#really it just depends on if someone wants to be called a butch

[butchdykekondraki]

what exactly makes a butch woman butch?

uh if we're going like broad term butch then just being masculine basically. really it depends on what a person deems masculine. ive seen butches who wear tank tops and short shorts who are still butches. there's not exactly a ''wrong'' way to be butch honestly

[biteapple]

part of me still feels like i might be sort of genderfluid and/or bisexual but just traumatized about it. no idea anymore

[mizusnose]

Have any CollegeAu! Headcanons for Mizu? General or Romantic! I'm just curious 👁👁

okay!!! this might be an unpopular opinion but: college fuckboy!mizu…

for ultimate brainrot, Limbo by Freddie Dredd on repeat ☺️

NSFW

Is known around campus as the fuckboy despite being a woman. Is exclusively nicknamed the mean hot butch by all the lesbians on campus.

Despite having this reputation, a lot of women cant get enough of her. Has someone over almost every weekend—minus the ones she isn’t away visiting and training with swordfather.

Is on the collegiate fencing team. Strong, lean, and when she takes off her face guard, her sweaty jaw and neck always fluster her rival Taigen whenever they’re dueling.

Smokes weed—a lot. Can handle herself and usually hits her pen as she’s studying or while she fucks her dates. Isn’t entirely dependent on it, since it’s an alternative to cigarettes but yeah.

Is messy. Every time she invites a girl over, doesn’t bother to clean up and just pushes her pile of laundry off her bed before she eats out the lucky girl who gets to brag about Mizu’s tongue game.

Doesn’t let her flings stay the night. Will give amazing after care, but as soon as that’s over, she’s directing you to the door.

Kissing is allowed but only during sex—this is a strict rule for her. Doesn’t want any soft stuff. Would rather make out messily and get the girl off with her mouth instead of kissing anyone soft.

Is into biting. Like, will mark up girls and leave her bite marks on the inside of their thighs and their shoulders and wrists.

Is exclusively rough in bed. Doesn’t really have slow sensual sex unless she’s high beforehand.

Doesn’t know how to handle emotions—would rather fuck them out of her system instead.

That being said, she doesn’t take kindly to confessions. Rolls her eyes, mean and oh so hot as she tells anyone who “loves her” that I’m just the best you’ve ever had. That’s not love baby, that’s lust.

Has tats. Up high on her ribs and around her left hip. She got them to hide the scars she got from training when she was younger.

Has awful music taste and only listens to rap or trap music. Taigen calls her a degenerate and they wrestle on the ground—he catches feelings too. Mizu has to reject him.

okay okay okay. i feel like there’s potential for mizu to be fucking mean and awful—especially since that’s how she is in the beginning of the first season so…this was born.

can imagine her getting her act together later on to start impressing reader or akemi, you can choose.

[faggy--butch]

Really confused by your "lesbian trans men" post. The way I think of "lesbian", it's not a term of identity signification, it's a term for a specific type of sexual orientation and relationship.

It doesn't make sense that someone can be a "lesbian trans man" to me, because they are a trans man first, that is their identity. And because of that identity of being male, they are disqualified from being in a lesbian relationship, because a lesbian relationship is specifically female/female.

I'm not a terf, fuck terfs. A trans woman and a cis woman in a relationship are still lesbians. I'm just confused how a trans man can be a lesbian if he's not a woman. If the trans man is attracted to women, wouldn't that make him heterosexual, therefore straight? I'd understand if he was genderfluid, then he would swap back and forth from straight to lesbian depending on which gender he/she is.

The way I look at it, there are two "categories" of being queer. Identity and orientation. Identity comes first, it's what you are. Orientation comes second, it's what you're into. Identity is stuff like being cis, trans, genderfluid, etc. Orientation is stuff like being straight, gay, bi, ace, etc. And in my mind those two categories are completely separate, except where the orientation category depends on the larger identity category, such as "lesbian" being an orientation applicable to women into women, not applicable to men, trans or otherwise.

Please, educate me if I'm completely wrong in thinking about queerness this way, and why.

Well, I think your first mistake was trying to categorize queerness. Queerness by definition defies the boxes that get put on gender and sexuality. That's part of why a lot of people like calling themselves and the community queer, it's all encompassing. I also take issue with sexuality 'only' being an orientation. I certain identify as a lesbian, my sexual identity is just as important to me as my gender identity. I don't just "like girls" which what orientation is. I'm a lesbian, a dyke, it's a part of who i am. it's the way i define myself along with being butch, and to some people their sexual identity can be even more important than their gender one. To some people their gender identity is in fact lesbian.

You have to get it out of your mind that if something doesn't make sense, that it's wrong. It's not for anyone to tell a person what they can or can't identify as, or if they're misgendering themselves or whatever. I mean go to the HER app and you'll figure out quick that there are trans men in lesbian spaces, identifying as lesbians, there always have been.

Trying to fit trans people into the cishetro view of the world is not only never going to work, but it also actively hurts us. It's saying that we HAVE to be like them, we have to emulate our experiences off of the "real" genders and sexualities of white cishet people. that we have to match or we're doing it wrong, that it's not real until we're like them. As a non binary person i reject that entirely. I don't want people to tell me what they think I am, and I'm not going to do it to anyone else. I think everyone would benefit from learning about multigender, multisexual, and the split attraction model, and like talking to intersex people.

