garden in the void

This pride and all year long, I want to give a shout out to us fat queer people

To fat queer people who never get to see representation of themselves because the vast majority of queer representation is of thin people

To fat queer people who have to put ten times the effort into their gender expression just to be viewed as 10% of their gender

To fat queer people who get misgendered no matter how they look

To fat queer people who can never present how they want to anyway because affirming clothes in their size are either nonexistent, triple the price, or terrible quality

To fat asexuals who are believed even less about their identity because they're told it's just a matter of "no one wanting to have sex with them"

To fat aromantics who aren't respected because their aromanticism is viewed as "No one loved you anyway"

To fat gay people who have their identities denied because "You just couldn't find a man/woman who wanted you"

To fat nonbinary people whose bodies are viewed in the queer community as inherently gendered and incapable of being androgynous

To fat binary trans people who are always viewed as whatever gender hurts them most

To fat trans people who are denied surgeries due to medical fatphobia, have difficulty finding products like binders in their size, are told that thinness is a must to "pass" as their gender, and have their bodies weaponized by terfs

To fat queer people who are viewed as "cringe" for the crime of existing as fat and queer

To fat queer people who can't even buy pride merchandise without having to worry if their size will be offered and then have to pay more than thin queer people just to show their queer pride

To fat queer people who developed eating disorders due to the fatphobia peddled by their own communities

To fat queer people whose identities are partially influenced or entirely caused by the fatphobia they have experienced for years and decades

To fat queer people who are forced by fellow queer people into sexual positions they're uncomfortable with, such as topping, just because they're bigger and have stereotypes forced onto their body

To fat queer people who joined a relationship and experienced sexual trauma because their partner only wanted to humiliate a fat person and ignore your boundaries

To fat queer people who only see themselves in queer porn as a tool for the humiliation of thin queer people who dared to have sex with a fat person or never see your body in sexual content at all

To fat femmes who are viewed as butch no matter what they do because their fatness is gendered against their will

To fat butches who don't feel able to experiment with femininity if they want to

To fat queer people who have an even harder time finding a partner in the queer community because of rampant fatphobia

To fat queer people who have had to hear "No fats, no femmes"

To fat queer people who are constantly told they're not "truly oppressed" because they "don't have it as bad as [X queer identity]"

To fat intersex people who have to deal with strangers believing they're an expert on your body because fat people can't have knowledge about how their own bodies work

To fat queer people who can't even trust that other queer people fighting for equality won't use fat bodies as symbolism for immoral behaviors and beliefs

To fat queer people who can't rely on doctors who accept queer identities to not still discriminate against them because of medical fatphobia

To fat queer people who don't believe they can be loved without being fetishized

To fat queer people whose queer identities are viewed even more as a fetish because their bodies are viewed as a fetish

To fat queer people who took way longer to realize they're queer because they never saw any queer representation that included them

And to so, so, so many other fat people with experiences of fatphobia in the queer community

You all belong. You are the identities you say you are. You do not make the queer community "look bad" just because fatphobes want to use our bodies as weapons for fatphobia and queerphobia. You deserve to be respected and have representation. You deserve to not be treated as an afterthought.

We are queer, and our experiences matter.

Happy LDOV from Butch Barbie! Have a lovely day celebrating lesbianism 🧡🤍💘

Queer men (especially trans men) have been using the term butch for decades, and the movement to redefine butch and femme as lesbian exclusive terms is spearheaded by and beneficial to terfs.

If butch is the word that fits, then use it. Terfs don’t deserve to shape your life or our community.

Terfs don’t define us, and they certainly don’t define you.

is that true? Do you know where I could read more about it? The only things I could find just state that butch is a lesbian term

I’m on mobile right now, which is always hard on research, but I will collect you some sources tonight, no worries

Thank you so much!

Starting off simply, here’s a timeline of the history of “butch,” exploring its roots in working class queer women of color’s bars (remember, the word lesbian just meant “woman who has sex with women” until the 70s). The 80s is when the author first starts talking about the use of butch by queer men. Specifically, urban men of color.

