#it was just always frustrating when the men-liking part of my bisexuality was conflated with misogyny

[kitteneddiediaz]

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[that-stone-butch]

What's a febfem? I tried searching the tag but got too many conflicting and/or incomprehensible posts to be able to make sense of it

hey, so going into this topic in-depth is going to involve a discussion of TERFs, transphobia, and transmisogynistic subject matter in general and specific. so, you know, heads-up on what is going to be a very unpleasant topic.

as is often the case with portmanteaus, there's some differing ways people spell things out. some people use 'febfem' to mean Female-Exclusive Bisexual FEMinist, but the majory of what i see is specifically a portmanteau of Female-Exclusive Bisexual FEMale. however, there's going to be some significant overlap between the two which i will bring up later on.

the general premise of Female-Exclusive Bisexual Females is, just that, bisexual women who, while identifying as bisexual, make the conscious decision to be exclusively into women, exclusively date women, etc. right off the bat, the practical conflation between the gendered terminology 'woman' and the sex-binary-dependant terminology 'female' in a space is, well, troubling to hear as a trans person. very frequently trans individuals might choose to use sex-binary-dependant terminology to describe *their own experiences* but the use of sex-binary-dependant terminology to label entire groups and/or others is...a red flag.

additionally, it's important to note that almost always the impetus for someone going 'female-exclusive' is as the result of mistreatment, often including sexual misconduct, perpetrated by men. i do not in any way wish to diminish the reality of these experiences. gendered violence, especially sexual violence, is a real and pervasive issue. no part of what i have to say on this topic should be construed as disregarding the severity of survivors' experiences.

however, it's important to look critically at the status of febfem as what at first appears to be a relatively innocuous premise (provided that you don't look too closely at the emphasis on gender essentialism. spoiler alert! gender essentialism is a huge component of this whole phenomenon :/). as we all know, personal sexual boundaries are fine and ought to be relatively inoffensive in a vacuum.

very frequently, when coupled with gender essentialism, the concept of sexual boundaries is politically weaponized. we've been over this a shitzillion times with TERFs acting irate that transgender lesbians....exist at all, frequently framing the passive existence of transgender lesbians as an attack (frequently throwing around the word 'rape,' 'rapist,' etc) on their personal sexual boundaries. by rhetorically coupling the concept of trans people existing with the concept of violating personal sexual boundaries, it becomes difficult to deal with this flavor of TERF rhetoric because you must first disentangle the concepts before you can argue with them (you shouldn't by the way, just block them and move on) people who have no interest in disentangling these disparate concepts will see a defense of trans people, especially trans women, as an attack on TERFs and lesbian sexuality as a whole, and are further radicalized against what they see to be a threat. this rhetoric validates the unfortunately widespread willingness to read trans people (especially trans women) in the worst faith interpretation possible.

(this phenomenon can be seen with Peak Trans rhetoric, which frames the moment a TERF became anti-trans as a result of trans people being icky and indefensible, making the impetus for being trans-exclusionary The Fault Of Trans People Actually, and further validating transphobic people's willingness to read anything trans people do or say with the worst possible intentions; validating what is widespread transphobia by blaming the victim of transphobia. it's wild just what will be used as peaktrans 'fuel;' one time a pretty mild post i made about frustration over how difficult it is for LGBTQ+ couples to adopt, made it onto a peaktrans compilation blog, because apparently if i, a trans person, have anything to say about wanting kids one day, it must be because i am Gross and Icky and a threat to Real Women lmao. honestly it's embarrassing and shitty behavior and if you need a compilation of literally any straws you can grasp at to prove a group of people deserves pervasive harassment, legal disenfranchisement, and physical harm, you're a hate group plain and simple)

now, you might be saying to yourself, 'wow, the topic of TERFs came up, why is that?' and it's because, dollars to donuts, you look at a febfem blog and you're going to find TERFs, reblogs/content from TERFs, and TERF rhetoric.

as it turns out, the group of people with a vested interest in defining all 'males' as having an essential gender, alligning that essentialism with a built-in moral negative, and basing their *political advocacy* on the premise of politicizing personal sexual boundaries, are often self-proclaimed TERFs/radfems. well if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, even straight-up says it's a duck sometimes, it's a fucking duck.

seriously, you don't have to scroll down far on most febfem blogs before you see shit about 'genderqueer identity taking away our butches' and 'can't a woman be masculine AND proudly feeeeeeeeeeemale for once?' like it's textbook.

now i will say again, since tumblr is NOT a hub of reading comprehension, that personal sexual boundaries are not a moral negative, nor are they transphobic. shit, i should hope that as a stone butch, you understand that i do not think personal sexual boundaries are inherently bad. but the politicization of personal sexual boundaries, and the use of personal sexual boundaries to define and condemn others, is a different matter entirely.

there may be people hopping onto the notes of this post, my inbox, etc. bringing up evidence of febfems who have nothing negative to say about trans people, never publicly making claims about trans people, etc. but that's a fucking deflection. gender-essentialism is baked into 'febfem' as a concept, and there's no deflecting that. ask a febfem what their definition of 'male' is, and who that includes. you're going to find transmisogyny.