Thread by @StoneButchCass

People really need to start talking more here in PDX how the idiotic and thoughtless use of the word "femme" in place of woman is leading to actual discrimination, especially including housing discrimination towards gender non-conforming women.

I see a ridiculous amount of posts in the various "queer" housing groups on facebook saying they're only looking for "femme" roommates, like a woman having a short haircut and button ups makes them dangerous or predatory to have in the house.

This just seems really fucked up and homophobic to me. Butch women aren't any less of a target of misogyny or homophobic violence than you are.

And butch women aren't any more likely to be violent or predatory or dangerous to live with than someone who presents their self femininely. Butch women aren't any less likely to be in need of safe housing than you are.

This feels very much like its playing into the extremely homophobic and hypersexualized stereotype that butch women are all dangerous predators who can't control themselves around women.

Women wearing different clothes than you doesn't make them bad people. This community should be about helping and uplifting marginalized people and housing groups should be about finding housing for marginalized people.

Butch women often are excluded from "heterosexual" housing and are also excluded from jobs just because they're gender non-conforming. And you guys just, shouldn't be excluding GNC people from your housing.

Also adding more to this, butch women aren't any less "oppressed" than you just because what is gender affirming for us isn't the same as whats gender-affirming for you.

We still get followed by creepy men, we still get raped, we still do sex work, we are a fucking lightning rod for misogynistic and homophobic violence, we still have our bosses hit on us, we still get abused,-

-we still get gaslighted, we still have people yelling slurs at us out of cars. None of the experience of being gay or a women goes away just because we wear different clothes than you. Except that we have people in our own community who love to frame us as "dangerous" to femmes.

People in the community love to hypersexualize butch women and project their violent sex fantasies onto us, asking us to step on them or beat them up or choke them unpromted, and in general treat us like sex objects. But think we're too scary to live with them. You're projecting.

Also a lot of anti-butch stereotypes and fearmongering of GNC women originated from second wave radical feminist theory from the 60s and 70s. You know, the ideology that has evolved into what we now call TERFs.

Although trans women are the primary target of TERF rhetoric, a lot of anti-butch stuff in the culture of the LGBT community did originate from radfems. And there are many trans women who are butch lesbians too.

I see this a lot outside of housing too, like events and parties that say they prioritize femmes for entry, or femmes to the front, which makes me wonder why its okay to exclude GNC women from community events like this.

Or people talking about prioritizing femme performers in regards to drag, burlesque, and various other variety shows. Butches are notoriously penniless so I don't know why shit like this is okay either.

Stop erasing the struggles of marginalized women in the sloppiest attempt at being inclusive. I can almost guarantee that with the experience of both homophobia and misogyny that comes from gender non-conformity, almost all of your female GNC peers are-

-actually treated worse by their male peers than you are. This goes double for studs and Black butches whose experience of racism also amplifies their experience of misogyny and homophobia.

Women experience misogyny regardless of their gender presentation. Butches and studs don’t stop experiencing misogyny and misogynistic violence from their clothes and attitudes and it’s absolutely batshit ridiculous to think that they do.

How the hell do you guys think this supposed butch privilege would even work? Like a violent misogynistic man sees a woman wearing a button up t-shirt and is like “nahhh, she’s one of the boys. Let’s leave her alone.”

With men who try to violently “convert” lesbians, do you think they just ignore the most easily visible of all of us? This is so out of touch with the experiences of GNC women. People need to start calling this out, especially in activist circles.

And if the only reason you do this is because you see other people do it, well, you should be actively thoughtful with your activism. Actually critically think about the shit you say before saying it, and the implications that the things you say have.

Seeing someone else say “femme” instead of woman in these discussions of misogyny is not an excuse. Don’t just copy what other people are saying. That’s lazy, thoughtless, useless slacktivism. And it needs to be called out.

I also use "femme" used not only in place of women in discussions of misogyny, but also used in place of "trans women" in discussions of transmisogyny and in place of "gay people" in discussions of homophobia.

And I also want to reiterate: the visibility of butch women makes them lightning rods for violence. You cannot say "femme" when you're trying to talk about homophobic violence.

And I also want to say again, but also expand on this last point, there are many butch transgender women. You cannot say "femme" when you're talking about transmisogynistic violence.