[abyssalzones]

I would love to hear more abt your college pre-egg-breaking fiddauthor thoughts if you'd be open to it

oh BOY would I

so when I think about college fiddauthor nowadays I mainly think about both my own experiences with ~navigating identity~ and how I would approach a gay FTM relationship from a semi-realistic 1970's angle, where you start to see a lot of what you'd call "milestones" I guess in LGBT history and public awareness. wait okay here's something I said to mer that can set a precedent for what I'm talking about

when it comes to me and my own journey of self discovery irt sexuality and transness, I feel like those two things are very intertwined, because the concept of identity in my eyes is very socially motivated. I've previously identified as a nonbinary lesbian and a transgender gay man respectively before getting to the point I'm at now, and don't feel like either of those things were incorrect necessarily, just how I felt at the time (and what I wanted out of a relationship, really). I think I literally got an ask ages ago questioning how I went from one to the other but Idk I don't think the gender journey is as simple or "logical" as people coming from a hetero-patriarchal perspective (that's a mouthful) seem to think.

and, And, from a Historical perspective, FTM experiences and butch lesbian experiences have Always been very intertwined, especially back in the early 70's when more people were starting to have some awareness (even in LGBT spaces) of this thing known as the Transgender Lifestyle. I'm flattening things quite a bit here and I know for a fact there's a lot of variation between experiences, especially depending on your social circles, but from what I can glean a lot of the time transgender men weren't very well known and so a lot of the time you would just ID as a butch lesbian and/or present as a man socially, sometimes for safety reasons. and there's a lot of overlap there too that continues into contemporary transmasc spaces today :]

historical justification aside I basically think college would be a major turning point for self-discovery in both of their lives, but more-so for fiddleford than ford? I've always assumed based on everything we've seen that fidds was basically the only friend ford had in college, which definitely would have influenced him in important ways, but other than that I think he invested most of his time in studying and developments in gender were an afterthought. ford's FTM identity starts from a place of "failing to be a woman" and then develops with his pride in being a huge weirdo. in my mind that can only really happen once he's in gravity falls and has basically sacrificed his connections with other people/the world to live as his truest self, whether that's researching anomalies or living as a man.

fiddleford, however, I always think of from the perspective of someone bucking to societal expectations for safety reasons. this is because of a lot of things: ford's possible feelings of abandonment in favor of Normalcy (who can forget "Go back to your doting family and a life of fear and compromise!"), his jumping into a nuclear family immediately out of college, But also packing up and driving to oregon in a matter of days after ford asks for his help... when he has a kid who could be no older than 5 or 6 at home...? I sort of see his presentation as a foil to ford's, trying to mimic cishetero ("hetero") normalcy vs. being the Lone Transsexual Freak. I've gotten horribly off topic from the college thing hang on

basically I imagine them in their uni days like two weird butch gay women that are just, totally socially unapproachable. fiddleford is the more outgoing of the two as he's been voted "most likely to actually have other friends" in my mind, so if anyone was going to gay & lesbian student association meetings it would've been him, but otherwise ford is too busy ignoring his feelings. "I don't care if I'm a man or a woman I'm too busy studying. go away." but of course they find enough solace in eachother's company and their different-but-distinctly-similar weirdness that it forms an unbreakable transgender bond. freak4freak if you will. fidds settles on a bisexual identity without thinking about it too hard because honestly the conclusion here is that it doesn't matter if his roommate is a woman or a man he just knows he needs to do terrible things to him over d&d&md (sorry) (not really that sorry though.)

it's actually funny you bring this up because I'd been workshopping a short comic set in their college era that touches on this stuff a lot. not sure when that will ever get done but I can tell you it's. uhm

yeah they're kind of weird.

[everydayyoulovemeless]

I apologize if it would be too much, but would you be willing to do a Butch Alphabet (Either SFW or NSFW)? I've recently begun to play Tale of Two Wastelands and remembered how much I love that dolt

Butch SFW Alphabet

➼ Word Count » 1.4k ➼ Warnings » None ➼ Genre » Romantic ➼ A/N » Same tho 🤭 greaser's always get me

A - Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Butch is especially affectionate in public. He's always got his arm thrown around you, either around your shoulders or your waist, he always manages to find a way to snake it around you. He loves anything physical and is not afraid to show off your and his relationship while fucking up a group of ferals.

B - Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

The friendship starts rocky, with him having no boundaries on what is and isn't rude to do. You'll have to really stay committed before he loses some of his old habits, but once you do, he's the best friend anyone could ask for, always ready to jump someone if they say the wrong thing to you. He's not scared to get a little aggressive if the situation ever called for it.

C - Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

He's a huge cuddler! He loves to snake his arms around you and pull you closer to his chest at night while the two of you fade deeper into sleep. He always insists on being the big spoon, he just adores pressing his face into your hair, it makes him feel safe and comforted.

D - Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

For right now, no. He's young and he still has places outside the vault he wants to visit. He doesn't want to stay cooped up in a home somewhere, he'd rather go exploring while he's still physically able. He's pretty mediocre at household chores anyway, the whole thing would end in disaster.

E - Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Rudely. He'll list off every single reason why he decided to break up with you and that'll just be the end of it.

F - Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Butch is terrified of commitment and would rather take his time before fully jumping into marriage. He's not even sure if he wants to get married. He's just going to avoid the topic entirely if he can.

G - Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He's a lot more gentle than you'd think, always asking how you're doing and speaking to you in the softest tones. He might put on his big bad greaser persona most of the day, but underneath it all, he's full of affection.

H - Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

He'll hug you as often as he can! His hugs are always firm and passionate, with him holding you against his body as he rests his head on your shoulder or forehead. He's always sure to flex a little as he does so just to show off some of his muscles.

I - I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Way faster than he likes to admit. He says it almost immediately after the two of you get together. This is the only long-term relationship he's ever had in his life and has no filter or idea of when he should tell you he loves you, so he just ends up doing it right off the bat.

J - Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

He gets jealous fast and isn't shy about it. He'll cross his arms and puff out his chest as he saunters toward whoever's making him feel that way and talk down to them. Butch is very confident in himself and depending on if the guy is disrespectful toward you or not, you might have to hold him back from knocking him clean out.

K - Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Aggressive and sloppy. If he's kissing you then it'll be a full makeout session, there's no room for the slow and sensual stuff when you're 19 and in love.

L - Little ones (How are they around children?)

Really good? The kids in Little Lamplight love him because of how easily they manage to piss him off (they think it's funny), and they seem to have slowly grown on Butch. He's always looking out for kids, especially troublemakers, they remind him of himself and he knows exactly what they need to hear.

M - Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Scavenging and exploring. He likes how all the buildings look with the sun rising behind them, and he's so excited to be able to wander through the entirety of DC with no restrictions.

N - Night (How are nights spent with them?)

He loves finding the nearest bar, sitting in a booth with you, and drinking till one of you vomits or falls asleep. It doesn't even have to be a big social event, just the two of you drunkenly giggling in a corner while you share a bottle of whiskey is good enough for him.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Since you grew up with him, there isn't too much for him to open up about, but every once in a while when he's drunk, he'll confess something to you that you hadn't known before.

