocolate and ripe strawberries---not always available, sometimes bitter and disappointing, often intoxicating as nectar, somewhat allergic, and extremely tempting.

I can live with all these desires. I will not compromise myself again. Fitting in is less important than filling out. There is a revolution afoot, and it is stretching the parameters of the old gay life. The hundredth monkey. A friend says, "Oy, I'm not ready for this century." But she is. She is.

Just when I thought I'd made some sense of these desires for men and had come to peace with them, my ex-lover called. The butch who couldn't communicate and who could never fuck me right. She has something to share, something important, something very personal. She has decided to come out as a transgendered person---bi-gendered, s/he calls it. S/he has come to realize that s/he has both a male body and a female body. Hir language may be new, but the experience is familiar.

It was hir male body I always wanted. I'd called it butch. S/he says that when s/he is in hir male body s/he desires men; when s/he is in hir female body s/he desires womyn. In other words, s/he's as queer as a $3 bill.

Suddenly, a fog begins to clear. If I desired hir male body and hir male body desires men, and when s/he is in hir female body s/he desires womyn, then s/he must've wanted me womon to womon (or man to man?), while I wanted hir butch to femme (Dare I say, male to female?). Suddenly our sex problems become very clear.

I always felt hir switch. As I filled with desire, wanting hir hardness, her maleness, s/he would become soft, almost girly, and it was like someone pulled the plug on the bathtub, the desire leaked out of me, leaving me--us--empty.

This starts me thinking about the lover before hir. The one with the sweet curls in her hair, the big round belly, and the soft eyes. The kinky one, where anything goes. She loves my femme self, calls me bitch and desires to fell me with hardness, to force me into submission.

Somehow though, it never quite worked. I am beginning to see what went wrong. This one wanted butch/femme, boy/girl sex, and I wanted lezzie sex. I loved hir female body and wanted to touch her. S/he wanted to give me hir male body. When I tried to touch hir breasts, I was reminding hir that she was a womon and was therefore rejecting her power. The lover s/he picked after me identified as a heterosexual woman (although she too used to be a radical dyke). When my ex-lover told me this new lover wouldn't touch her (after all she did identify as straight), I thought, how terrible, such internalized homophobia. Now I am beginning to understand how, by ignoring the girl body, the boy could feel his power. It got old fast, but for a while it worked, fed the rejected boy place inside.

I began this piece saying I hadn't had a man in 15 years. I am beginning to suspect that I've had many men. They'd called themselves butches.

I suppose none of this makes sense if you just think about biological bodies. These girls definitely had female bodies, tits and ass, and oh, so lovely to touch. But there is no doubt that these womyn have also had dicks. I've never said this out loud before, because dick is a dirty lesbian word. But I have been filled by womyn's dicks, and no, they are not "just" dildos.”]

Lionheart, from wanting men, from genderqueer: voices beyond the binary, edited by Riki wilchins, 2002

[b1adie]

how do you feel abt people shipping boothill and robin? I'm torn because like. on one hand I think it's funny. but on the other hand. people insisting she's coded as a lesbian and I'm like IS she? ik it's not ~confirmed~ but I don't want to be disrespectful even if it's just a heavy handed implication. but also cyborg cowboy and angel popstar are soo funny to me. at the very least I will enjoy platonic content of them ig

in my personal dyke opinion i dont see all the supposed Lesbian Coding everyone is always on about…? i do agree shes into women but with how much people talk abt it i feel like i would have more to show for it. so like idk i dont see anything wrong with hcing her as bi

as for robinhill tho, i liked it better before their actual release LMAO like idk the idea of Vengeful Murder Cowboy and Philanthropic Angel Popstar together is fun. but now that i actually know both characters i dont think it’d work out. except if boothill was a butch lesbo then it would be one of the best ships of all time. but as a man no he can go walk his stupid ass off to yaoiville and leave robin to ME

oh but idc if other people ship it do whatever you want. if it works for you it works for you

[orkbutch]

i am a butch now but i don’t know whether that’s true or not anymore. i want to take T, but at what point am i actually just a trans man? have you question that line in the sand at all yet?

Oh boy.