“Loving masculinity in a woman differs crucially in one way from loving it in a man: In her it is a badge of standing out, not of fitting in. It is grown into through pain, or at least a sense of separation from those less different.”
-Carol A. Queen

Let’s also talk about the way this same mindset can put butch women in even more unsafe situations too. As I’ve already touched a little earlier in this thread, butches are treated like predators for daring to want to interact with other women.

There is a stereotype that butch women don’t like to hang out with other women and that they only hang out with men. But also, straight women are fucking frightened of lesbians, and butches especially because of how visible they are. See a connection?

When butch women try to interact with other women, and not just straight women, there tends to be a homophobic assumption that they’re trying to get with that woman. Regardless if there’s any actual flirting or not. Butches are often very isolated from other women.

There is just an awkwardness and a disconnect, because you can tell that the woman you’re trying to interact with is scared of you and sees you as a predator for your gender presentation, even if she’s still friendly to you. Sometimes men are just easier to deal with.

This can put butch women into a forced proximity with men. But this proximity doesn’t mean that butches actually are men. They are still women. But without any support from other women, and forced into proximity with their oppressors due to homophobia.

And this goes double for butch trans women who are already often put in forced proximity with men for being trans women.

Now dating. Butches get criticized by a lot of women for being “emotionally unavailable and uncommitted” when it comes to relationships but also maybe look into yourself and consider why an entire marginalized group of women doesn’t want to date you specifically.

Butch fetishization is a real thing. We’re often treated like we don’t have our own feelings and desires in relationships and often are treated like sex toys. People treat us like we’re emotionless and then complain that we seem emotionally unavailable.

Pretty much any butch that’s been subjected to a dating app has gotten inappropriate, entitled, disrespectful, and violent messages from people asking you to “step on them” or “choke them” or whatever. Often as the first message too.

And this is something that is also often directed to transgender women and women of color, so this is especially worse for butches of color and trans butches. I mean, why do you think you have the right to make demands as your advances like this? It is so entitled and upsetting.

If you flirt with some women by complimenting their clothes, calling them pretty, calling them beautiful, and flirt with others by telling them to snap your neck and spit on you, why is that? Why do you do this? Why do you view butch women as violent sex objects?

Now let’s talk about butches who are promiscuous. This relates to some of what I was talking about earlier In feminist spaces, when gender conforming women sleep with a lot of people, it’s seen as something that’s cool and empowering. But when butch women do it, it’s more seen-

-as predatory. You hear stuff like “fuckboy lesbian” and accusations of being creepy and emotionally unavailable. When gender-conforming women are talking constantly about their one night stands and getting #GirlBoss kind of reactions to it.

And it’s because you don’t actually view butch women as actual women. You see them as aligned with maleness but not actually male. When masculinity does not belong to men and embodying masculinity does not align you with men in any way.

Now this goes back to earlier with housing groups who only want “femmes” and don’t want roommates who are “masc-aligned.” Masc-aligned literally doesn’t mean anything. There are no coherent experience of being “masc-aligned” besides maybe a clothing section.

But butches should be able to openly express their desires, just like other women do, without other those women viewing them with these homophobic double standards. Wanting sex does not make you creepy or a bad person. It’s okay to want to fuck other women.

It’s a very strange tightrope to walk on. To be viewed by other women as an emotionless object whose only use is sex, but if you ever express your own sexual desires you are seen as a predator.

Now, what can being viewed and treated like a sex object with no agency also lead to? Besides just issues with expressing your own sexual desires. Intimacy issues. Which some might describe as “emotional unavailability.”

I personally feel intensely guilty about for crushing on women, having feelings for women, or even being in love with other women. It takes a lot for me to express that. It’s hard to say this without sounding like an asshole, but I have no shortage of women in my life who-

-desire me sexually. But like, actual romantic intimacy? It’s difficult for me. I have a lot of love in me. A fiery and explosive amount. But I feel like a bad person for expressing it, because just part of me feels like that isn’t what is wanted from me.

I’ve found myself often sexually self-harming and sleeping with large amounts of people (many who I have zero attraction to) for the crumbs of intimacy that comes with one night stands. Which I often feel is all that I am good for.

Butches deserve more than to be desired as sex objects. They deserve agency. They deserve to be respected, loved, spoiled, and nurtured. They deserve to be treated as more than what is demanded from them sexually.

And they deserve to be treated as lovingly as their feminine counterparts.

I think butches deserve to be courted, crushed on, blushed at, and wooed, rather than people just approaching them immediately with their entitled, aggressive, violent sexual demands.