P - Patience (How easily angered are they?)

He has a lot more patience for you than he does for other people. He'll start arguments with others if they get on his nerves, but he'll just ruffle your hair and shrug his shoulders for you.

Q - Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

It's half and half with him, sometimes it'll stick, sometimes it won't. If he wants to know, he'll just ask again.

R - Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

There was this one night where the two of you were in Big Town and the residents there taught you both old card games they used to play when they were younger. You and Butch spent the entire night with them trying to figure out the rules (you're both still confused, but it was still fun!)

S - Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Butch is overly protective over you, any wrong look your way has him marching his way over and asking if there's a problem. Any issue you've got he'll take care of, don't worry you're sweet little head over it.

T - Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

None 💀. He hardly even remembers his own birthday, although, he'll give you a sweet roll on your birthday just to make up for how he acted on your 10th, but that'll be the end of it.

U - Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

He snores really loudly and will sometimes just whip his thing out and pee. Nothing horrible, but it can be slightly annoying.

V - Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

He takes his appearance VERY seriously. His hair's gotta be perfect, otherwise, he's not going.

W - Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Yeah. The two of you grew up together, and while you might not have been friends, you were still a big aspect of his life. He'd just feel lonely without you there, it's not the same hanging out with people who haven't ever stepped foot in a vault, and he likes how familiar you are to him.

X - Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

He's constantly on the lookout for any snakes. He really likes them and is praying that he'll see one in the tall grass or near a river or something.

Y - Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

He doesn't hate many things, but he sure as hell can't stand when you get overly touchy or flirty with another person, especially another guy. It ticks him off and makes him think you don't really want to be around him in the same way he does for you.

Z - Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

He goes to bed at 12:00 and usually wakes up around 7:00, although, on special occasions, you might find him drinking till 4 or 5 in the morning and waking up whenever.

[blubushie]

mavis doesn't realize that if she ever finds a conservative man he will want her to:

Be subservenient to him

Perform traditional femininity

Only have piv vanilla missionary sex on a sunday night between the sheets, he's sure as hell not gonna eat shit with her

He will expect her to bear his children, all the things she says she doesn't want

Im starting to think she doesn't even know what the fuck it means to be a conservative, she just doesn't want to be associated with liberals (also newsflash girlie, you can't be a punk and a conservative at the same time, those are two completely opposing ideologies in every single way)

OATH.

And she doesn't, no.

I will argue that you can be conservative and punk, but it really depends on your definition of conservative. If you're POLITICALLY conservative and call yourself punk, you are a fucken poser. End of. If you're CULTURALLY conservative, I think it's still possible to be punk. For example I consider myself culturally conservative, and... kinda-sort punk. I think tradition is important. And I think it's cool and good to see people break some aspects of tradition while still keeping in line with other aspects of tradition. Like a punk butch going by he/him and being what society would consider traditionally masculine. He knows the rules of tradition specifically to break them, while keeping in line with others. Or drag queens embracing aspects of traditional feminity. Genderpunk. It's cool.

And you can have someone like me, culturally conservative who believes tradition is good, but is also more than willing to fight the status quo when I feel it does harm to the individual or to freedom of expression. For example, "nuclear families are good" and "LGBTQ+ should be allowed to marry and have children with whoever they damn well please" are two statements that can and should coexist.

I believe in firearms rights. I think they're important to the safety of the individual and the family of the individual. I believe in property rights. These are things that would be considered conservative.

I also believe that people should have a right to become the person they see themselves to be. I believe the government has no right to infringe on anyone's pursuit of happiness so long as it affects only themselves. If no one's rights are being impeded on, then it's none of the government's fucking business.

I want us faggots and queers to be able to protect our cannabis grow houses and our trans children with legal firearms, is what I'm saying. I would consider myself a cultural conservative who is, in some aspects, punk.

And my jacket is cooler than Mavis'. Unlike her I earnt my colours.

[knowlesian]

I enjoyed your OFMD meta so much, I wondered your opinion on the symbolism of oranges in that show and in Goncharov — I mean, when Katya tries to win over Goncharov by taking him on a tour of the Moscow subways, and sends her gang of thugs to buy oranges from that “babushka” — I’m not imagining the parallel in OFMD, am I?

first off thank you, and second: absolutely! we already know david came in with movies like butch cassidy in mind and imo there is absolutely zero chance david and co didn’t see goncharov, too. the thematic overlap zones and then ultimate subversion on the meaning of the film is way too close to be coincidental.

forgive me for going a little broader before i focus on the katya and goncharov courtship flashbacks, because i really am over the moon about the connections here and how the ofmd writers repurpose old themes and storylines only to steer them in entirely new directions.

in goncharov we’ve got scorsese doing his... i’m gonna call it his best attempt at capturing the feel of russian lit. goncharov’s men are angry, explosive, and ultimately doomed. fated to die, unable to avoid How Things Are; the narrow limitations of their own understanding what is acceptable masculinity and what is not means they stay children, playing at war.

(and while scorsese is always gonna scorsese when it comes to the women in his films, katya and sofia make out better than most. i’m endlessly impressed with the way ofmd improved on that foundation; the vibe between those two isn’t NOT hiding in plain sight between mary and evelyn in ofmd, i’m js)

leaving the somewhat flimsy overall politics of goncharov aside, it does a pretty good job handling the overall ‘these expectations are actually killing more people than ice picks’ thrust. 

i think it’s really interesting how the oranges in ofmd function as sort of... depending on how you look at it, love/family/growth beat, especially when we look at katya’s attempts to reach out and make the best of a marriage of convenience and how that calls back to some of mary’s efforts in the flashbacks we see in e4.

it’s not the same orange, but it IS? somehow?

because like, look: i wouldn’t say this was an intentional creative choice from scorsese, but like every huge interpersonal problem in goncharov could be solved if the narrative just... let people be gay? 

(this is semi-joking oversimplification. i get that letting a scene about eating anchovy or gelato drop the subtext and just be about oral sex does not actually solve world hunger, but also. only semi-joking.)

katya attempts to use her family’s enforcers to obtain sustenance; and by that sustenance, eventually obtain love.

it’s poison fruit/poison tree. 