And, while I hate to play the “defer to authority” card, when it comes to butch identity, there are few people who would know more about it than Butch Voices, the largest butch activist organization in the world. Which specifically refuses to exclude men, and more than that explicitly includes trans men.

Gay men often describe themselves (check out these personals ads), their partners or their friends in terms of being femme or butch, not just in casual contexts, but in research ones. That’s how deeply these identities are felt. Again and again, the term used to describe all queer masculinity is butch.

And while most definitions by queer organizations welcome and acknowledge the fact that butch was popularized in post-WWII women’s spaces, you’ll note an absence of gender limitations on the definitions themselves.

That’s because butch identity, by its very nature, is a violation of gender norms (one that some people say is outdated and antiquated, though I strongly disagree).

And so, too, are all forms of queerness ultimately a violation of gender normativity, of strict definition and categorization.

That’s why major butch authors, for example, hesitate to even use traditional gender pronouns such as “he” or “she” when writing about the hypothetical butch. Because a butch may be a woman, but womanhood is not a necessary component of butchness. And I do apologize for that link, I know it only shows scraps of the whole book, but it does at least include a couple of the more relevant essays about the complexity of trying to assign a gender to butch identity.

For all queer people–including the men–butch identity is an act of reclamation of masculine performance, in the same way that for all queer people–including the women–femme identity is a reclamation of feminine performance, ripping it out of the hands of the cisheteronormative hegemony and saying, hey, fuck you, you don’t get to decide who counts as what, who gets to do what, get fucked. And this can be fumbled, of course, but so can anything. Performance is what it is, and we all make missteps.

Now, as for the other half of my conclusion: that the constant claims about butch (and femme) being “lesbian exclusive” are TERF propaganda.

The following links require content warnings far in excess of just “these talk about queer history and the evolution of terminology.”

These are links to TERF news articles written and intended for non-TERF audiences. That means they present TERF talking points in positive language. Be careful when you approach them, be careful when you read them.

Since at least the 1980s, when masculinizing medical transition started becoming more accessible on a larger scale, trans-exclusionary feminists and trans-exclusionary lesbian separatists have been going out of their way to erase, shame, and punish their trans brothers and lovers for “betraying” them,.

A great many people who had previously identified as hard-butch lesbians because it was the only word they new moved into identifying as trans men. And because radical feminist, lesbian separatist theory had no place for any kind of men, the only way that kind of act could be frames was as treachery. The men who did so, some of whom had been stalwart feminists for decades, some of whom had even been powerful voices in second wave feminist movements, were suddenly treated as abusers, drug peddlers, and sexual criminals.

And that is why it is imperative that we refuse to let TERFs define who does and does not get to be butch. They never got to before, and they sure as hell don’t get to now.

I am all here for a great resource post and @intersex-ionality kinda knocked it out of the park with this one.

Here’s more evidence that TERFs don’t get to define anything in our community, especially not for butch people.

Bigotry has no place in our community. TERFs are bigots and have no place in our community.

Butch here! Literally all of this is historically accurate.

The butch and ftm community pretty much started out as the same community and then diverged slightly when the trans label became a thing. Before the identity existed there were butches using he/him and even taking T. For example Leslie Fienberg, the author of Stone Butch Blues, started out identifying as a butch lesbian which he explained was defined by his lack of connection to womanhood. He now identifies as trans, uses he/him pronouns, and takes T.

Every single butch I’ve ever talked to has said that they have at best an extremely convoluted and challenging relationship with their womanhood. Many experience gender dysphoria to varying degrees. A handful use he/him pronouns or change their names to be more masculine. Every butch I know described wearing femmenine stuff as numbing, humiliating, dishonest, and even painful. They describe masculine expression as empowering, genuine, exhilarating, etc and big leather jackets/boots as armor.

Some of those butches were bisexual, non-binary, trans men, etc. And you know what? Very few of them had issues with other butches but they tended to get a lot of shit from, unsurprisingly, white lesbian feminists.

