#transmasculne

[genderqueerdykes]

transhet people are absolutely lovely. straight trans women & straight trans men have a beautiful experience. straight aro and ace people are still queer and live queer lives. straight non binary, genderqueer, gnc, bigender, genderfluid, intersex, two spirit and other queer people are a blessing to our community. any straight queer person belongs, no matter what. cis people can be queer, so can straight people. queer hets belong all the same

[jonahmagnus]

The concept of transmasculnity and eye are kissing . On the mouth. Eye think this counts as selfcest.

[femmepire-butchbiter]

Hey, transmasc androfemme here!

I totally get what you mean. The femme identity is really nuanced, button break it down into more superficial bits, I absolutely get what you mean about not fitting entirely comfortably into the aesthetic of femininity many ppl associate with the femme identity. I struggled with it too a LOT when I was coming to terms with being a lesbians (granted, I've only been out for like, a month).

I think the truth of the matter is you have to carve out your own place to fit within the lesbian lable. It has the benefit of being a sexuality, a gender, and a culture all wrapped up into one, which leaves you plenty of room to figure out what kind of lesbian you are. If that means being a version of one of the major sub-identities in whatever way makes you comfortable, that's okay! And if that means not identifying with any of them, and creating your own label, that's okay! Or even if it means going by no labels, hey, that's okay too!!

I think it's also important to try and find ppl who identify with you experience, and talk to them about what it's like. You mention that you find a lot of butch/femme in lesbian media, but also it helps a lot to chat it up with butches and femmes irl too, if you can. Or even find those who are like minded online, if that is more accessible.

Either way, if it helps at all, our experiences with trying to understand butchfemme dynamics sound really similar, and I totally get where you're coming from. I personally id as an androfemme for that specific reason, as my transmasculnity effects my gender a lot, but my close ties to feminity both conceptually and as a form of expression thrive most within lesbianism (and within butchfemme, but that is me personally).

TLDR; you're not alone here!!

Once again it's 2am and I'm questioning my life.

Everywhere I go in lesbian media I'm bombarded by the butch/stud and femme terms and every time I come out of it confused. I see so many lesbians saying how they are butch4femme or femme4femme or butch4butch and it feels like there is no space for someone that is neither (albeit I'm sure there is and I just don't see it)

The butch/femme dichotomy confuses me mostly because I can't find my place in it. I'm not masculine enough to be widely considered butch even tho I don't wear make up and all you'll find in my closet are legging, jean shorts, plain tees and flannels and I also don't think anyone has ever called me "lady-like". And I'm also not feminine enough to be seen as a femme. Yes I enjoy some parts of traditional femininity but I also have never walked in heels and my nails have never seen the faintest shadow of a manicure when if I keep them long. Also I feel deeply uncomfortable being considered in a feminine role because of my gender identity. (I know, the butch/femme identity is much more than what I've listed but let's keep it simple please)

I've read that "well if you aren't butch or femme you're just Andro" and like... Maybe but what does that even mean? I don't look androgynous (mostly because androgyny has been equated to skinny able-bodied white people of which I'm neither skinny nor able bodied.) And even if I were Andro where do I even fit in the lesbian community? All I see when I look around is about butches and femmes.

This is not to undervalue butches and femmes, they are an incredibly important part of our community. However, I do still feel... Idk how to put it. Left out? Like I'm missing out on some magical part of our community that I just don't understand. And maybe it's because I'm NB so these terms simply don't apply to my experience/I cannot fit into them.

I'd like to hear other lesbians opinions on this.

[transadvice]

I am a nonbinary who is afab. It is a relatively new revelation for me, as I also discovered I was aro/ace this last year as well, and the year has been a rollercoaster. Now, I am thinking I am a transmasc leaning nonbinary, but I am having a hard time thinking it through. Frankly, I am mentally exhausted after all of this, tbh. I guess my question is, what does transmasc mean to someone who carries the label? Can someone share their experience with transmasculinity?

I can tell you what transmasculinity means to me, but that doesn’t mean that it will mean the same thing to you. It doesn’t mean that if your experience isn’t like mine, you aren’t transmasculne. There are no hard and fast rules on this stuff, which is part of why it’s so hard! You’re allowed to identify with any words that you feel describe you. There will be no quiz. 

Starting with the nuts and bolts, I was assigned female at birth, but while I have never had a stereotypically masculine/butch temperament or fashion sense, I also never felt comfortable with being “a woman”, with being called “she,” with having curves, etc., so I set about transitioning socially and medically. I started that process not really sure if I’d end up identifying as a binary man or a nonbinary person, and to be honest, after four years, I’m still sort of in that “in between” space, although it does not cause me distress. I may just remain here! I’m very happy with my choices to change my name to a more typically male one, use “he/him” pronouns, get top surgery, and take testosterone. I don’t really necessarily feel like “a man,” or really understand what that means. I’m probably closer to being nonbinary in terms of my personal feeling about my gender, but if I have to choose, I am much more comfortable being read as male than as female. I still like to wear pink.

I often find “transmasculine” is the most apt word to describe me, although I don’t use it consistently or consider it my gender or anything. I use different words to describe myself in different situations, depending on the context, my mood, my intention at the time, and what aspect of my gender I’m trying to communicate at the moment. 

I identify myself as being “transmasculine” in situations when I want to communicate that (1) I am trans: that is, I do not identify with the gender marker I was assigned at birth, I transitioned, etc. (2) I am trans in a masculine direction: that is to say, I was assigned female at birth and my particular transition steps generally take me away from being read as female and toward being read as male. 

In situations where i don’t care about communicating #2, I might just say, “I am trans.” In situations where the main thing I want to talk about is gender expansiveness or the failures of the gender binary, I might identify myself as nonbinary. In situations where, say, it’s just a bureaucratic form and I want to get through the interaction with as little friction as possible, I just go ahead and check the box next to “M.” 

In other words, you don’t need to commit to a label. The further you are from the neat simplicity of the cisnormative gender binary, the more likely you will likely need to adapt different identifiers in different situations. This doesn’t mean you’re being dishonest or lying by omission, it just means you’re giving the amount of information that is warranted in a given situation. People often ask for gender when they mean something else, like “should we send you ads about pants ors skirts,” or “do you want to attend the bachelor or the bachelorette party,” so people on the nonbinary spectrum often have to get used to intuiting the actual question and answering it in whatever way makes sense at the time. 

If it makes you feel more comfortable to settle on a label, “transmasculine” is a pretty broad and fluid one that can encompass whatever aspects of trans-ness and masculinity that you want it to.