...you know, in a way i think the emotional equivalent to stede and ed and the orange in goncharov is actually the gelato scene, and the oranges in goncharov are actually an inversion of the orange in ofmd. especially since i totally forgot until now that we get that lingering shot of katya’s oranges sitting out in that weird glass bowl until the housekeeper throws them away, which... probably there’s some class stuff to be said about that bit too, but for now i’m obsessed with how when you keep that in mind, no WONDER we get the petrified orange in ofmd. 

katya didn’t go get those oranges herself; they were obtained impersonally and i think ultimately foreshadow the end of the movie. they’re food that could have been eaten by someone who actually ...you know, wanted oranges at all, wasted on a marriage that was over before it ever began. 

and then we have stede’s orange, impervious to rot and time and representing a family that became a real family for the first time ever on stede’s final departure, because they let go of the old expectations for what family (and love) even means and also stede’s love for ed and the crew, etc etc etc.

ugh. u g h. the 4d chess the ofmd writers play here splitting themes and characters so we get the oranges in a different context and through different food is so amazing. no 1:1′s!!! what a galaxy brained bunch of bastards. hate them.

anyway i’m sure there’s a bunch more here (and i didn’t even yell about how ofmd takes the borderline nihilistic commentary on time in goncharov and spins it into a show that insists no literally: if you’re alive, there’s still time. you can always change which is like... so, so perfect) but yeah!!!! i agree, i think the parallels are unmistakable.

[meowchela]

tangentially related to the topic of cis people and gender from that last post i just want to say. am i the only one who finds it annoying when i see people who see others stepping out of gender boundaries even slightly and then immediately calling them trans? and im not talking about trans headcannons made for comfort those are fine and good, i mean people who take any slight sign of gender non-conformity and immediately equate it to being binary trans. like people who called finnster an egg before they came out or make snide comments about waiting for a realization when someone of one gender talks about having/wanting experiences of another. like idk it just bothers me when people try to predict the lives of people they dont know

gender is a very personal thing whether you're cis, trans, or somewhere in between and it's way more complicated than a simple glimpse into someones life will tell you. there's so many different ways to identify and so many different ways to present, and those things arent always connected! so i feel like it's really shitty to act like you know someones identity more than they do because their presentation and public identity don't line up

i also kinda hate all those comments that are like "if youre cis you wont be for long" or "only trans people know about xyz so if you arent trans and know about it i have news for you" and stuff, theyre in the same vein as the whole "predicting strangers gender" thing to me just in a more abstract way that i can't articulate as well. i get that theyre meant as jokes but they still rub me the wrong way for some reason

like theres so many ways to be trans. theres so many ways to identify and present under that umbrella, AND theres so many ways to play with gender while not being trans! crossdressers! butches! drag queens! people who dip their toes in a few things stereotyped to be for the "other" gender and being perfectly comfortable otherwise!! sometimes these things can overlap and sometimes they dont, it all depends on the individual and i'm kinda just tired of people flattening any gender nonconformity to just "being trans" when the full queer experience is broader than that and there's terminology to reflect that

[caffeineandsociety]

There is no such thing as a person who is truly "TME".

Yes, people who are not visibly, factually MTF trans women will not experience ALL facets of transmisogyny...but neither will any specific individual trans woman. Yes, because they are the primary, nominal target, trans women will be hit HARDER by transmisogyny than people who are not trans women...on average-

But consider a butch cis woman in sports in a conservative region with gender challenge rules, vs. a well-passing conventionally attractive trans woman office worker in the queerest neighborhood of San Francisco. The former may very well experience more transmisogynistic abuse than the latter! It doesn't mean the latter is unaffected by transmisogyny; it doesn't even mean that, nominally, she's less of a primary target - she IS the person being strawmanned to make the rules used against the athlete, after all - but she isn't the one being hit by the fallout directly in the moment the former is sexually assaulted with no recourse to avoid getting her team fined, now is she?

Consider the differences between the experiences of a middle class, skinny, 6'2" Black trans woman, and a poor, midsized, muscular, 5'6" white trans woman. Both are gonna have an experience with transmisogyny, but they're going to look EXTREMELY different. Both will have things leveraged against them that the other doesn't!

There are experiences of transmisogyny that you won't have if you don't have "male" primary or secondary sex characteristics...but intersex cis women and feminine-leaning people, as well as transmasc drag queens who have had enough done to typically be taken for AMAB, very much exist. There are experiences of transmisogyny that you won't have as a non-op trans woman - society's simultaneous obsession with, and hatred of, vaginas...isn't going to hit you nearly as hard if you don't want to get a vagina. The obsession will hit, in its own unique way, but the hatred will look very, very different to that experienced by someone who wants or obtains one. It may be the reason you decided against it, which is a different experience to if you just truly like having a penis, which is a different experience than having your vagina scrutinized and called a fake, just a fuckhole, which is a different but frequently overlapping experience to having surgical complications ignored until they nearly kill you because whatever, ALL vaginas are nasty stinking festering wounds anyway, right? There isn't a SINGLE experience of transmisogyny that isn't racialized - even aspects where the broad strokes are the same will have different details depending on race, ethnicity, nationality, location, and how all those factors intersect.

Meanwhile, there are people who are not trans women who will be scrutinized for looking too much like men to present as femininely as they do - mostly but not exclusively BIPOC. There are cis women being sexually assaulted to Prove They're Really Women. There are intersex babies being forcibly made into "girls", and more fortunate intersex adults undergoing consensual vaginoplasty, who will often face the very same medical neglect and social judgment as trans women undergoing the same procedure (or, frequently, their own flavor thereof, for that matter (realize again that it's easier to have it done on a baby who cannot consent than on yourself as an adult!)). There are femme trans men and nonbinary transmascs and people on the butch-transmasc cusp and more, years into transition and passing for AMAB, as well as AMAB nonbinary people all over the not-a-woman spectrum and cis femboys and drag queens, being asked to make the same choice between authenticity and safety from other people's potentially violent judgment that many non-passing transfems are. There are intersex cis women, butch cis women, BIPOC cis women, even just tall cis women with broad shoulders, being ejected from bathrooms for looking too much like men, getting beaten for being too Manly to REALLY be women, having their anatomy speculated on by strangers. There are cis people of both recognized binary genders being threatened to coerce them to continue to perpetuate the worst of patriarchy, or be "accused" of being a closeted trans woman with all the hate that entails - "what, you're not going to bully the weird tomboy with us? You don't recoil in terror when your 5-year old daughter wants to paint your nails? Ooooh, I bet you like those things...because you're secretly Like That, aren't you!?" All of this, too, is transmisogyny!

