The wandering gender discussion

[redbird]

misia posted some thoughts about what "femme" means. The responses included one from papersky that I like and mostly agree with, which prompted me to this response:

I can accept "femme" as one of the things people do--but like you, I don't really grok the whole butch/femme thing, and I don't fit into either. My problem is with binary choices generally, and a refusal to recognize that not everyone is one or the other. Butch/femme can become that, or it can be an axis or a set of possibilities. There are spaces that aren't on that axis, and for which "androgyny" seems to be the wrong term.

I'm growing my hair out. I lift weights. I was startled when a friend asked me, in the context of job hunting, "what are you going to do about the beard?" because I simply hadn't thought about my chin hair or how people might react to it. All of those may be read as gendering signals by someone, but that's not the main thing they're about: the hair is because I like it, and a few other people who matter to me like it, and because when I visit you and rysmiel I'm reminded that my self-image and proper being is as a long-haired person.

To a first approximation, I think you and I are the same gender, though I'm queer and you're straight.

To see the whole discussion, go to http://www.livejournal.com/users/misia/174339.html?view=809219#t809219

I was tempted to add something about the Tiptree Award and reading for it, but it didn't come. That'll probably be a long article, six months from now.

Comments

[kiya]

erispope (the mistress-elect) breaks butch-femme by properly being placed on the part of it where if one goes far enough round one's gotten onto the other end. She has a tenddency towards army jackets, large, stompy boots, and rose scents and glow-in-the-dark body paints and hair dyes.

I just don't get it. :}

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think there aren't enough dimensions.

Same gender, different sexuality... yeah.

But what bothers me is seeing the space for women, which people tried so hard to expand, being shrunk, even if biological women are let out of that box. I used to think classifying everyone as "he" (as in SiMPLGoS, only the other way around) would be a good idea, but with more experience of the "other" classification I don't think so any more, I want "female" to include where I am, I don't want to concede that much space to the masculine including the feminine.

[rainliver.livejournal.com]

I too have wondered about my place in the whole butch/femme arena. I aspire to be femme but I don't like to bother with makeup or waxing my legs regularly or pretty clothes or even showering daily. I wonder if there is a website that has a checkoff list to find out which you are. ;) I think I am submissive, which I guess would be femme, but everyone I've dated feels otherwise.