I can only talk from my perspective on this, others may differ, and thats because "whats the difference between a butch on T and a trans man" is such a new sociological concept that its basically in the very beginnings of its infancy. its SO new, and neither Butch nor Trans Man nor Trans Masc have secure, well established roots as social identities or concepts. It may seem like they do and it may seem like there are rules or lines that are firm, but when you step back, zoom out, and consider them in the context of broader society (and especially compared to the idea of a Man and Woman), they do not. These are social contructs that are actually very early in their construction, and we are doing the constructing like, right now, within this ask.

That said, I can tell you why I don't identify as a trans man fairly easily: I don't care about men or the idea of a man. "Man" as a static concept is like... I don't know what that is. Its almost alien to me.

Now, to ramble that point out:

I have considered if I'm a man throughout my life. The closest I've been to identifying as a man was when I was in a period in my life when I considered that there was at least an aspect of me that was drawn to Manhood. Also, as I came to be read as a man in my public life, i supposed that in social situations when I was being treated as a man and I didn't correct people because I didn't care to, and I even enjoyed it somewhat and leaned into that role, I was essentially Being a Man (socially). So Man came to be a role I found myself in occasionally, and Manhood came to be a vaguely defined something that was intriguing to me.

But these moments of Man Feeling ended up being more like exceptions that proved the rule. Anyone can feel a bit like a man in the right circumstance, because gender isn't static; its something we can and often do play with, and phase through. I feel like music puts me in some heavily gendered spaces, like Everyone has a part of them thats a woman when they're belting along to "I'm Every Woman", yknow. Anyway.

I didn't feel like a man that much. I didn't feel like a woman that much either. I felt like a butch more frequently, because when I do things that indulged my masculinity, when I'm consumed by my love and attraction to femininity, when I think about the queers that I admire most, I felt butch, and was drawn to butches and interesting queer women. Leslie Feinberg, Frida Kahlo, Nancy Grossman, Patricia Highsmith, leather dykes and femme pro-doms, transgender queens... I've just never been that drawn to the experience of being a man. I've never been interested in men, frankly. Every man I've admired has been very much despite being men. Sufjan Stevens, Clive Barker, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, John Waters... great and usually queer artists whose gender is irrelevant because I like their work. The only man in that list who I have some personal affection for is Sufjan Stevens. He is an angel.

If I'm going to be a gender, its going to be the gender I admire. That I aspire to. I don't aspire to any man. Perhaps I aspire to a kind of body or a kind of masculinity, and sometimes men do that, but thats just a lack of other non-man representations of the thing I like. When I see in butches, it feels like a depiction of Me. Also WOW do I So Not feel like a man when I'm with my lovers. Sometimes I feel a bit like a man when I'm in a certain headspace while domming or if I'm having the rare T4T(masc) dalliance, but I feel very dyky when I'm with femmes. I just don't FEEL manhood. And I don't really care for man. Edit: I will say, there is a kind of Queer Man Masculinity that I definitely admire and aspire to, like that depicted by Tom of Finland or various other usually kinky gay art. But again, I don't see the Man part as important - its the masculinity. Btw, imo, there is no line in the sand as far as transition stuff. I'm very dysphoric about my body and that's never been about how I'm seen by others; it's my comfort in my own skin, and doesn't change my indifference to men or manhood. and that is my butch vs trans man ramble

[commiegoth]

Interview with nonbinary trans author Kate Bornstein, promoting her book Gender Outlaw (Mondo 2000 #13, 1995)

Full text under cut

I‘m walking down 16th Street minding my own business. This good looking woman is coming toward me. She's got on baggy unbuttoned overalls and an orange tank top. Her arms look good, her shoulders look good, and what I can see of her stomach looks good. Two guys are standing on the sidewalk. As she passes them, one says to the other, “I'd like to take that one home.” The other guy agrees. The woman keeps walking. Now it's my turn to pass 'em. “I'd like to take that one home and knock A her around a little bit,” the first guy says. I keep walking. The other guy answers. “That's a her?”

But enough about me. This is supposed to be about Kate Bornstein who wants you to read her new book Gender Outlaw. Bornstein used to be a man; now she’s not. Bornstein used to be a heterosexual; now she isn't. Bornstein used to have a dick; now she doesn’t.