You can't disentangle transmisogyny from "regular" misogyny, from patriarchy, from binarism, from white supremacy. These are systems of control that impact EVERYONE. They are authoritarian - they perpetuate themselves by force and by threat. Some people are impacted harder than others, but NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY, is truly exempt.

[blushedfemme]

(First of all you’re so pretty and tall and I love your blog)

I love these kinds of blogs becuade it feels so safe to explore here I love it but I was looking through your tags about birches and femmes and I was wondering.

What kinds of traits make a butch butch or masc? Is it just solely looking more masculine like is there a certain quantity of masculinity you have to reach in order to be masc?

I think I to the outside look really really femme but I never feel that way or feel good using that as a label. If I had to pick between femme and masc I would probably choose masc or butch. honestly and surprisingly to me the label I feel best about calling myself in my head is just dyke lol so I guess my question is is there a label for someone like me? Who feels masc but looks femme? Or should I just go for a label not needed kind of vibe? Lol

(For context I’m 26 but I’ve only recently realized I’m a lesbian in the past 6 months or so so I’m very new to the culture but I want to participate as much as I can! <3)

Also feel free to jus flat out ignore this if you want I totally I derstand im kind of a rambler. But your blog is so much fun everyone on blogs like these are always so nice and accepting of different things and it’s such an amazing place to actually figure out what I’m into what I like and what cravings I have that I didn’t like I was allowed to want I love it

Okay bye! <3

hi there! aww thank you so much 😚 i’m thrilled to hear that you find this a welcoming and safe space, that’s absolutely my intention 💖

that’s a very good question and a very complex one! i’ll do my best to give an answer, speaking as someone who loves butches and is exclusively attracted to butches, who has had butch lovers and friends. however i am not butch myself, so keep that in mind. i’ll also speak to butch only in a lesbian/sapphic sense since that’s the context on my blog.

to me, butch is an identity term grounded in lesbian/sapphic community that’s connected to chivalry, tenderness, courage, authenticity, and ways of being that can be described (depending on cultural contexts) as masculine. this can mean many different things to different people. there is no specific “quantity” of masculinity necessary to be butch. some butches might not describe themselves as masculine at all. to me ‘masculine’ is just a word, a useful one yet with certain limits, that we use to gesture broadly to a mode of dressing and carrying oneself, but it doesn’t resonate with every butch i’ve met. i know they say a good definition doesn’t include the term being defined but the best word to describe a butch, is butch. i will say that a butch way of dressing and acting is integral to the identity. if that doesn’t feel like you, then you might not be butch. i invite any of my butch followers to add their perspectives in the replies!

it’s completely fine and wonderful to settle into ‘dyke’ as your identity label!! you can be a lesbian without being butch or femme. we are really just a subculture within lesbianism. ‘masc’ is also a great label that doesn’t have the same community connection and historical weight as butch, but it’s useful for describing your aesthetic/style as a lesbian. you can combine elements of masculine and feminine styles! you can do whatever feels good and makes you happy. ☺️

BUT. if you find you keep coming back to butchfemme posts, if you feel a tug or strong emotional reaction to butchfemme content, i encourage you to do some more reading. drop another ask or shoot me a dm and i can give you a ton of recommendations for books, blogs, essays, and other resources! best of luck anon and thank you for being here 💕

[br4inr0tx]

Hi sweetie, this is for the BG3 matchup exchange thingy! Thank you for agreeing to do this, I can't wait to see what you write ☺️ And of course I hope you like mine as well! 

I'm an autistic girl who's fine with any gender, though I might slightly prefer a man tbh. I’m a pagan witch who’s interested in a ton of different subjects like horticulture, linguistics, genetics and anthropology/archaeology. I have a very bubbly, friendly personality though I’m also highly intelligent and often called “wise beyond my years” lol. I just think in a very big, philosophical way if that makes sense, so I come up with a lot of raw quotes and good advice. Even when I'm tired, I still seem to have more energy than the average person, and I never stop talking (if I go nonverbal something is very wrong).  The most common word used to describe me is “eccentric” since I’m very brave about being myself and don’t care too much what others think of me (at least not as much as some people). I have a kinda outdated way of talking and honestly living lol, I'm very much a grandma in a 20 year old body (though my body's chronically ill so the shoe still kinda fits). On that note, I have several chronic illnesses like scoliosis, joint pain, asthma and a bunch of other stuff. 😬 I love taking care of people, like baking things for people and drawing them cute pictures. I also really love gardening and writing (I’m super good with plants). I'm super short, 4’ 10” (142 cm), with messy auburn hair that's something red, brown and blonde all at once, glasses and a retro/vintage fashion sense that's like if cryptidcore was more colorful lol. My style also switches between very butch and very femme a lot. I can be sassy and witty when I want to be, but I also get nervous easily so it only comes out occasionally (but when it does I'm told I'm very funny). I also need to have outdoors time literally every single day, regardless of weather or season, or I start to go stir crazy. I’m a very nature-oriented person lol. I get super flustered being called cute names like sweetie or sweetheart, despite the fact that I call literally everyone I know things like that 🤣

Alright, I think that’s about it lol. Thank you and Happy New Years sweetie!

ofc! I’m glad to do another matchup exchange anytime.

your Baldur’s Gate 3 matchup is… GALE DEKARIOS !!

• I have the suspicion you saw this coming, judging by how much Gale stuff you have on your profile. Even then, I genuinely think he’d be the best match for you!

• Starting off right away, he’s a wizard, you’re a witch. While I’m entirely the same thing, they have enough similarities to go hand and hand, which is the thing you guys bond over the most.

