#and me being a butch lesbian that wants a flat chest/top surgery

[butchcharliee]

🤠

[illogicalghost]

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[gatheringbones]

[“Alex tells me he had long been aware of the existence of transsexuals, and he had even contemplated transitioning earlier in his life. He had known a couple of people over the years who had transitioned, but he had no idea of how to go about doing so, and he lacked the money and the wherewithal.

In the early 1990s, “the conversation changed,” he says, making it possible for him to contemplate transitioning. He heard about support groups for transgender men. FTM groups were forming in San Francisco and Seattle. A burgeoning “queer” movement was challenging the dominance of radical feminist ideas and was offering female-assigned individuals who wished to embrace their inner maleness a way to do so affirmatively, with a sense of pride. Writers and activists like Sandy Stone and Kate Bornstein were talking about a different, more expansive understanding of the radical potential of gender switching, rejecting medicalized notions of trans people as having the “wrong body,” or as being mentally deficient. The term “transgender” was established as a way to move beyond the medical model of “transsexualism” and to include a broad array of gender-variant persons who wished to challenge the binary. It enabled Alex to call himself transgender.

“I did not want to have to say I was ‘crazy.’ I don’t even like saying I’m dysphoric, though I fit the narrative,” says Alex. “I didn’t start T until I found a very good doctor who didn’t demand a letter from a therapist. I wouldn’t confess dysphoria in order to get access to top surgery. I won’t do it. Why would I want to make myself even more marginal?” However, once there was a “weakening of pathology, of judgment,” he decided to move forward.

Meanwhile, Kristin, Alex’s closest friend, settled in Seattle after graduation, where she found an accepting culture and a lively butch presence in the lesbian community. She worked for a state representative, and when she visited the state capitol to lobby on his behalf, people sometimes perceived her “as a boy.” But mainly she felt okay about looking different, and she fell in love with a woman, Jennie, who affirmed her right to be who she was. Kristin is pretty flat chested and small hipped, and “looks like she wants to,” more or less. She presented as a masculine female. It helped that her family tended to be supportive. “Even though I don’t really operate as a woman, I operate in the sphere of women, and there were a lot of really strong women in my big Polish family!” Also her dad, now deceased, was queer, and her brother (who appears in this book) is a transgender man.

Because Kristin, unlike Alex, received a lot of support for her gender nonconformity, she said it never became a major source of distress for her—which isn’t to say that it hasn’t been a challenge at times. She contemplated transitioning for a while but eventually made peace with her body. Being in therapy helped. “I thought that my anxiety was special and everyone else was normal,” she tells me. But as she found ways to ease her generalized sense of anxiety, she became more comfortable with her body and her gender nonconformity. “I thought, ‘Why do I care so much about what other people think about my gender?’ I have a right. I have a fucking right to be who I am,” she tells me, her voice cracking.

And as she became more comfortable with herself, she found ways to deal with bathroom confrontations. “Now when people come up to me and tell me I’m in the wrong bathroom, sometimes I look my body up and down and look at them quizzically and say, ‘Oh, really?’ Thanks!” She makes light of it. “The more comfortable I am, the more likely they are to think I’m in the right place and leave me alone. Now it’s even funny at times.” But airports, she says, are still particularly challenging. Heightened security seems to extend to the policing of gendered bodies in bathrooms. The other day, a blond woman in her fifties came over to her as she entered a bathroom stall and started yelling, “You’re in the wrong place—the men’s room is over there.” Kristin just smiled and said, “Thank you,” and the woman left in a hurry.

“I get why some people transition,” says Kristin, “to be normal, and not have people gawking at you all day. It takes a whole lot of energy.” Still, she came to the conclusion that transitioning would not solve her problems, and that it might open up new, unknown challenges.

Alex, on the other hand, made the decision to modify his body and present as a male, and it has made his life much easier. He no longer gets harassed walking down the street, and he’s no longer as angry. “I still look young,” he tells me, “but at least the beard and receding hairline prove I’m through puberty!” He is much happier now, he says. “I honestly don’t feel I’ve changed that much. That is, ‘transitioning’ didn’t change me so much as it forced others to see me as I saw myself. Yes, the bodily transformations were welcome and comforting. I felt that I was finally ‘home.’ But how do you separate that feeling from the sense that you’re finally recognized by others for how you see yourself?”]

arlene stein, from unbound: transgender men and the remaking of identity, 2018

[ettucamus]

having lots of Gender feelings today. i’ve been on T for a while and just had my top surgery and i am genuinely the most comfortable i have ever felt in my body in my entire life, and more importantly, the most *healthy*. for the second reason, it actually really upsets me when people discuss medical transition as an “unnatural” thing “society pushes” upon people and not a legitimate medical treatment. i’m not going to pretend i understand why and where my dysphoria comes from but i have been acutely aware of it before i had even heard the word lesbian or butch. i have wanted to pursue top surgery and HRT for exactly a decade, as of this year. and i know for a fact all medical transition i have pursued has tangibly improved my health in multiple ways.