She’s a “used-to-be-a-man, three husbands, father, first mate on an ocean-going yacht, minister, high-powered IBM sales type, Pierre Cardin three-piece suitor, bar-mitzvah’d, circumcised yuppie from the East Coast… a used-to-be politically correct, wanna-be butch, dyke phone sex hostess, smooth talking, telemarketing, love slave, art slut, pagan Tarot reader, maybe soon a grandmother, crystal palming, incense burning, not man, not always a woman, fast becoming a Marxist.”

All that’s not what makes her an outlaw. What makes her an outlaw is she sees a time when folks will look at the binary gender system and throw back their heads and laugh— ha ha ha. Males and females and that’s it? Ha ha ha. Get the fuck outta here.

Bornstein’s looking forward to us all living in what author Marjorie Garber (Vested Interests, Routledge) calls the Third Space. “This whole concept of three is so beautiful,” Kate says, “because it includes the first two. I don’t say there’s a third space that exists between men and women. I say there’s a third space outside of the Binary which leaves the Binary as this construct off to the side, very fragile and apt to fall apart.”

If I were a man, everything about me that brings me grief in the world—the way | walk, the way I talk, the way I think, the way | stand, the way I sit, the way I dress, the way | cut my hair, how much I weigh, how much weight I lift—would not only be acceptable, it would be revered. If we lived in the Third Space, it wouldn't even matter.

Bornstein had to learn a lot of rules in order to fit in. Like when a man walks down the street he looks people in the eye; when a woman walks down the street she looks at the ground. And women talk different. They have higher, breathier voices and their speech is more modulated. In mixed conversations, it’s the woman's job to laugh at the bad jokes and fill in the awkward silences. They smile constantly while they’re talking and use tag questions to qualify sentences, like “you know what I mean?”

“All of these customs are forms of self-deprecation,” says Bornstein, “like learning how to keep my knees together and not putting my arm across the back of my seat in the subway train. A lot of that was not so much to be a woman as to pass as a woman, so that I wouldn't call attention to myself.”

If we lived in the Third Space, she wouldn't have had to worry. In fact, if we lived in the Third Space, she might not even have had penile conversion surgery.

“I don’t do well with might-have-beens,” she says. “I resent that I was manipulated into that surgery by every signpost in the culture. I was not aware of other possibilities at the time. I was a total subscriber to the Binary and to the genitals by which it stands.

“I knew I wasn’t BOY, I knew I wasn’t MAN. Neither of those categories fit for me. It didn’t feel right, I have no idea why. I tried for thirty some odd years and it didn’t work. The only other option I saw in the culture was GIRL, or WOMAN. Nowhere did I see that it was okay to be a “real woman”—which I believed in—with a penis! So the next step was get rid of the penis. This insistence on the Binary and the genital imperative that signals the Binary coerced me into that. If I knew everything that I know now, would I do it again? Yes. Absolutely yes, because sex is so much more fun now.”

Back to this idea of the Third Space, how do we get there?

“Cyberspace would be a doorway into the Third Space,” according to Bornstein. “Cyberspace frees us up from the restrictions placed on identity by our bodies. It allows us to explore more kinds of relationships.

“I can go online as anything. I go online as various kinds of women. I've gone online as a guy a couple of times; I’m playing a stable boy in a vampire scenario now. I’ve gone online as different monsters. I’ve gone online as Mr. Spock in a ‘Star Trek’ scenario.

“Cross-gender identity surfing online is so telling: Men slum and women step into the trappings of power as men. You talk to a man after he’s been a woman online and he'll usually laugh and describe some kind of sex he had, usually lesbian sex. But you talk to a woman who's been surfing as a man, there’s this spark there. There’s this wonder. There's this—'They really do have this power!’ As soon as men cop to the idea that women are learning this, they’re gonna be more frightened.”

Bingo.

In Gender Outlaw, Bornstein asks: “If wealth and power are important, and if in this world wealth and power belong to men, then why did I cease being a man and give up that wealth and power?"

Some male-to-female transsexuals argue—often in response to being excluded from women-born-women only clubs—that they didn’t have a real male experience because they were never real males. Bornstein’s not buying it. “I had a bona fide male experience—of course I did. I’ve been bar-mitzvah’d. I hated it. Being male and hating it sets up a fugue experience. It’s definitely a form of madness. | think one way of dealing with the madness is to say it never really happened. That’s a legitimate way of dealing with it, but the fact of the matter is, I spent over thirty years of my life as a man or boy. I did not like it. I hated it. I drank a lot. I did a lot of drugs. I played a lot of arcade games.”