• He’s also interested in the various hobbies you dabble in too. He’s done what he can on his free time, but I’m sure there’s something he hasn’t done yet that you can introduce and info dump him about. He’s a great listener actually.

• Gale is a very smart man. Hell, he uses big words when he talks, and often drags things out a little longer in a witty manner, I think just to impress people? It could just be a normal thing for him though. Nonetheless, he’s happy you can keep up with his banter.

• Depending on the occasion, Gale can have lots of energy. Especially if he was recently fed an object containing weave lol. Though, if you’re feeling a boost of energy he wouldn’t mind something like going on a stroll with you.

• Gale is pretty eccentric, as seeing how often he talks with his hands and uses big words. So don’t be afraid to be yourself! Gale loves seeing you and your big personality.

• He’s glad to see someone independent as well. From what I’ve seen he’s very attracted to confidence and heroism. See you with both makes his heart really flutter.

• Gale is your biggest cheerleader by far, and if you ever need something done because you feel out of it or sick, Gale will get it for you.

• He enjoys your creativity side too. He’s worked on poetry in his free time, and I believe that he finds anyone with a creative mind admirable.

• He likes colors too! So pretty..he absolutely adore everything you wear on a daily basis, and you’ll often find him complementing you throughly, finding his favorite minute detail to prove how much he cares.

• He’s not very judgemental about your height. He’s extremely taller then you, being around 6’2 according to Reddit. I don’t ever see him bringing up your height unless you do it first, or it’s crucial to the conversation at hand.

• Your sassy side is extremely cute to him too. He even sasses back sometimes if the mood strikes him right. Although he can’t seem to find as many playful, teasing quips as you can, so he saves them up for when he can think of one.

• Gale is a big lover of nature, and is most definitely an outdoorsy guy. Why stay inside when there’s so much to explore?

• He calls you pet names when the two of you have sweet moments. It starts up after you’ve been with each other for awhile, and it’s very awkward and maybe even cringey, but it’s sweet to the two of you.

• It almost feels unreal, the connection you have with each other He never thought he could run into someone as perfect as you, but here you are. For that, he loves you very much.

[spiritfeelingspiritfelt]

Queer / neurodivergent soft SOFT friendships pls

Cis hets DNI pls thx

Hi you can call me by the first letter of my name ‘T’, I’m in my late 20’s, soft butch, trans masc, enby, stone butch, gender blind (in all respects tbh), vegan, artist, writer, researcher, outdoors fanatic, lover of all things nonhuman

My special interests: philosophy specifically/particularly metaphysics, biocentrism and ecosophy aka anything to do with the study of the matter of our universe and all it contains, the absurdity of how matter is essentially based on illusions and tricks, everything non-human , all the connections/symbiotic relationships of natural relationships in the natural world and also spirituality / faith systems and the law of assumption

My social battery and social ways tend to mean I can be amazing socially socially for a select time but then I crash out and disappear to hermit land (depending on how social I was being this could literally mean no internet interaction for months let alone in person) I’m working on this

I go through phases (years/months) of having great genuine soft friendships to absolutely zero and I want to work on this also, currently and perhaps obvious to this post Im in the latter phase. Which means my social skills are probably poor again. One brilliant thing about adhd though is regardless of all the above as soon as I’m vining with someone I’m the joker of the moment bound to make you smile.

Neurodivergent friends: this is actually a category that can be a loophole on my dni aka men as my issues with men I’ve found can sometimes be not a thing at all with someone neurodivergent, I myself have autism, adhd and cptsd. I’ve had close friendships with I swear like every known diagnostic out there haha so don’t feel you have to be apprehensive about this I know how it is and I’m really chill honestly, they are just descriptions to better establish our ep connections right. Also agere in this context is a vibe and we connect on this.

Im really looking to connect with queer poc, queer women, butches, dykes, masculine presenting women, trans lesbians, transmascs

I have a lot of trust issues right now but specifically around men/cis hets,

For in person friendships:

I’m based in the uk, I’m very loyal but to the point I do need to work on it as not to be taken advantage of, I can be quite tactile after trust is established, I, the friend that will always (consensually) pick you up play with your hair give you a back rub or vice versa i love being picked up having hair played with, I also love nature walks, going to queer/poc events, making art/getting crafty, reading (also isn’t it special when you can read in silence with a person or group of persons), friends you can stargaze with or go wild camping are especially close to my heart, despite this post I’m the banter loving playful puppy sort could literally have a conversation that makes zero sense due to its randomness and still have a blast whilst equally get deep on conspiracies and philisophical theories. Also like to binge shows that tend to be, fantasy, lgbt, anime, cartoons, documentaries, crime based, conspiracy based etc

For long distance/online friendships: It could be that we live far apart or you aren’t good with being in person in which case as long as you are the creative writing or rpg sort this could still work, I’ve had friendships that were mainly lived out through back and forth writing creating story experiences to share in worlds we create, or if you are into RPG as this can be similar as long as you are down to teach me the ropes of your game(s) of interest I, down for this, also down to do video calls when we both feel

I will probably end up drawing for you or write you poems lol

Things I think worth noting about me: my literal communication style benefits from CLOSED questions I hate open ended questions as my brain will scan through too many possibilities and uncertainties which can lead to me saying what I think I’m meant to not what I mean, clear and concise communication is great else I overthink or project or misunderstand or get paranoid and probably won’t express this. I sometimes need persistence, like being called, texted a lot in order to start re engaging this actually also helps wit my trust.

I love comics and sorta live off WEBTOON because comics/graphic novels are expensive for how fast you get through them:( particularly obsessed with fantasy stories that entail queer dynamics

I’m happily taken in a relationship so queer couple friendships, friendships with queer families/parents is also great=)

Feel free to message things about you or just message in short as a response or repost if you are looking for similar things and want more people to see/interact all is cool

[uncloseted]

Hi Christina!! I know of conservative and democrat but I don’t know where my own political beliefs lay. I’m a mix of both red and blue pill. I believe in gun bans, free world class health care (im from Australia so I’ve always had that and feel so sorry for u guys that u don’t have it), I believe in welfare and upping the welfare so people can actually live of it, upping the minimum wage, helping students and those less fortunate. But I also believe in only two genders, not confusing children about genders in school, and I think people shouldn’t be allowed to transition to another gender as I believe they are severely mentally ill, and no happy person would ever want to change sex. I’m not religious btw. Idk what to call myself politically

In the US we would generally call that a moderate or someone who is center-left? You might also describe it as being socially conservative but economically liberal.

