Thread by @StoneButchCass

This fool @sarahschauer really shared an article saying that transmisogyny is caused by “femmephobia.” Rather than like, violent hatred of transgender women regardless of their gender presentation.

Living proof that blue checkmarks are just Twitter’s way of signaling to you that someone’s an idiot

Misogyny is caused by discrimination towards women, which is experienced regardless of whether a woman presents masculinely or femininely. And this is the same with transmisogyny. Butch trans women still experience violent transmisogyny.

Femmephobia taken out of its original context to mean the hatred and discrimination towards gender non-conforming gay men in the gay male community literally doesn’t make any sense at all. Femmephobia should only be used to discuss the internalized homophobia of gay MEN.

Femmephobia makes sense when used in the context of intercommunity violence in the gay male community. Anyone who has opened up Grindr (I use it for work) can see from a brief scroll that there is a lot of punching down towards gender non-conforming men in the gay male community.

But outside of the context of the gay male community, it erases the struggles of gender non-conforming men. Violence towards feminine men outside of the gay male community is caused by violent homophobia and gender non-conforming gay men are more visible and-

-More likely to be a target of homophobic violence. It has nothing to do with femininity. It’s violent homophobia.

Weird enough, now the term “femmephobia” has been taken out of its context where it makes sense and is now being used to perpetuate hostility towards gender non-conforming women in the lesbian community.

The idea that women can escape a large chunk of their oppression by being gender non-conforming is literally batshit nonsense. Femmephobia makes no sense when it’s used to mean anything other than intercommunity issues with gay MEN.

This term in the context of discussing women’s issues is extremely harmful and erases the struggles of women and why misogyny happens to begin with. Especially with butch women and transgender women whose visibility exposes them to higher rates of violence.

Women are hated because they are women, not because of femininity. And trans women experience the brunt of most transphobia because they are trans women, not because of some societal hatred of femininity.

Gender non-conforming gay men are hated because they’re extremely visible as gay men, which makes them a lightning rod of homophobic (not femmephobic) violence. It’s not because they’re feminine.

Butch women experience this too. Butch women are the most visible as lesbians. And that also makes them a lightning rod for homophobic violence too. Masculinity is just a way of expressing yourself and it is not a position of privilege.

But butch women experience both misogyny and homophobia. And uh, this should be obvious but gender non-conformity, especially when expressed by women, is heavily frowned upon. Which also makes butches a lightning rod for misogynistic violence too.

I feel like it shouldn’t so difficult to comprehend that being visibly gay exposes you to more violence and butch women are absolutely not spared from violence just because they fucking wear button ups and pants.

Whenever I see people talking about butches perpetuating “toxic-masculinity” towards “femmes”, it’s always just like, internalized misogyny. Literally all women experience this but when butch women do it’s framed as something predatory and male.

Butch and femme in a lesbian context are working class identities so why is some rich internet celebrity sorority girl who got famous off of Vine even discussing them to begin with?

Like you are not a femme. You are a wealthy woman who posts annoying videos of yourself online and somehow makes money from that.

You guys seriously need to stop listening to what celebrities and rich people have to say about social issues. It will always be weird and wrong and out of touch with the obvious reality. They will never get it.

I specify butch and femme in a “lesbian context” because I know those terms can mean different things within the black and brown ball and drag communities.

But seriously though, why was @sarahschauer ever given platform to talk about social issues to begin with? She’s literally some wealthy sorority girl and is incapable of understanding the actual oppression that working class LGBT people experience.

But yeah I guess let’s let Regina George talk as an authority about transmisogyny.

I get that many of you guys are very disappointed by her transmisogyny and hatred of butch women, but you probably never should have been listening to her to begin with. The wealthy gays do not live in the same world as us.

Also I’d like to specify that I don’t think femme=gender-conforming. As a femme loving butch, straight women and femmes are easily distinguishable to me. If not from their appearance, than by their mannerisms and the way they look at me.

But the self-identifying “femmes” who are saying all this dumb “femmephobia” and “masc privilege” nonsense definitely aren’t actually femmes and really are just gender-conforming gay women.

I used to be exclusively butch4butch because my impression of what a “femme” is was based on self-identified “femmes” who are just normal gender-conforming feminine gay women with no investment in the butch/femme community.

“Femme” within the context of lesbian relationships does not just mean feminine. Most women are feminine, most lesbians are feminine, and most women are raised to be feminine. There is no point in specifying that you’re a femme if you don’t mean it within a butch/femme context.

Butch and femme are working class lesbian identities centered around two different subversions of womanhood loving and protecting eachother.

This is why this woman is not a femme. She is a wealthy gender-conforming woman using her strangely enormous platform to frame vulnerable gender non-conforming women as her oppressor. That is neither loving or protecting.

When I discovered real femmes, femmes who love butch women, femmes who don’t feel they’re entitled to us and don’t treat us like sex objects, femmes that don’t think of us as a aligned with men, femmes that don’t see us as privileged for our non-conformity,-

-femmes who know that butches and femmes are twin flames, femmes who treat us with respect, femmes who protect us just as we protect them, femmes who celebrate our masculinity as we celebrate their feminine subversion, femmes who have taken the time to understand our issues,-

-that is when I figured out that I am butch4femme. My view of what a femme was had been corrupted by women who hate us and appropriate the term “femme” to pointlessly bring attention to their gender conformity.

And I am so happy to be free of that, because I am very happy with femme partners when they are actually femmes.

So remember that if someone calls themself a femme but spouts rhetoric to harm butches, they are not a femme. If someone calls themself a femme but hates butches, that is not a femme. If someone calls themself a femme but is rich, that person is not a femme.

These kinds of women do not represent femmes even if they steal their terminology. Real femmes love butches just as we love them. If you want to date femmes but are scared of women like the woman this thread is about, just remember that actual femmes are not like this.

It’s very intimidating to date femmes these days since so many women who call themselves femmes center their identity in hating us, but once you learn to actually spot a femme in the wild than things will feel a lot better. At least this is my experience.

Femmes can really look any way. Some femmes are very obviously gender non-conforming, some femmes have their own unique ways to express their femininity, and some femmes can be aesthetically difficult to distinguish from straight women.

So if femmes can really look like anyone, how do you spot one in the wild? Well, it’s about the way they look at you from afar, the way they talk to you, the way they flirt with you, and their mannerisms around you.

Don’t forget that real femmes love butches, and really a loving look is the easiest way to spot one out in the wild.

As a butch, you’re the most obviously visible. So femmes will signal to you that they’re femme by how they treat you. You’re there to be seen by femmes, and femmes are there to be noticed by you.

I think with so many women who are not safe calling themselves femmes, I think it’s important for butches to learn to spot a femme without depending on how one publicly self-identifies. Because someone self-identifying as femme not an indicator on whether someone’s a femme.

The anti-butch rhetoric spread by @sarahschauer is so especially harmful towards butch transgender women. Reframing transmisogyny as “femmephobia” completely erases the marginalization that butch trans women experience for being trans women.

And the way she conflates butchness with maleness by framing butch masculinity as toxic forces butch trans women into proximity with men, and trans women already experience so much violence from being forced into proximity with men.

Anti-butch rhetoric and the conflation of butchness with maleness, and the misgendering of butch women that women like @sarahschauer express is so 100x more harmful towards butch trans woman.

Butches, trans or cis, but especially trans, are marginalized and experience violence from men. Forcing them into proximity with men and isolating them from other women exposes them to even more violence than they already experience from men.