Once you've altered your gender, it’s gotta seem like anything’s possible. The whole world must open up. Does that mean that transgender stuff is the final frontier? Bornstein doesn’t think so.

She believes that once people get a grip on the idea of the Third Space, and transgender stuff becomes passé, we're probably gonna have to look at other binary divisions. “What are the differences between animals and humans? What are the differences between plants and animals? What about artificial intelligence, androids like Data from “Star Trek?” They're gonna be around. | think the gender binary is the one most firmly entrenched in our culture simply because it’s the one that capitalism trades on the most, other than class. We haven't confronted class. A minor communist uprising in Eastern Europe is not dealing with class. Certainly, the United States has never dealt with class. I think the fact that my book actually got published by a respectable publisher is an indicator that the culture is ready to chew on gender, whereas I don’t think the American culture is as ready to chew on class.

“I'd say gender is the last apparent frontier. It’s the frontier that’s just become illuminated. It’s titillating. In public relations terms it’s sexy. In sex terms it’s sexy. It’s a movement, a real live movement—ready or not, here we come!”

Meanwhile, back on 16th Street.

I take a few more steps, then my brain turns over and I say to myself, “Fuck this shit.”

I stop, turn around, walk back, and stand in front of the first guy. “You say something to me?”

He’s shocked. He starts stuttering and shaking his head.

“Uh…uh…no…I was just…I mean…he was just…I mean…he wanted to know—"

I interrupt him.

“Something about knocking somebody around?”

He starts stuttering again.

“Uh…no…uh, I was just… I mean, he just… I mean, I was just saying—"

I interrupt him again.

“You know what it sounded like you said? It sounded like you said you wanted to suck my dick.”

“Uh…uh… your dick?” He looks at my crotch to see if I have one.

(I do, but it’s back at my apartment.)

“Yeah,” I say, “that’s what it sounded like you said. I think you want to suck my dick, don't you?”

He looks at my crotch again, then he looks back at my face. He grins, still stuttering.

Uh...well...I, I, I... I wouldn't mind.”

“That's what I thought,” I say, and walk away.

For an almost complete collection of Bornsteiniana, start with Gender Outlaw (Routledge), go directly to The Last Sex, Arthur and Mary-Louise Kroker (St. Martins Press), and keep an eye out for performances of Hidden: A Gender and Virtually Yours. The unsatisfied can obsessively watch for guest appearances on Geraldo.

[fabuladorah]

My top 5 fave DBDA charachters

1. Crystal Palace

2. Charles Rowland

3. Night Nurse

4. Niko Sasaki

5. Jenny The Butcher

Honorable mention: Tragick Mick and Edwin Payne.

WARNING LONG RAMBLING!!

1 - Lemme be superficial first, her looks are simply iconic, i worship her hair and witch-core clothes and the way her powers are potrayed (those white globes, the three eyes, quick flashed) just make me go brwwww. And then there is hee character arc... which is *chef kiss* so, so good: she doesnt know who she is, she thinks people didnt really like her, she is sure her parents are looking for her, her first instict is to be mean, but then for what is she being mean for anyway, so she stops. She drags the boys from Big ol' London all the way to an small town in America just to save a little girl, because she is alone and scared. Her abusive demon ex, even after exorcised, is still haunting her. She offers her life to save an stranger she had just met (an stranger who had been kind, an stranger who had understood her, an stranger who had a place while she didn't). Her abusive demon ex shows that maybe she wasnt a good person after all. She misses her mom. She give away her powers (her strenght, her core) to be free from her abuser. She gets her power back, she buries her abusive demon ex alive in her mind (the place where he had her prisoner) with the help of her FAMILY (she didn't know who she was, she didn't know were she was from now she knows) she wrestles a thousand-year olds witch seconds after gaining her mind power back because she CAN AND SHE WINS. She has her memory back, she was an horrible person, her parents weren't looking for her (she missed her mother) and now she needs to go back home and she needs to make things right. Seriously what's there not love about her? Crystal Palace, please understand, you'll always be famous.