But (and my apologies for hijacking this ask, but if you've been around here for any amount of time, you knew this was coming) I want to talk a little bit about your position on the trans community. Why does maintaining a binary set of genders matter so much to you that it excludes trans people from your goal of "helping the less fortunate"? What are you afraid will happen if trans people are allowed to live the lives that are authentic to them? How are you imagining that will impact your life, and why are you so scared of that impact that you feel like it needs to be banned entirely?

Trans people aren't "severely mentally ill". They're just people who don't relate to the biopsychosocial gender role that they were assigned at birth. Trans, gender non-conforming, and intersex people have always existed. Many cultures have historically recognized more than two genders. Even within Western culture, we recognize lots of different gender expressions amongst cis people- girls can be tomboys or girly girls, women can be femme or butch, people can be androgynous... for a while, "metrosexual" was even a term for men who put effort into their appearance. All of those concepts are just gender expressions. The line at which they go from being "cis" to "trans" really just depends on culture and the person's perception of their own experience.

While there isn't a lot of research on why some people are trans and some aren't, but the research we do have seems to suggest that trans people are just born that way. It seems that being trans is, in part, genetic, and that trans people's brain structures are (on average) more similar to the brain structures of other people of the gender they identify as, rather than the gender they were assigned at birth. Being trans is not a "severe mental illness". It's just a different way of existing in the world. But even if it were a "severe mental illness" (which, again, it is not), don't mentally ill people have the right to seek treatment that will alleviate their suffering? Because that's what transitioning does. It alleviates suffering and discomfort associated with conforming to gender roles that don't align with a person's gender identity. You're right that very few people who are happy would undergo a medical transition to change their body. But the root of that unhappiness isn't mental illness. The root of that unhappiness is feeling like you don't belong in the body you have or the gender role that you've been given. And so transitioning alleviates that unhappiness.

And there's scientific data to back this idea up. Per the American Psychiatric Association, transgender individuals who transition experience long-term mental health benefits, including reduced anxiety, depression, and suicidality. And, per the Stanford University School of Medicine, trans people who start their transition as teenagers have better mental health than those who start their transition as adults. If you want trans people to "recover" from the "severe mental illness" you perceive them as having... transitioning is the way to let them do that.

But even if you don't care at all about trans people's health and wellbeing (and let's be real, I'm not convinced that you do), why should that mean that transitioning "shouldn't be allowed"? We let adults make all sorts of decisions about their bodies that they may regret down the line. For example, cis women are allowed to get boob jobs- gender affirming care within itself- regardless of whether or not they might regret it in the future. Cis women are allowed to take hormones in order to alter their menstrual cycle - often starting when they're in their teens- and we accept that they understand the long-term risks and benefits to their health that come with that choice. Why should trans people's choices about their bodies be any different? They're making informed decisions about the medical care they (and their doctors!) think will benefit them. Who are you to take that decision away from them?

There's a lot more I can say here and a lot of studies I can cite. I can tell you that every major U.S. medical and mental health organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association, plus global health organizations including the Endocrine Society, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, and the World Medical Association, and the World Health organization support access to age-appropriate, individualized medical transition for transgender youth and adults. The Australian Psychological Society is also included in that group, in case you were curious. I can tell you that the evaluations that trans people undergo in order to receive gender affirming care are extensive, even moreso for trans children. I can walk you through the reasoning behind introducing discussions of gender into classrooms early, and explain that children often have an understanding of gender by the age of three. I can talk about how the points people bring up when talking about trans people are the same ones they used about gay people fifteen years ago, and the world didn't end when countries started legalizing gay marriage. But I don't know if any of that will make a difference, because the reaction people have to trans people isn't really based in fact (no matter how much people will try to insist that it is). It's based in emotion.

So instead, I want to wrap up by asking this. How do you know that you are the gender you are? What makes you feel like a man or a woman? Are those things innate, are they cultural, are they both? How would you feel if one day, everyone started calling you a name of the opposite gender (for example, Michael instead of Michelle or vice versa) and insisting that you adopt the social roles of the opposite gender? What if you were forced into activities that you don't enjoy, with people who aren't like you? That would suck, right? You'd probably want to do whatever you could to be seen the way you feel on the inside, right? That's all trans people really want- to be seen for who they are. You can think that they're mentally ill or cringe if you want (although I really hope you won't), but don't legislate away their ability to pursue their happiness, even if you don't get why they would want that.

If you're interested in learning about trans issues more in-depth, I highly recommend ContraPoints' channel. She does a really good job of discussing transphobia and gender critical ideas while still being incredibly entertaining and fun.

[xxlovelynovaxx]

I am confused as to why a lesbian would want to sleep with a man unless certain circumstances like they are a sex worker or forced?

Okay, warning for a HUGE autistic infodump coming. I'm genuinely really hoping this ask was in good faith, because I really enjoyed answering it as such. (I say this because I have pretty bad anxiety due to past harassment campaigns on other sites/accounts). This is not directed at the asker, but if any trolls ARE planning on sending shit to my inbox, please just don't. I'll just block and it'll waste BOTH of our time, just block me yourself instead if this applies to you.

So, outside of sex work and sexual assault, there are several reasons a lesbian might have sex with a man.

I'm going to leave out talking about mspec lesbians for the most part, because that's a complex label (often involving people who are multigender/genderfluid, abrosexual, or plural systems) and just focus on monosexual lesbians who are attracted to women and only women. With the exception of stating a lesbian may be attracted to a multigender person who happens to have "man" as one of their genders, but never be attracted to monogender men EVER; or may be attracted to a genderfluid person only when they are a woman and not when they are other genders.

As an aroace/abro person who is only sometimes attracted to my partner, this is okay as long as all parties involved in a relationship are okay with it. In regards to being abro specifically, my sexuality is fluid between attraction to only one gender (which can be only men, only women, or only a given nonbinary gender at any given time), multiple genders (can be any subset, including and excluding any genders), and all genders. My headmates also have their own sexualities, which include and exclude any number of genders depending on the specific headmate.