I think butches deserve to been seen as handsome, beautiful, valiant, loving, and complex. Rather than being seen as aggressive, violent, angry, deviant, and perverse.

I think the way butches are treated within the lesbian community in many ways mirrors the “Masc4Masc” culture from the gay male community. Where gender non-conforming people are seen as an embarrassment and not worthy of dating.

Many lesbians treat “butch” as a negative stereotype to avoid. Like “I’m a lesbian but I’m not one of those ugly man-hating hairy lesbians who look and act like men.”

There is such a victim complex about being a lesbian and not being butch. They act like there is some hand of god trying to force all lesbians to be butch. And that there’s some pressure in the lesbian community to present yourself as butch.

I know many femmes who are dear to me who have had gross and uncomfortable comments from straight people praising them for some shit like “being a lesbian and not feeling like they have to look like some ugly hairy man.”

Watch any movie or show that has subjected us to their interpretation of “representation” and it’s always two extremely bland white feminine women, one with blonde hair and one with brown hair.

I see complaints all the time about their being media pressure to present as butch too. But where are the butches? Where are they? The show Vagrant Queen has a lesbian character in the main cast, and I was watching commentary on the show and they did the same thing-

-where they act like it’s somehow regressive for a lesbian character to embody masculinity. That having their lesbian character be feminine was some act of subversive lesbian representation. But where are all these regressive butches that are supposedly everywhere in the media?

But continuing, there is a victim complex both from within and outside the lesbian community about how lesbians present theirselves. Straight people want all lesbians to be gender-conforming, and there is also a large part of the lesbian community who wants that too.

And let’s not pretend like there isn’t an enormous societal pressure for all women to conform to feminity. The fact is, people really really don’t want women to be butch. There is no pressure for all lesbians to be butch. It’s literally the opposite.

In progressive activist LGBT spaces, the hatred of gender non-conforming men within the gay male community is widely condemned. But in the lesbian community, even within progressive activist communities, it is still treated like its completely fine.

But within the lesbian community, you can identify as a “femme4femme” openly and talk about it frequently and pretend that it’s progressive and subversive and it goes completely unchallenged.

But why is it okay for women to make an identity out of disgust for gender non-conformity but it’s not okay for men?

I’ve also encountered many femme4femmes on my slutty adventures throughout the lesbian community who actually are attracted to butch women, they just see us as sex objects and not women who are worthy of relationships.

This ties in a lot to what I was talking about earlier about how butch women are seen as emotionless sex objects. I actually saw someone I went on a date with a while ago on Lex today, and on our date, they definitely treated me as if I were some emotionless sex beast.

They asked me multiple times to “beat me up” and “punch me in the face” and I full-on ignored these comments but they did not cease. You guys know what consent is, you guys know how to recognize when your comments are making people uncomfortable, but for some reason you don’t-

-Utilize this when flirting with butches. Now, why do I bring up this person in this part of the conversation? Well, guess what they identify as? A femme4femme.

It’s actually pretty common for people who openly express disgust for marginalized people to still use those people for sex. They just see them as completely unworthy of having a public relationship with. And it’s definitely something these “femme4femmes” do with butches too.

It’s something I know is also experienced by a lot of fat women and trans women. Where openly fatphobic and transmisogynistic people still try to sleep with fat women and trans women. Well, butches get this too.

The thing that bigots do where they try to convince everyone that certain marginalized groups are ugly and disgusting, but still try to sleep with them. It is so insidious. Like you want to lower their self-esteem so you can take advantage of it.

And I have made the mistake many times of sleeping with “femme4femmes.” Because you know what? Because it works. This stuff does in fact lower my standards and self-esteem. And I don’t think I’d have done any of this if butches weren’t treated as so ugly and undesirable.

There is nothing wrong with being a feminine woman who prefers other feminine women. But you do not need the victim-complex, the open disgust of gender non-conforming women, and an identity around not being attracted to gender non-conforming women.

Most women are feminine. And most gay women are feminine. The femme4femme identity is like, not useful. The hatred of gender non-conformity aside, it’s like congrats, you’ve made an identity out of being attracted to most women. Why is this relevant? Just say lesbian.

So before anyone says on here that I’m telling them that they have to date butches too, that is not the point. You just don’t need to make an entire identity out of not wanting to date butch women.

But femme4femmes aside, I feel like a lot of women who actually do actively and openly want to date and sleep with us still have a lot of work they need to do.