i was so dysphoric to the point i was agoraphobic, it was agonizing to leave my house without binding and i would come home crying because of all of the homophobic things i’d hear for being perceived as a cis butch and how uncomfortable it was to be seen as a cis woman by the greater cishet society. i also have a blood disorder, in which having menstrual cycles exacerbates clinical anemia and basically leaves me bedridden for the entirely of the cycle. T? completely fixed that. my small, sickly blood cells actually got larger and increased in count to the point where i am no longer clinically anaemic, i have a ton of energy to do the things i love, and am not relying on financial assistance to pay rent or buy food because i’m so sick.

also, i can just go about my business and people largely leave me alone because i pass as male. sure, i could spend years of my life trying to make sense of why i have these feelings and why my general existence being perceived as a Cis Woman used to feel so painful, but to be honest it feels a bit ridiculous because i know myself and my identity fairly well now. i feel great identifying as a butch knowing i can be as muscular, hairy, deep voiced as i want to and i can have a femme lover who still sees the softness, still sees my butchness and lesbianism, and doesn’t think i’m a man. and the people who think that i’m “too manly” are really just parroting the same butchphobic and misogynistic bullshit that has been circulating for forever. i don’t necessarily identify as a WomanTM but if i did, there’s absolutely no reason why a woman can’t enjoy being hairy, muscular, flat chested and deep voiced. so what if you weren’t born with it? i wasn’t born with my tattoos or piercings either but i’m still happy i have/had them.

honestly, i love being a passing butch in the 21st century. i love being able to stomp all over men, be a dominant and masculine person, and to not be ridiculed or isolated or fired for it. maybe it’s the easy way out but honestly, i’ve had such a fucking difficult life in so many ways that i feel like i am allowed to not want to experience daily discrimination and hate crimes. i love the fact i can come home to a femme who sees me and loves my butchness and understands how *hard* and how much *work* it is to exist as butch no matter if you decide to medically transition or not. either way, there are going to be people who don’t understand my identity and don’t understand who i am, but (if i had one) my femme sees her butch, other lesbians and queer people mostly still recognize that this person isn’t a man, and that’s more than enough for me. at the end of the day, being a passing butch means i’m not looking for cis/heterosexual approval in my transition, but looking after my physical health and safety in a world that still absolutely wants to kill and hurt people like me.

[ask-pride-color-schemes]

Hi

Thank you for being a blog to answer questions. I have so many. But to begin with, I want to ask about gender dysphoria.

I read a trans person once say that it is not about the genitals and that it is like how you as a cis person know you are of xyz gender.

But, for me I "feel like a woman" because society said you are a woman. I wouldn't have had been any different had I been "a man".

So, if the society didn't dictate gender roles (that being born with vagina means you have to act this way or being born with penis means you have to act that way), then what would being transgendered mean?

Thank you for your patience and reading the long ask. It is okay if you do not wish to answer. I will be grateful if you could direct me to sites that explain these things well. 😊☺️

Hi,

First, a bit of grammar: it’s not ‘transgendered,’ it’s ‘transgender.’ It is an adjective, not a past-tense verb. :) 

Second, well, it might look kinda like the many societies, past and present, all around the world, which recognize more than two genders, and recognize that people can have a mismatch between how they look and what they know they are. Classical Judaism recognized six genders, and multiple genders were or are recognized in Indian society, many Indigenous American communities, and a lot of other societies worldwide. People take on the paths through life that are most appropriate for them. 

Unfortunately, even in those societies, transgender people still face violence and hatred, largely because of colonialism and moral structures literally forced on people by [insert Western colonizer country here]. 

Since this is really a thought experiment, I don’t have a solid answer for you. I do just want to close by saying that I’m glad that your experience matches with the role that was chosen for you by society. That’s exactly what being cisgender means. Congratulations!

But for those of us who are transgender, that’s just not how it works. I am speaking only for myself here, as the transgender experience is a diverse one, but I don’t buzzcut my hair, dress in flannels and jeans, and want top surgery because ‘society says that’s what makes a man or a non-binary person’ is a flat chest, jeans, and short hair. I do those things because that’s how I like to be and to live. Regardless of those categories existing or not, I’d still know exactly how I want to be, and whatever label is put on that, I’d still be exactly how and who I am, and know that my gender is a personal thing, individual to me, which I’ve been grappling with for decades. I’d also know that my presentation is separate from my gender, because my presentation could also fit a butch cisgender lesbian. But I am not a butch cisgender lesbian. I am me, and I exist outside definition. 