2 - Wait one second *close the door* *inhumans sounds* *open the door* okay now lets start. He is not the brain, he is the brawn, he is the protector. He couldn't protect himself. He died defending a boy he didn't even know, he died because he hated senseless violence, he died by the senseless violence. He fears being a bad person — he think he is a bad person, his father's son. He is terrified, so he'll lie, he'll smile. He was just a boy, he died young, he wanted to grow old, he hates to be dead, but he loves Edwin. He chose Edwin over Heaven — this boy, alone, died young and had been his light during the darkest, final, moment of Charles' life. It was an easy choice. I just really, really love Charles, because of all that, but also because he is charismatic af (all Jayden's hard work) and funny and he foes around with a fucking cricket bar, I should've started with that... he has a cricket bar, your Honour, I rest my case. And and I just love charachters with this """savior complex""", this responsibility of being alright to take care of others, of smile and lighting the mood because no one else will do that.

3 - she's an overworked work and that's my kinda shit. The whole point of her job is to protect and care for the lost children, and being honest to god I know she would shoot a kid right in the head if it meant finish her job and thats so fucked up and hyprocte of her and i just absolutely worship her. Also, her whole life views being changed because of a funny man she met inside of a whale is just--- I think she is underrated, and people are missing her angst potential, but I will not be the one to tell you how to write her because dude my english is going to shit as we speak.

4 - I know this is kinda dissapointing, but my whole reason is that she is Niko. That's it.

5 - She is a dyke running a butch shop, thats actually so cool I could die. On her first appearence I thought she would kill Crystal and the boys (again) and thats how I like my women. Also its really refreshing to seen that there is an adult who cares about these kids... the talks she had with Crystal and Niko, yk, she is so mature and smart and wants to help and she is like so cleary trying not to get attached and failinh tremendously, cmon she saw Crystal going to meet her abusive ex and was like "Nuh uh u aint going alone and I AM TAKING THIS MF CLEVER WITH ME" based af. Local lesbian accidentaly addopts four kids (two of which are dead)

Bonus: okay I feel like I gotta justify myself: I DO NOT HATE EDWIN, okay? I love him, he just didnt make the cut. And about Tragick Mick, cmon he is a goddammned (LITERALLY) seal and runs a funny little shop and saved Niko's life. We love him. We adore him. Tragick Mick may not have the sea, but he has the people!!

[butchdyketoy]

i see a lot of love for cowboy butches on here,

and i just think it’s important that you all know i was genuinely raised on a ranch, and brought up as a cowboy.

of course, i was supposed to be a polite little cowgirl; my unapologetic dyke masculinity was one of the most scandalous things my rural hometown had ever seen. old men couldn’t keep their mouths shut and my sexuality was gossipy dinner conversation for people i’d never even met; so what was i supposed to do? well… i leant into it. HARD.

if they wanted to talk about my undeniable faggotry and gender fuckery, i was going to make sure they knew exactly the type of butchdyke cunt they were dealing with.

i became more of a man than their sons could ever be, wore their clothes better than they ever could- and made it my purpose that every single fucking person in that god forsaken county knew that what they detested me for? the sinful pleasure of homosexual passion, the satanic temptation of gender non conformity? it’s why cowboys exist. the earth remembers and recognizes my cowboy queerness more so than it could ever process a cishet white man who claims to know the ways of the west.

cowboy culture only exists because of indigenous communities and queerness.

never let anyone take that away from you, cowboy.

[carabiner-axe]

wish people stopped having an issue or just being weird about how i look. i sat down next to my mum to talk to my uncle, my aunty, and my 91y.o. nana over a videocall and my mum was like, "look, she got her haircut, now she looks like a boy again" (as if my hair wasn't already short before i got it done again at the barbers on friday, and as if she's never had short hair herself) and i had to try and laugh it off like, "don't be silly, i just look like a girl with short hair!" and my nana was like, "oh, you aren't going that way, are you, wanting to be a boy?" and i was like, "no, no, i just like my hair like this, that's all there is to it" and my nana was like, "do people treat you like one? how do people treat you with your hair that short?" and it's like, nana, i love you but you don't know i'm gay and get clocked for it. i love you, but i don't want to have to how to tell you i've had slurs yelled at me for having my hair be short (whether it's been "dyke", or the f-slur which isn't mine to say) or i've had a man follow me into the public loo (thankfully to only wash his hands but because he just wasn't paying attention and thought i was a boy going into the men's bathroom) or i've had older women be confused by me, i don't want to make you worry. i don't want my mum to want me to grow it out and dress femininely when it was suffocating me for most my teen years having to stick to the script. nana, i don't know how to tell you i'm just doing what i find most comfortable and what i've always wanted, but i just want you and mum and every other person confused by me to know i'm just a somewhat butch lesbian who prioritises personal comfort which so happens to be, dressing like this. being like this. that women CAN be like this, it doesn't mean we want to be anything else even if we don't always LIKE our bodies.

