#explaining butch and femme

[cherryfull]

Tilly and Harlow artdump since Tiktok liked them so much!! 🎃🦇

[femmeatsea]

butch who will sit through an introduction of every stuffed animal i own (and shake their hands to make a polite first impression)

[butch-with-a-deep-voice]

Do I know what literally anything in astrology means? No.

Do I keep my full chart ready on hand for pretty femmes who will inevitably ask? Yes.

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

“well what does butch and femme even mean!!”

butch = complete rejection of femininity, and reclamation of masculinity (as a woman or nonbinary lesbian) to solely attract other women/sapphics.

femme = subversion and reclamation of femininity (as a woman or nonbinary lesbian) to solely attract other women/sapphics

These two identities are gender nonconforming due to the fact that womanhood itself is defined as a compliment to manhood. Historically, womanhood was only considered to serve men. Lack of attraction to men has oftentimes defined lesbians as “failed women”. For example, you can see this in how medical gatekeeping forces trans women to have to perform hyperfemininity and heterosexuality in order to receive access to transition care because those standards were considered the defining features of womanhood. This gatekeeping was significantly more widespread in the past (and I hesitate to say if that’s gone away in the present).

Butch and femme are two sides of the same coin. Counterparts. They are nouns, complete identities, not just descriptions. Butches protect femmes, femmes protect butches. They are also not mandatory or required to be a lesbian, so it’s not necessary to fit into either category. They are not “another gender binary.”

Butches are not “basically men” and they do not benefit from masculinity. Femme does not inherently mean hyper feminine, and it does not require performing patriarchally imposed expressions of femininity (such as wearing make-up, shaving, only wearing dresses). Butches and femmes are still butches and femmes even when wearing plain t-shirts and pants some days. It’s not an outfit to take on and off.

“Futch” does not exist as a material identity because butch means a strict rejection of femininity, while femme is a subversion of femininity. There are also roles that are considered with butch and femme, while futch does not have anything of the sort. “Futch” = neither, essentially.

This post is meant to be simple to get the basic idea across, as there’s more aspects to butch/femme culture that I didn’t go over. Butch and femme also involves specific behaviors in relation to courtship, roles, or protection of each other. You can read stone butch blues to get a better idea of that aspect as a starting point. That’s all! 👋

[mysticfemme]

the true butch femme experience is alternating the name I moan for my butch because they have funky gender and don't mind which name I use

[halfbakedhedonist]

Doing this new challenge where I try not to feel extreme pain and loneliness everytime I see a lesbian couple in public

[dykecadence]

me and my 40 year old straight coworker discussing chappell roan while we should be working

[miracle-bromance]

Seiharumichi doodle dump....

[misiahasahardname]

interrupted

inspired by this lovely post:

[menlove]

IS this fic self-indulgent? absolutely. DO i care? no. i simply wanted to see lesbian cherik written how IIIIIIII want and it does not exist on this earth and so it shall now exist. thank you.

[muralofsolitude]

i texted my friend about having dinner with someone i used to have a long term crush on and their response was just so funny to me 💀

[femmeprincessjulia]

I'm not entirely sure how to explain it, but she is me, I am her.

[rxttenfish]

thinking about my sophonts and gender again

while werewolves are matriarchal, the specific gendered distinction between men and women, for them, is that women are the "leader" gender and men are the "follower" gender. this is generally seen as women being the "political" gender, ie, that they are the ones most concerned with their lineage and standing within the internal hierarchy of the troop, interested in moving up within it and concerned with the lives of their children, as girls inherit the social standing of their mothers, while boys do not inherit any social standing at all, rather being married off to another troop as soon as possible and then moving through the independent hierarchy within the men there.

this perhaps has less to do with physical strain than people might think - werewolves have pretty low sexual dimorphism, beyond women being, on average, larger than men, but also because both genders are expected to perform physical labor and expected to be willing to fight at a moment's notice and call when needed. this is even somewhat biased towards men being expected to act as soldiers to defend the troop more often, but again, this is where the "follower" and "leader" distinction comes in. there might be more men, but they'll be seen more like soldiers and treated like thus, while women might be seen as much better suited for commanding and leadership positions.

if anything, then, the expectation for the male gender within werewolf society is more along the lines of being carefree, free-spirited, emotional, hedonistic, submissive, less-intelligent or less concerned with matters of intelligence, less-civilized, and in need of a hand to direct and control them. i can't help but compare how the male gender is viewed to how the greeks viewed satyrs and pan, being associated with wild things, but also without very much control of themselves or what they've inherited.

which does mean that, in conservative mixed human and werewolf communities, there's been a large pressure from both to avoid mixing up human genders and werewolf genders. both of them would have the idea that "this other person has put the softer, weaker gender in control in a position they are poorly suited for, and are wasting the talents of the dominant, stronger gender" related towards each other, and there'd likely be different terms and pronouns to distinguish between if the person you're talking about is a werewolf woman or human woman, and vice versa. communities with a greater majority between one or the other might just end up absorbing the gender norms of the majority group, but some with a more even split would take a lot greater pain to not mix them up.

which is then fun, because it does introduce the thought of cross-species genders within communities like this. it does delight me to have xenogenders in a community that has these genders already exist as a part of it already, as four different gender norms within the same community that matter almost more than which species they are specifically associated with in the first place.

but it also then delights me because it makes me think of this later becoming a four-gender system in the first place, more like white-throated sparrows where you have males and females, but within that you also have dominant-females and dominant-males and submissive-females and submissive-males, where the couples with the greatest "success" are specifically along the dominant/submissive axises. you could easily get it to where the greatest focus of these four genders are the dominance leaning, initially started to explain the difference between werewolf couples and human couples, but leaking out to differ between mixed werewolf/human couples too.

i like it! i like humans, just humans as they always were, humans and another species of primates, the closest other sophont to us, being the ones with the "odd" four-gender system, having more alien concepts than even catfolk, who have no long-term relationships in the slightest and little to no sexual dimorphism at all.

[hexados-on-a-string]

before i go back into hibernation again. spectra and gus' mechtanium surge designs >>>>>>>>>>> their new vestroia designs. i think they're just cooler and less messy and all over the place. i also appreciate that it does actually look like they're older which is neat. also i think gus looks kinda like a prince.

[garbagequeer]

the only girl i'll ever love is andrew in drag ass day today -> 😁

[linoguy]

this clip of changbin feels me w such immense joy, specifically the pose. it is such a grand pose and it’s so masc, masc in the way that I and other lesbians express our pride as mascs or butches. it reminds me of readings where a butch is happy to pose for their femme. just that very over the top masculinity but it’s still playful, and that’s exactly what I aim for too. He’s so purely happy to be masculine and prideful of his body and it makes me so happy to recognize the same things within me that are in him