On Gender Categorizations

Dax Schwartz just started a story that I FUCKING LOVE based on a tweet that made her super angry.

I went to look at the tweet, which was a list of lesbian categories from high femme to stone butch with our accompanying weapons of choice:

I thought it was funny, although in soft butch/butch the weapon was not sledgehammer, so I was not represented.

And we had a really interesting conversation about how freeing it felt to me to have a woman ask me at a bisexual conference: “Do you identify as butch?”

And to be able to say back, after some hemming and hawing: YES.

For me, identifying as butch (which I get is a bit of a ‘fuck you’ to certain gay communities as I am bi/pan and some folks might think I am not allowed to use it) was incredibly freeing, relaxing, and affirming. So many of my anxieties about my presentation, etc. just melted.

I call myself a ‘swishy butch’ instead of ‘soft,’ because there is nothing soft about me except for my gut, but it’s basically the same thing. And defining myself, with the help of that lovely woman, felt like power.

Whereas Dax, as well as, I think, several of my other friends, found this enraging gender policing essentialist bullshit.

I won’t speak for her in too much detail, but I believe that her self identification as flouting the binary is also essential to HER peace of mind and identity.

tl;dr

People who come from very different perspectives can come to opposite and yet entirely correct conclusions on the same image. OH MY GOD IT’S DIALECTIC!