thankfully, my aunty was like, "oh, i imagine they just treat you like your ordinary self with your own unique personality!" and i was like, "yeah, sure, yes THANK you!" (mentally thinking, god, can we leave this? i got my haircut the same length i always do these days, it's not anything new, i am STILL ME)

[bonefall]

I don't understand he/him lesbians, I'm friends with a few lesbians and they all say it's harmful to lesbians for someone who identifies as male to call themselves a lesbian, is this right? If you're not comfortable explaining that's ok! I just saw you answered an ask with it and I wanted someone else's opinion? I'm not too keyed in on sexuality and genders and stuff (I'm a bi cis woman) but I'm trying to learn more to be more considerate to the people around me and stuff

Hey, if you're reaching out and seeking advice on the topic, that is good for me!

I will not do this very often though just because I want this blog to be a place for funny battle cats and general celebrations of queerness, but for you, I will give you a brief rundown and some good links to further reading if you'd like to learn more.

So this sentence is aimed at everyone who is not this anon; my stance is not negotiable and the block button is my best friend. Do not use this post to argue. Thank you.

It is not correct that people who identify with masculinity cannot use the term lesbian.

Queerness isn't about rigid boxes and fitting ourselves into them, that's what we're supposed to be against!

Lesbians are people who identify in some way with femininity and have sapphic affections for other feminine people. I've met agender (no gender) lesbians, genderfluid (gender isn't rigid and shifts like liquid) lesbians, demigender (sort-of feels gender but not much) lesbians, multigender (identifies with multiple genders possibly including masculinity) lesbians, so on.

I have even known a transgender man who found the label better described his relationship to women than the term 'heterosexual.' When asked why, he described it as, "I don't love women the way other men do." Even though he was no longer a woman, he still felt a connection to femininity that he felt was best described as sapphic.

A person's relationship to gender can be a very complex and multifaceted thing. In fact this complexity is why I personally use the term genderqueer.

When a homophobic chucklefuck says, "Uhuhuh im a lesbian like u because i also like women what now" What they're doing is being disrespectful. That is what is harmful about that. They do not care that you say, "Ah, well, a lesbian is only women who like other women!" because now you've given them a foot in the door to shave women down into rigid boxes of femininity to fit stupid binary rules.

TERFs have used this in the past to divide our community. Our enemies do not care that our terms "make sense." They just want us gone.

Pronouns don't always equal gender.

Just like how I mentioned that there are masculine people who can identify in some part with femininity without being women, the same thing can happen with people who are women and feel a connection to masculinity, or something else entirely.

Lesbians using he/him pronouns goes back for decades, even centuries. Some would use these pronouns to pass as men (and may have been what we'd call transgender men with modern terms), while others feel a strange relationship to their assigned gender through their sexuality, and some simply prefer he/him.

He/him lesbians, they/them lesbians, xe/xir lesbians...

Discomfort is not the only reason to change your pronouns. Disconnect is not the only way we explore ourselves. Sometimes it's pleasure!

PLEASE GO READ

(CW: The following literature is intended for adults and discusses sexuality and queer history, including oppression, violence, racism, etc.)

Female Masculinity by Jack Halberstam Talks about the history of masculinity in the lesbian community. Important book. Please read.

Butch, Femme, Dyke, Or Lipstick, Aren't All Lesbians The Same?: An Exploration Of Labels And "Looks" Among Lesbians In The U.S. South, a thesis by Denielle Kerr While this one isn't about history, it's a really good introduction to the discussion in general since you specifically mentioned not knowing much about these issues. It touches on a bunch of popular queer theories in a way applicable to lesbians specifically, like performance theory, bodywork, intersectionality... Just follow the citations when you see something you'd like to know more about.