Other people experience their gender differently. That’s just how it is. There is no universal experience of transgender or cisgender, so in the end, there wouldn’t be a single answer. There’d be as many answers as there are people. 

I hope this helped!

- Mod Athena

[mycroftrh]

Are you a Gold Star lesbian? (Just in case you don't know what it means, a Gold Star lesbian is a lesbian that has never had sex with a guy and would never have any intentions of ever doing so)

...I’m not a woman, and therefore not a lesbian? I think maybe this ask was accidentally sent to the wrong blog, otherwise I’m not sure where this question came from.

I would technically be Gold Star if I were a lesbian, by some definitions, because I’ve never had any sexual contact with a man and don’t expect to do so in the foreseeable future. Same’s true of women and nonbinary people, too, though, so. Not sure how that works.

But I’m really not a fan of the Gold Star concept in general. It strongly implies there’s something lesser about you if you’ve engaged in different gender relationships in the past because of heteronormativity, because of taking a while to be sure of your identity, because of sexual assault, because identities can be fluid. And it gets suuuuuper dicey with nonbinary and trans partners. If a partner is nonbinary does that count as “sex with a guy” or is that only if your partner is absolutely 100% binary male? What if they’re like... 80% man? 70%? 40%? 30%? 10? Where’s the cutoff? What if they’re just really really butch - my top surgeon did surgery on a butch lesbian who identified 100% as a woman, but wanted her chest flat. What if your partner identified as a woman when you were together but later on realized he was a man? Does your identity suddenly change based on someone else’s, even if you’re not with him anymore?

Also it falls into some weaknesses that become obvious in my case - I’m a sex-repulsed asexual, so, like... I’ve never had sex with a man and don’t expect to, so I’d technically count as Gold Star but... very much not in the way people mean when they say that.

At absolute least “Gold Star” strongly implies that stuff makes you a “lesser lesbian/gay man”, not as good at it or like... not “as gay”, though also there’s an implication of being lesser in general. And it implies those things pretty strongly about bi people, as well.

And regardless of implications it necessarily requires asking someone about their sexual history, which is what you just asked me and while I answered not everyone is comfortable being asked about their sex lives by strangers in the Internet. ...including me, though if people have, like, sex ed type questions I’m happy to give help.

But. Again. I’m not a woman and therefore not lesbian. And I’m not unisexual regardless of my own gender. So as far as I, myself, am concerned, it’s a moot point.

[bookclubforghosts]

I Need Advice

I have begun questioning my gender again, and while I know that I am the only one who can definitively say what I am, I would like an outsider’s opinion. The questioning was set in motion partly by my parents, who’ve been criticizing me ever since they found out, and partly by me walking down memory lane and remembering some things I had previously suppressed that make me have questions for myself. I have had dysphoria/discomfort/insecurities about my chest ever since i first developed boobs— I want it to be smaller/flat. Most of the discomfort stems from boobs being overly sexualized and getting me unwanted attention, but I also just hate having them. They’re uncomfortable and I think that on me they’re gross. I can also remember one time being called “boy” by a teacher at school whilst in sixth or seventh grade and being shocked but not totally opposed. I also used to have a tendency to call myself a prince when I was little. I think it’s necessary to add that I called myself “prince” mostly because I read in a book that “royal titles are just titles, they don’t /really/ have gender associated with them” and little me was like “hell yeah”. I can also remember calling myself a “tomboyish girl” and identifying as a butch lesbian and then a butch bisexual girl in eighth and ninth grade. At the end of ninth and beginning of tenth grade I began to question my gender more— asking friends “do you ever think about yourself as a different gender? I sometimes think about myself as a guy.” My cis friends all said no to this idea, making me want to investigate gender identities and all that stuff. This brought me to the term agender and transgender and demigender. For a while I called myself a sapphic nonbinary person, then agender, then demiguy, and then trans guy. I use he/him with my friends at school and go by th name William. That was about a year and a half ago and I hadnt questioned my gender very much since. Up until now. After my parents sort of forced me to come out, they’ve started pointing out how there are cis women that get chest reduction surgeries and how I’m a very feminine person and stuff like that. This kind of stirred up the memories I had been suppressing. I’m confused now. I don’t know what fits. Sometimes being called “he” feels weird, not like it’s completely wrong but not completely right, either. I hate dresses and makeup and tops that show off my chest, but I also know that presentation doesn’t equal gender. I still want to get top surgery and I feel happiest when I bind, but I don’t know about pronouns or my name or what my gender even is. I think I might be a masculine nonbinary person, or maybe an androgynous person, or perhaps even a masculine girl. How would I tell the difference? How will I know?