#but i feel out of place with multigender people because i dont identify with both binary genders

[dogbrained-les]

Crap, I might not be as much of a binary woman as I thought I was

[wolfisland]

like i understand the issues people have with futch in the sense of the misconception that it was just made up as a mid point between femme and butch but i take issue with even that, honestly. all terms are made up. butch and femme were made up. they were invented to define an experience. the reality is that this is actually an experience people have, this is a term that could be used for people whose relationship with butch and femme could be a combination, it could be both at once, it could be entirely dependent on their gender expression or their relationship at the time, it could fluctuate, it could be and often is entirely their own.

futch exists in this weird space of "both" in a way people are often uncomfortable with. youre expected to pick one and youre expected to have a counterpart, but if one can be femme4femme or butch4butch i dont actually understand why its wrong for someone to be the butch OR femme depending on their relationship or current presentation.

im a butch, predominantly. i am often the more masculine partner, im often the counterpart of a femme, im the girlfriend whos a boyfriend, the wife whos a husband, the mom whos a dad. but i am also a futch, for my own reasons that i dont actually owe anyone an explanation for. my gender and presentation fluctuate and my dynamic with my partner directly correlates to my relationship with butch and/or femme. for a femme i could be a butch, for certain butches i could be a femme, and thats not even going into my experiences and solidarity with other butches.

but futch is so frequently left out of the conversation because i feel that something with so much potential is dumbed down to this concept of a shallow compromise between two more legitimate identities, which rubs me the wrong way ESPECIALLY when you consider a lot of people who do relate to futch are often bisexual or multigender as well.

after years of expecting bisexual women to coin new terminology for themselves (which is insulting, frankly. weve been part of this conversation and and community and always will be, and we should not have to identify with animals to convey our relationship with gender and sexuality and how we love others) its actually kind of absurd that people still disregard futch as some silly made up label, as though thats all it could ever be.

i just dont really get it. the stone butch high femme scale caused as much damage to futch as a concept as it did to stone and high, frankly. if we can understand a stone butch isnt just an extremely masculine butch and a high femme isnt just an extremely feminine femme, why is it so absurd to want to revisit and reconsider futch's place and potential within butch and femme and the experiences these labels were made for?

i know for an absolute fact im not the only person whos found a home in futch as a concept. my experiences as a butch arent lessened by my experiences as a femme with others, and vice versa. sorry if that statement conflicts with your own view on your identity but thats not my or any other person who identifies with futch's issue.

if we're starting to chip away at the incorrect and harmful take that butch/femme isnt inclusive of other lgbt identities, i think its time to actually acknowledge that futch does and always did have a purpose. its not "new", its not shallow, and its cruel to dismiss it and those whose experiences align with it based on misinformation.

[shadeslayer]

[id: two replies to this post from @stars-and-soda reading: "It feels like watered down truscum to me. I feel like a lot of people also miss how normalised dysphoria can become. It wasn't till I started playing around with gender that I realised how miserable I was" and "And to even me at the start, it feel like I was choosing this"]

YEAH for real . like there are so many people, even those who self-identify with the born this way narrative, who never would have realized or understood it unless they choose to do xyz. unless they chose to try crossdressing, unless they chose to go to a gay club, unless they chose to hook up with someone, unless they chose to &&&....

and like. i am biased a lot towards seeing gender as a choice, because im someone who sees gender as purely social/performative. and this is the way that i approach my own gender and presentation. it also becomes a lot more about choice when you see choices not just in "im going to do x" decisions but in action (& inaction!).

part of the "no one would choose to be this miserable" argument ofc is working under the idea that a choice between misery (living as a false self/not coming out/not transitioning) and relief (living as your true self/transitioning, albeit marginalized) cant really be considered a choice. which honestly i can agree with in a sense. thats why i came out and why i transitioned in the first place!

but honestly the way things get to the point that queer people have to feel they are between drastic choices of transition/come out or a drastic self-soothe (drug use incl alcohol, suicide, moving away forever and ever and never making any friends ever again,...) is because of the fear of not being real enough, that they might try it out and realize it was just a phase and just a whim, that theyll have ruined their lives and lost friends lost safety all for a lark, that theyll regret it, that theyre appropriating queer struggles by wanting to be queer, & so on and on. they wait for it to go away, to grow out of it, for the phase to end, and then when it doesnt they are forced to accept the truth that they Really Are xyz and they get what confidence they can from their history of repressing it and trying to avoid it proving that by virtue of time its Legitimate instead of "just a choice"

if Choosing To Be Queer wasnt seen as bad, then a lot of people would be saved a lot of years and lifetimes of pain and suffering at their own hands. and a lot more people would understand that they are queer. to say that the choice of being gay or whatever can be doubted by others and the others are the right ones is to actively push people into the closet and into repression. its where u get both "what if i regret hrt/surgery" and "but ive not slept with a woman how can i be a lesbian" and other stuff too

and just from a gender is performance perspective - we choose what we want. we choose "what feels right" absolutely but there is a choice. and i feel like. multigendered, genderfluid type people can understand this a lot bc thats a big part of why i see it. every day i choose what to wear in accordance to where im going and how i want to be seen. i choose according to my feelings that day, where im going, how i want to be seen, the identity i want to showcase, etc. i dont wear my "act faggy" shirt to go to rural oklahoma, i do wear my beaded jewelry when i go to native functions because i want to be identified as native. i say "i want to wear a skirt today bc im feeling like it" and so i do. im not predestined or born to wear a skirt that day, im choosing to wear it, and it makes me feel good and gendery to wear

and as for a 2spirit way of it its like. i choose to be involved in native stuff in my heritage esp as my father is disconnected from it, i choose to learn beading and to learn our stories and knowledge to keep it as well i can. i didnt choose to be native but i choose to give a shit. and i choose to call myself 2spirit and to act as best i can under the role of 2spirit. there is a pretty explicit performance of 2spirit as a gender and its part of why i really connect to it

long ramble my brain is turning off but i hope this makes sense lol

[id: screencapped text reading "Girl no one is going through the long, intense, socially dangerous and often painful process of physical transition "on a whim" and especially not for something like sports, stop drinking terf koolaid"]

the thing is i understand this and why this is said in response to "im ok with trans people but not the ones who do it on a whim" thing but this is exactly what i was talking abt in the tags of that post abt "born this way narrative will not save us" . what if someone DID do it on a whim? does that make them not really trans? does that make them stupid?

and even though you may say "trans joy not trans misery!" when you take this stance you are saying that "no one would choose to be this miserable." ive seen the same in discussion about jewish conversion - "no one would choose to be oppressed On A Whim" - okay but what if they did? is there nothing in the trans (or jewish) experience that are worth wanting for their own sake instead of only being a conciliatory side effect of the predestined burden they take on but could never willingly want?

and this worry about "on a whim" (aka choosing in any way) vs "for real" (aka not choosing but it being Meant To Be) ... it only ever results in "your choices arent reliable, people cannot be trusted to choose what they want, because what if they change their mind!!!" as if that isnt what bisexuals and trans people and all of us havent been bucking against - "its just a phase" "youll change your mind eventually" "youll grow out of it" "youll learn" . stop reinforcing this view that our choices are not our own, that peoples choices are able to be negated by other peoples opinions

when it really gets down to it, this is actively working against fights for autonomy. autonomy to choose tattoos, body mods, surgeries, hormone therapy, abortion, drugs, sex. all of it. when you say that "well ofc the ones who do it on a whim are bad - im just not one of those people" you say that other peoples choices are not to be respected [under these circumstances under those circumstances its all the same in the end.]