[androgynealienfemme]

"AH: I think it does make a difference. I would argue that a good femme does not play to the part of you that hates yourself for feeling like a man. But to the part of you that knows you're a woman. Because it's absolutely critical to understand that femmes are women to women and dykes to men in the straight world. You and I are talking girl to girl. We're not talking what I was in straight life.

I was ruthless with men, sexually, around what I felt. It was only with women I couldn't avoid opening up my need to have something more than an orgasm. With a woman, I can't refuse to now that the possibility is just there that she'll reach me some place very deeply each time we make love. That's part of my fear of being a lesbian. I can't refuse that possibility with a woman.

You see, I want you as a woman, not as a man; but I want you in the way you need to be, which may not be traditionally female, but which is the area that you express as butch. Here is where in the other world you have suffered the most damage. My feeling is, part of the reason I love to be with butches is because I feel I repair that damage. I make it right to want me that hard. Butches have not been allowed to feel their own desire because that part of butch can be perceived by the straight world as male. I feel I get back my femaleness and give a different definition of femaleness to butch as a femme. That's what I mean about one of those unexplored territories that goes beyond roles, but goes through roles to get there."

- “The Femme Tapes” Madeline Davis, Amber Hollibaugh, & Joan Nestle, The Persistent Desire, (Joan Nestle) (1992)

[butchybats]

god my fav things about like genderswap AUs is asking like, how does this change the way the characters navigate the world or how other characters treat them, right? so like. I JUST IMAGINE LESBIAN DANIEL AS BEING EVEN MORE PRICKLY. So sick of being treated like a girl all the time, so hyper-aware of all deficits in her experience based on how sexism has treated her, MAYBE POSSIBLY MORE WARY OF CREEPS, EVEN CREEPS WHO ARE WOMEN LIKE ARMAND. Is she as unsafe, as blithely monsterfuckig??? Does he have an ounce of self preservation and survival instinct? Is it harder for fem!Armand to find her when she flees around the world?!? ALSO LIKE. I always wonder how many other characters get swapped in these situations like is Louis also a woman? Did Daniel go interview some fucking man in a seedy room all by herself???????? Where's her safety rules at I gotta know. AND ARMAND. Armand. God. I feel like the cult grinds people's personalities down so much like almost as if every COD vampire was this genderless wraith. Does that change for her? Even as a boy Armand had such a fuckd up life like HOW MUCH WORSE COULD IT REALLY GET FOR HER LOL. And like is CLAUDIA still a girl like where's the jealousy at between them? thereS JUST SO MUCH TO DISCUSS

I am so glad there’s people actually wondering about the intricacies of this because for me it’s just like woah it would be so hot if they were women hghgh but i love thinking about this so much!!!!

LESBIAN DANIEL WOULD BE SO PRICKLY!!! She is so tired of the world’s shit and I can not blame her one bit. “So sick of being treated like a girl all the time” YES!!!!!! Her gender is dyke and she’s butch <3 (this is totally not me projecting) i feel like she’d experience a lot of sexism that really ties into homophobia so she’s had to learn fend for herself and not take anyone’s shit.

Lesbian Daniel is still the ultimate monster fucker I think <33 she wants these vampires so badly it makes her look stupid! I do think she’d be more wary of Armand in the beginning though like I can not imagine her taking public transportation in the dead of night 😭 no leaping out of a taxi into traffic for lesbian Daniel lmao and I also think she’d be great at not giving strangers the time of day so it might take her a bit longer to warm up to her (but at the same time are they really strangers after hearing about her from Louis and then being locked in a cellar by her? 🤔 HGHG like they are literally uhaul lesbians)

AND I AM ALWAYS GOING BACK AND FORTH ON WHOS ALL GENDERSWAPPED!!!! Because sure ideally i love thinking about them all being women but narratively that doesn’t work out!!! Akasha’s plot line is redundant if there’s no men lol also would Gabrielle feel as estranged from everyone if there were no men?? And just like historically it doesn’t make sense </3 personally the people I would love to be genderswapped are daniel and armand (obviously lol) but also lestat and louis maybe nicki?? umm i think that quinn could be a woman too. As a treat <3 but everyone else I’m convinced could be the same I’d love to see how chaotic that story goes (also i need bianca my beloved to stay the same so that we can have venice lesbians <3)

