femmefaetality

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And then I realized my jaw wasn’t wired shut anymore. Silence had become a habit.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg

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There's two kinds of crows that visit our yard.

Funky little guy on his stupid walk for his stupid mental health.

And

I HAVE SEEN EMPIRES RISE AND FALL AND YOURS IS NO DIFFERENT

And we love them both.

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B.D. Women (1994) dir. Campbell X - a 1920s love story between a femme jazz singer and her butch lover interspersed with contemporary interviews from black lesbians.

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What I have observed is that most make Caitlyn feel like this ideal they can project onto, attach to, and self-insert their fantasised ideals, versions of their ideal partner, preferences, or even themselves. Leading to sensitivities against criticism and a desire to be appreciated.

But the worst thing is that to feel protected against criticism for their preferences, they weaponise their proxy’s POC indemnity. Essentially yt folks masquerading/roleplaying as POCs.

My peers who are POC esp. Asian Caitlyn fans, have a better grasp and keep their head on their shoulders when discussing Caitlyn with any objectivity, than yt folks who must have people connecting/humanising/reflecting Caitlyn at all costs. My peers do not have this degree of sensitivity and reactivity towards criticism against Caitlyn’s actions.

people under this twitter art saying c*itvi is their favorite ship ever cause "we finally got good lesbian representation"

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please be kinder to the people around you who have neurotypes that "scare" you. i really don't think it's cool to see people claim to hate ableism, and then treat psychotic people, bipolar people, people with OCD, people with personality disorders, people with DID, traumatized people and so on like garbage. i don't really care if seeing someone who is actually, for real in the throes of a mental health crisis is frightening to you, it's far, far more frightening for them. compassion is key here. learning to get over our fears isn't just for people with anxiety, psychosis and trauma- it's for all of us. if someone is genuinely harming you, it's okay to seek help and to be alarmed. but if they are having symptoms that are not affecting you, it is not okay to treat them like garbage. treat everyone around you with respect, especially people with "scary" neurotypes and mental health conditions. no one deserves to be looked at with terror when they need help.

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need to cuddle up with her after when we're all sweaty and hold her close and feel her shiver and sigh and giggle and say “that was fun :3” after I fuck her stupid

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not all ships are For wanting them to be in a happy healthy relationship together. sometimes shipping two characters means you want them to be erotically obsessed with each other and become entwined in a mutually toxic love affair for a few months and then horrifically break each other's hearts and never speak again. sometimes you want them to be codependent best friends with enough repression to explode a submarine who only make out/have sex when they're at their worst. sometimes you want them to pine after each other for years, never say anything, and then die. sometimes you want them to kill each other. this, too, is shipping

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just to be clear. i CHOSE my femininity. “you’re a woman so femininity is what’s expected of you” not the way im doing it. i was masculinized. i tried to be a girl the way they wanted me to be and it just made me more of a freak, more of a thing to point and laugh and stare at. my femininity is queer because IT is queer, not because a dyke is doing it. it’s freeing. it’s ecstatic. i constructed a queer femininity. i MADE it. i CHOSE it. it did not fall into my lap; it was not taught to me; it was never rewarded in me; it was not pieced together from the shards of some other femininity that existed before it broke. i made it on purpose. i made it cohesive and coherent and singular. this is intentional. i am intentional. i chose my femininity. i CHOSE it. i did it on PURPOSE.

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Some people here really treat butchfemme dynamics... weirdly. Especially the butch label.

Butch is queer. Butch is not inherently a "daddy" a "boy", a he/him. Butch is not predatory, always dominant, buff, tough, scary.

It's cool if you identify with any of it, but it seems that many people just take it all as face value. They lack historical knowledge.

Being butch or femme is not inherently sexual or indicative of what your position in bed is/should be. That is a heteronormative idea and if you think so, you really should reevaluate it.

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IN THIS HOUSE WE LIFT UP AND SUPPORT TRANS INDIVIDUALS

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“I watch the older butches. They have perfectly shined shoes and crisply ironed dress shirts; ties that point politely down, slung around necks I want to carefully touch; thick belts and square edges and hair that looks like it’s been freshly cut at all times; change in a loose jangle at the bottom of pockets calling out an insistent rattle as they walk by; neatly clipped nails on hands that are forever ready to hold open the door. Their postures are straight and stiff, except for the ones who stoop their shoulders to hide their softness. The butches are always quietly determined to get the drinks. I watch their calm circle to the bar and back, nobly presenting cocktails to femmes who take them like prizes. At the end of the night, I see them hold up coats with outstretched arms for their tired femmes, hail cabs with one authoritative arm reaching for the stars, the other wrapped lightly around their girl’s waist. They make everything look charmed and easy–rolling coins across the table with a silver flash; arm-wrestling with their sleeves rolled up as my eyes hungrily lock on their tensed forearms; swinging Zippo lighters open before I’ve even contemplated having a cigarette. I crave their softness, how gentle they can me in touch and gesture; I love their hardness, all of the sharp lines and angles I want to feel the pinch of and press myself against. They wear their difference out there every day in a mostly hostile world. They take refuge in approving nods of other butches, in welcoming smiles of the femmes at the bar. When they are here, they are home. When they are here, there is nowhere else.”

— Debra Anderson, “Spotlight” (via throughmotion)

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(from an essay i started 2 years ago, but never completed)

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Radical Relations by Daniel Winunwe Rivers

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1950s Butch-Femme lesbians, seen in Before Stonewall (1984)

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Illustrations by me, text from “The Butch-Fem Image as a Pre-political Form of Resistance,” Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madaline D. Davis