#cis girl -> gender nonconforming -> nonbinary -> nonbinary but i have a job so idc about that rn

[chapst1ckmcdyke]

So ive had this saved in my drafts for a while now- but theres a point id like to make about butch/femme identity and expression and think this is ready despite the crap i might catch for it

On my days off and when i go out for fun, lots of times i look like this vvv

And other times, especially because im a blue collar dyke, i look like this vvv

The thing that both these photos have in common is that, regardless of how i may appear, i am a femme lesbian. I am not magically butch at work just because i have to wear jeans and work boots for safety. On the clock I am often mistaken for a man and harassed for using the women’s bathroom, people call me sir and damn near keel over trying to correct themselves. I understand that people will look at me as masculine because im in a mans trade.

And yet im still a femme!

You know why? Because being femme is not about how i dress or how long my hair is or the job i work or the body im in, but who i am, how i love, and how i want to be loved back. Its my reclamation of my gender and sexuality and romantic life.

Theres this idea that femme lesbians are “the girl” lesbians and butches are “the boy” lesbians. Femmes are stereotyped as straight passing hyper feminine (and often times cis) girls. But if youve ever met a femme thats not always (in my experience- USUALLY) the case. We often are nonbinary (hi! Also me!) and/or gender nonconforming even in our femininity- taking the things that cishet society hates the most in women (ie body hair/body fat/masculine jobs/deep booming voices- etc) and owning those characteristics in ways that make us feel free and most like femmes 💕

I personally feel most comfortable being feminine off the clock and covering myself in glitter and being a tacky fat furry muppet because its how i feel best recognized by the butches i adore so much! But i get to reclaim womanhood or whatever adjacent, gender-fucked, lesbiany, thing ive got going on, and that doesn’t change when i wear jeans and work boots.

Femmes get to be whatever the hell we want- being broad shouldered and deep voiced and fat and furry and in a trade are not traits that magically make me incapable of being femme- and im over this whole ordeal where y’all assign butches and femmes as either “the boy” or “the girl” of the relationship and expect us to be exclusively feminine or masculine and never cross or mix- just recreating useless gender roles that we have zero reason to uphold.

(And this goes the absolute same for butches/studs who express feminine traits and DOUBLE for trans butches/studs/femmes)

[lavendeerlesbian]

If it doesn't matter because assaulters are gonna do what they do anyways, then:

1. Why do transwomen need access to the women's restroom?

2. Why do sex separated spaces exist to begin with?

3. Why did Primark change their policy back to single sex spaces after women were sexually assaulted, if it makes no difference?

4. Why did Target do a study on gender inclusivity and its effects on sexual assaults against women, which found that allowing transwomen into women's spaces actually did increase rates of sexual assault?

5. Another study finding that making spaces gender neutral leads to more assaults against women.

If transwomen aren't a harm to women then why do they retain the same rates of crime as cis men? And why are around half of all incarcerated transwomen there because of sexual assault convictions?

Except that, again, people with intersex conditions are still male or female. There is no third sex.

You like to assume a lot about radfems, don't you? How do you know that trans people have never harmed me? I was targeted by a transman pedophile when I was a teenager. Every transwoman I ever met was horribly pornsick and I found out that one of them was sexually preying on underage girls. I wouldn't say that is nothing. And despite all that, I was still a trans rights activist for years later. What broke me out of it was learning that my experience is incredibly common and reading facts and studies, while also being immersed in trans positive circles that constantly called out for violence and rape against "evil" radical feminists. Communities that also never called out any misogynistic, homophobic or racist behavior, and instead encouraged it.

Oh, also transmen and nonbinary-identified women are still women. The definition of "woman" is adult human female, which includes every single person of the female sex including anyone under a trans umbrella. On the other hand, calling women "menstruators", "birthing bodies" and "uterus havers" is completely dehumanizing and women including myself have repeatedly said we don't want to be called that (it is also exclusive to infertile women and women who don't menstruate). And even discounting ALL OF THAT, the very LEAST your community could do would be to let us use "women and transmen" if you so badly want transmen to be included. But it isn't about including trans-identified women, it is about never ever using the word "woman" in any context where a transwoman couldn't possibly be included.

Radical feminists and lesbians talk about trans issues BECAUSE the trans narrative harms women and lesbians! I don't need your permission to talk about these things but you cannot sit there and tell me that it is ok and my right to talk about issues affecting me and then turn around and say "but you can't talk about trans people!" Nah, if the trans narrative wasn't so harmful to us then I would have nothing to say! Maybe your community should do something about all the transwoman pedophiles, rapists and neonazis??

Lastly, transwomen are men AKA adult human males. Transwomen were never denied the right to vote, own land, get a bank account in their own name, abortion, access to education, positions of power and authority. Transwomen do not face medical misogyny as every ailment is studied first and foremost with the male body in mind. Transwomen who are oppressed are not oppressed on the basis of being of the female sex (because they are not female), and they are not oppressed for being trans either. They are oppressed for being gender nonconforming and/or perceived of as homosexual. There is nothing that I have in common with transwomen. It is not my job to coddle and fight for entitled men, and the fact that they have that sense of entitlement drives home the point even further that they are male and male socialized. If transwomen really wanted to be allies to women and lesbians, they would stop crying transphobia at lesbians for existing and being lesbians, they would respect women's rights to single sex spaces and wishes to retain their language, and THEY would advocate for WOMEN'S issues, not the other way around. But they don't do those things and they never will.

Yea, there are two sexes, the one I had with your mother and the one I had with your father.

Funny how you acknowledge there are only two sexes when you are insulting people. But notice how there is no third type of parent you can claim to have sex with, because there are only two sexes 💖