AND ARMANDDD Armand… It would probably get so much worse for her 😭I feel like she would really really latch on to Allesandra like more than canon simply because they’re both women in the cult. Also because Armand is a woman I feel like she would need to try way harder to command everyone’s respect and fear she would have to be VICIOUS (said while twirling my hair and giggling) and while gender stuff is probably the least of her concerns when all of this is going down I think it would still fuck with her over time, especially considering canon Armand’s intricacies with gender. Would she feel like she has to perform feminity to be taken seriously? Or does she play into her androgyny (not that she has much of a choice)? But I can totally see her and Daniel having one of their big talks about gender and how they relate to it

THERE IS SO SERIOUSLY SO MUCH TO DISCUSS ABOUT THIS AND TY FOR TALKING TO ME ABOUT IT! <3 my asks and dms are always open to anyone who wants to talk about gay vampires I feel like I could go on forever about them

[jonellescribbles]

I’ve seen a few posts along the lines of “I don’t feel like the ship represents LGBT space for me” or “I feel like other parts represent queerness for me, but I feel like the ship is hetero culture”

I feel like this is coming from a place where people see the characters chafe under the stress of masculine conformity and don’t recognise that place as the loving and open queer spaces we mostly have access to now.

Perhaps some of these sentiments are coming from younger queers, so I just wanted to remind people that up until very recently many queer people and spaces felt they had to hyper perform masculinity and binary gender roles in order to claw any dregs of respectability left after coming to terms with their own gay identity. I mean, do I have to remind anyone of the ‘no fats no fems no Asians’ that people willingly put on their own dating profiles.

Something that sticks in my mind was this biography of a man arrested for sodomy - before the Oscar Wilde case. He was frank in describing himself as a gay man, but when he was in jail he looked around at the feminine ‘limp-wristed’ men also in jail with him and compared them to pedos and degenerates, saying “at least I’m not THEM.” Baffling. The mental gymnastics. But that’s what people did. Butches and fems, bears and twinks. The masculine partner was expected to perform masculine roles and the feminine partner received. Needless to say in fiction and reality we can see how these roles box people in and destroy them and their relationships.

I don’t know if people have memories like this but personally, my best friends parents were a lipstick lesbian lawyer (say that five times faster) and a bra-less, short-haired, woodworking dyke in men’s jeans and waistcoats. When they broke up - messily- one of the first things the butch did was steal her partners car and start wearing dresses. (Resist rooting for her she was Troubled and abusive and I’ve made her sound much cooler than she was).

For me the pirate ship is an Extremely Queer space, ESPECIALLY because of the toxic masculinity (and touch of misogyny through their initial suspicion of Jim etc), not in spite of it.

The first shot we have of Blackbeard he’s a leather daddy surrounded by a crew and culture of buff leather daddies, here to save foppish, limp Stede. They, and S1 Izzy, represented the hatred and fear of being something WORSE than gay - feminine. And I love that the story works to undo that.

What I’m saying is that for me OFMD nailed it. The ship is a crew of weirdos - the people in the grey area; nonbinary people, people of colour, bisexual people, and poly people. And FEMININE people. The crew is ‘soft’, ‘weak’, ‘foppish’, all of which are insults the queer community has levelled at their most fem members.

Anyway, I’m rambling but I just wanted to put up my hand and go “Um-yeah. I like your opinions but please don’t forget about the negative parts of our gay history too!” Thanks for attending my Ted Talk, the doors have been unlocked now.

[delaneythedyke]

hey, is it alright if i scream into the void below the cut?

ok, so for as cute and sometimes fem as I try to present myself on this blog, in the real world, I present solidly butch. I wear a denim jacket and stomp around in docs, and I suck at makeup and don't actually want to learn if I'm honest. if you saw me in person, you'd probably agree that I'm a soft butch at the very least. and being transfem and butch is so weird sometimes cause like I know deep in my heart I absolutely want to be a rough and tumble dyke in my boots and my jacket and i want to be the girl other girls see as helpful and handy and the girl to call when they need something fixed and being really fem just isn't for me. but also I want to been seen as a girl and I want people to think I'm pretty (or I guess as a handsome woman if you catch my meaning) and I want other gals to see me as their equal and not as "man who is fem but not like a girl" and it's such a fine line to walk all the time. and I feel a huge pressure to be super fem so cis people see me as me, and honestly, it's so exhausting 😮‍💨

I know im not the first butch trans girl to talk about this, I just wanted to let that out