My point is butch is a label for a feeling and experience more than it is an identity. If I didn’t identify as a lesbian I would still identify as butch because hypermasculinity and the expression of it is fundamental to who I am. If the hat fits, don’t let some terf bullshit keep you from it.

old dyke here, love this post/thread! ime pretty much any time you see lesbian gatekeeping including “only lesbians can reclaim dyke”, ”only lesbians can use butch and femme”, “lesbians can’t be bi or pan too”, “d-slur”, etc.,  you’ve found separatist/terf propaganda. 

the terf strategy is ALWAYS divide and conquer: atomize the queer community, divide people into powerless microlabels, get in the way of solidarity and empathy between different people with similar experiences, make sure everyone is too scared/suspicious to trust each other and recognize common ground.

and it’s been working really well!

we need to push back: reclaim common ground, share terms and experiences, assume good faith and fellowship, recognize mutual goals. solidarity is the only weapon against separatists.

I love butch lesbians I like small butches that I could just kinda pick up and put in my pocket I like intellectual butches with their little round John Lennon glasses I like anxious butches who can play with my hair to feel better I like elder butches who have nurtured and cared for me when no one else would I like free spirited butches who don’t give a fuck what you think I like butches with long hair I like theatre butches I like butches of color I like disabled butches I like fat butches I like trans butches I like butches who aren’t out yet and therefor can’t dress how they want (you’re still valid) I like greaser butches who are constantly running a comb through their hair I like big butches who pick me up and carry me around like a small dog I like soft spoken butches I like shy butches I like buzz cut butches I like wood working butches I like musical butches I like scientist butches I like weird butches and I really like cryptid butches who lurk in the shadows and take forms incomprehensible by the human mind.

Actually butch lesbians can be gentle and kind and comforting to be around and presenting as more masculine/androgynous doesn’t make us inherently rough or angry and depicting all butches as such is lesbophobia. This goes especially for trans butches and butches of color btw

More Pride glitter texts! (2/2)

Feel free to use and share!

Friendly reminder that bi/pan women can be just as GNC+ as lesbian women and in this house we love and support them. Butch bi/pan women are valid, they/them bi/pan women are wonderful, he/him bi/pan women are extraordinary, GNC+ Bi/Pan women are perfect and I love every single one of y’all!💗💜💙~💖💛💙

This post is aggressively inclusive of trans bi/pan women, aro and ace bi/pan women, non-binary bi women, and any m-spec women whose identity weren’t listed.  It is also aggressively exclusive of any gatekeepers and radfems.

It boggles my mind that there’s literally so much history of non-lesbians using the term femme and especially the term butch and there are still catty assholes on this hellsite who deny it up and down. It’s literally right in Stone Butch Blues. You can Google this shit. Bisexuals and genderqueer people and even queer men all have history with these words and you can’t take them away from us no matter how much you cry about it.

women wear suits better than men and thats just a cold hard fact

One name to those who doubt these words:

ESTHER QUEK

I rest my case.

Exhibit B: Janelle Monáe

Exhibit C: Lucy Liu

High Warlock, Minister of Magic, and Kingpin

Y'all are doing butch women dirty by only showing more gender conforming women in suits.

May I present historic gnc women

The fact that there is no kd lang when she has worn suits almost every moment of her career is …… a crime

Also

help im gay

STOP I’M ALREADY GAY

There's a lot of discourse over the terms doe/stag/tomcat for bis & pans. You can use them if you want to, but if you feel on the fence about it or they make you feel uncomfortable, just remember that you're still allowed to use butch & femme if that's what you prefer. Yes, these are your words, too. They're part of our community history. No one has the right to take that away from you no matter how much they try.

Back again! This time with some requested flags: an asexual flag, philadelphia’s new gay pride flag, a butch lesbian flag, and an agender flag! Hope you all like them!

Part One , Part Two , Part Three (you’re here!)