Been waiting for some Stone Butch Blues shit talk! God, what a horrible book. The main character is just such a piece of shit who justifies her deceitful behavior through her "trans" identity and inherent victimhood status... yuck.
The academia moral decay you experienced sounds foreign to me, but I do relate to the experience of stepping into a “queer” space as a butch lesbian and thinking “wow, you’re all just a bunch of posturing losers, aren’t you?”. Honestly, there comes a point in a butch’s life where you are so non-conforming you cannot even conform to the dominant dogma that surrounds you... and I think a lot of those people are extremely jealous of that.
That’s why they have to take on the trans stuff—to delude themselves they are even one grain gender-non-conforming.
Unfortunately, the internet and Queer Theory has drilled this idea into people’s minds that “butch” is a self-hating woman who either dates: 1) feminine male-attracted women who she refers to as “Femme” indiscriminately or 2) other self-hating “masculine” looking women who reinforce her gender delusions. In both those instances, there is so much woman-hating, male-identification/worshipping that I am not sure any of them are attracted to women in the slightest, let alone be lesbians.
The mainstream archetypes of the two sexless lesbians or the hyper-sexualized male-gaze type couple are both profoundly... unattractive. You're so right in mentioning how a lot of the “Femme4Femme” and “Butch4Butch” people are often homophobic, pro-trans and actively anti-Butch4Femme. They usually use those terms to refer to aesthetics and to each their own, by all means—fine if you find your clone attractive. But purloining "Butch" and "Femme" doesn't make sense.
I appreciate the way Rachel framed Butch-Femme as different emotional/sexual energies and Akiva is right: we need more normalization of this lesbian relationship as a viable, stable couple structure.
Butch-Femme is threatening because: alone, the butch is mistaken for a man, and the Femme is “straight-passing”, but together? Unmistakably a lesbian couple. It’s a bit like making a statement of “hey, we’re sexual beings... with each other” and I think a lot of straight people, queers (which you can argue is compatible with the first category) and even some lesbians are highly uncomfortable with that.
I mention this in my next post: it’s obvious to me that a lot of the people who consistently try to pathologize Butch lesbians and Butch-Femme have extremely male-oriented models of sexuality and a total lack of creativity—everything to them is black & white and the natural differences between two women must be either "heteronormative" or "performative". It really just shows their narrow view of the world: male and straight as the default.
Also, Femmes who are secure in their sexuality do not put up with any of the gender crap. Try to say to her you think you're a man and she’ll leave your ass so quick! This is why those aforementioned individuals actively seek women who reinforce their gender delusions. This is one part of Stone Butch Blues I appreciated: the depiction of the Femme love interest (I forget her name) leaving the main character when she announces her transition and saying, basically, that she wants to be with a masculine female and not a male cause... she's a homosexual!
That’s the whole point of Butch-Femme. Neither concept can exist without the other, neither can exist outside of a Female Homosexual context. This is why this coupling is inherently “feminist” (without the posturing). People cannot stand that these lesbian sexualities are completely exclusive of men and free of male-identification.
We desperately need gender critical Femme Lesbians to join the conversation! This madness has to end. Lesbian culture has been so bastardized—starting from political lesbians and culminating with the queer & trans movement—no one has managed to draw a clear line between these two things that, to me, are incredibly interconnected.
I am so glad fellow Butches are talking about this, keep up the good work!
Hell yes, to all. And we’ve got gender critical femme lesbians in the lineup, we promise. Including but not limited to the badasses we’re partnered with
Been waiting for some Stone Butch Blues shit talk! God, what a horrible book. The main character is just such a piece of shit who justifies her deceitful behavior through her "trans" identity and inherent victimhood status... yuck.
The academia moral decay you experienced sounds foreign to me, but I do relate to the experience of stepping into a “queer” space as a butch lesbian and thinking “wow, you’re all just a bunch of posturing losers, aren’t you?”. Honestly, there comes a point in a butch’s life where you are so non-conforming you cannot even conform to the dominant dogma that surrounds you... and I think a lot of those people are extremely jealous of that.
That’s why they have to take on the trans stuff—to delude themselves they are even one grain gender-non-conforming.
Unfortunately, the internet and Queer Theory has drilled this idea into people’s minds that “butch” is a self-hating woman who either dates: 1) feminine male-attracted women who she refers to as “Femme” indiscriminately or 2) other self-hating “masculine” looking women who reinforce her gender delusions. In both those instances, there is so much woman-hating, male-identification/worshipping that I am not sure any of them are attracted to women in the slightest, let alone be lesbians.
The mainstream archetypes of the two sexless lesbians or the hyper-sexualized male-gaze type couple are both profoundly... unattractive. You're so right in mentioning how a lot of the “Femme4Femme” and “Butch4Butch” people are often homophobic, pro-trans and actively anti-Butch4Femme. They usually use those terms to refer to aesthetics and to each their own, by all means—fine if you find your clone attractive. But purloining "Butch" and "Femme" doesn't make sense.
I appreciate the way Rachel framed Butch-Femme as different emotional/sexual energies and Akiva is right: we need more normalization of this lesbian relationship as a viable, stable couple structure.
Butch-Femme is threatening because: alone, the butch is mistaken for a man, and the Femme is “straight-passing”, but together? Unmistakably a lesbian couple. It’s a bit like making a statement of “hey, we’re sexual beings... with each other” and I think a lot of straight people, queers (which you can argue is compatible with the first category) and even some lesbians are highly uncomfortable with that.
I mention this in my next post: it’s obvious to me that a lot of the people who consistently try to pathologize Butch lesbians and Butch-Femme have extremely male-oriented models of sexuality and a total lack of creativity—everything to them is black & white and the natural differences between two women must be either "heteronormative" or "performative". It really just shows their narrow view of the world: male and straight as the default.
Also, Femmes who are secure in their sexuality do not put up with any of the gender crap. Try to say to her you think you're a man and she’ll leave your ass so quick! This is why those aforementioned individuals actively seek women who reinforce their gender delusions. This is one part of Stone Butch Blues I appreciated: the depiction of the Femme love interest (I forget her name) leaving the main character when she announces her transition and saying, basically, that she wants to be with a masculine female and not a male cause... she's a homosexual!
That’s the whole point of Butch-Femme. Neither concept can exist without the other, neither can exist outside of a Female Homosexual context. This is why this coupling is inherently “feminist” (without the posturing). People cannot stand that these lesbian sexualities are completely exclusive of men and free of male-identification.
We desperately need gender critical Femme Lesbians to join the conversation! This madness has to end. Lesbian culture has been so bastardized—starting from political lesbians and culminating with the queer & trans movement—no one has managed to draw a clear line between these two things that, to me, are incredibly interconnected.
I am so glad fellow Butches are talking about this, keep up the good work!
Hell yes, to all. And we’ve got gender critical femme lesbians in the lineup, we promise. Including but not limited to the badasses we’re partnered with