But because of both those identities, sometimes I'm just not romantically or sexually attracted to my partner. Sometimes we still date and have sex even when there is not attraction, because it's fun and we enjoy spending time together doing those things.

As for monosexual lesbians, as I understand it, it's similar to why some asexual people who are sex favorable have sex even though they are not attracted to their sexual partner. As an ace person, I have sex because it physically feels good, even without the attraction component. It also is a fun activity to do (especially when I'm bored), and casual sex between friends can still be a platonic form of intimacy beyond just being sexual. This is much in the same way as handholding or cuddling can be romantic but can also be platonic affection. It can also help for people who are touch starved.

(Yes, I know it sounds weird to call sex platonic, but I do think there are multiple layers of affection/attraction to sexual and romantic contact, that very often involve platonic aspects. A lot of people who do have casual sex with friends do it without attraction, and it's just an enjoyable activity with someone they trust that enforces their platonic bond without creating any kind of sexual attraction.)

So in summary: being bored, because it physically feels good, being touch starved, doing an activity with a friend that happens to be sexual, etc.

But there's another element, too: The lines between genders are so much blurrier than most people realize. There's countless jokes from monosexual lesbians and gay men about mistaking each other for gay men and lesbians, respectively. Particularly when you get to gender nonconforming monosexual people, such as butch lesbians and femme gays, and you throw in how body type can affect gendered perceptions (twinks especially seem to be affected by this); and THEN you add in trans and nonbinary people... it gets complicated!

Something to note is that you can be transmasc and a woman, or transfem and a man, too. Some butches identify as transmasc women because they view themselves as transitioning toward a more masculine womanhood, and vice versa for femme gays. Note that this does not mean that butches are inherently transmasc or that femme gays are inherently transfemme, just that they can be.

Then of course you have multigender/genderfluid people, androgyne people, abinary/atrinary people, and plural systems. People can have extremely ambiguous or seemingly contradictory gender presentation either due to their natural body or due to pursuing some form of transition. I'd like to say here that I think genital preference is not transphobic as long as it is genuinely a preference for specific types of genitals and not just "I don't ever want to sleep with trans people, regardless of their surgical status or even if they have a penis as a trans man/vagina as a trans woman due to being intersex" (trans identities when you are intersex can be more complicated than perisex trans identities for obvious reasons). Basically, you can like/not like penises and testicles or vaginas and clitorises without being transphobic, but it's important to acknowledge some trans people naturally or surgically WILL have the genitalia you prefer.

Why do I say this? Well, to add that many lesbians also don't have a genital preference. Plenty of lesbians happily date trans women and AMAB nonbinary people regardless of their genitals. Rarely, they may even date a lesbian cis woman who simply decided to get bottom surgery because it made her feel more comfortable in her body to have a penis (gender =/= genitals for cis people too, and I support everyone exercising their bodily autonomy with regards to their sex).

So if they're having sex with a man, whether he has a penis or vagina, they may assume he's a trans or cis woman depending on his genitals.

Attraction here is also fucky, because some people can be genuinely attracted to someone right up until they find out something about that person's identity that conflicts with their orientation! Some monosexual people report being attracted to someone they thought was a man/woman right up until they find out they were wrong about said person's gender. Some people are attracted to someone until they find out that person's genitalia are incompatible with their genital preference.

Sexuality is weird that way! The important thing to remember is simply that you can't always tell someone's sex/gender. If someone ends up having casual sex - like a "one night stand", or sex acts at a club, or so on, they may find out later that their sex partner's gender is not what they thought and no longer be attracted to that person. They may brush it off or may regret it, but to be fair, how often do heterosexual people regret casual sexual encounters? Plus, attraction/lack thereof can even be a component of a heterosexual person's regret over a sexual encounter even outside of sexuality, because the capacity to be attracted to the other binary gender does not mean you are attracted to every single person of that gender.

So that's another component: individual lesbians aren't attracted to every woman on the planet, right? But they can still have sex with a woman without attraction to her. Some lesbians simply will choose to do the same with a man sometimes. The original context of what I was responding to was a vaguepost about someone who had lightly joked about a gay twink character having sex with a lesbian character because they were both bored, something that historically has happened a lot in the queer community. People have even gotten married and had kids without ever being attracted to each other (which as an aroace person, makes perfect sense to me!).

A lot of people responded by essentially saying "if you choose to have sex with a man, that makes you bi", which is incredibly homophobic because it classifies sexuality as a choice based on your sexual partners, and not an inherent unchosen attraction towards specific genders.

This is actually rooted in second wave radical feminism and lesbian separatism movements, that specifically removed bi women from lesbian communities (originally, lesbian actually meant "queer attraction to women" and included bi women), and was also massively trans exclusionary.

Radical feminism said "men (and anyone they considered men, such as trans women) are the enemy, if you sleep with men you are betraying your gender, if you ever have slept with men even before you realized you were a lesbian or because you rely on a husband to provide for you (keep in mind, women couldn't open bank accounts or credit cards in their name until the 60s and 70s, and many were illegally kept from owning property despite women's rights to own property largely being codified in the early 1900s) then you are not a real lesbian, if you have been sexually assaulted by a man you are not a real lesbian; and created the label "gold star lesbians" for lesbians that had never slept with or been raped by men.

I want to be absolutely clear about this, not as an aggressive statement to the asker, but to be unequivocally unambiguous: men do not have the power to taint you by sexual contact alone to such a point that they change your sexuality.

The fact that many radical feminists also consider sexual assault (including having to have ex with a man because you can't live independently due to misogyny, which though more common historically still does occur today, especially outside of the US) to make you bi is just especially disgustingly evil.

But even consensual contact - because you don't realize you're a lesbian, because you don't realize your sexual partner is a man (or even they don't realize it because they're transmasc but don't know that themselves yet), even because you are biromantic but monosexual (or asexual) and love a man without being sexually attracted to him. doesn't suddenly change who you have the capacity to be attracted to, or any other part of your identity, either!

It's that same bullshit idea that your first sexual encounter where you "lose" your virginity, where in heteronormative society it's often expected to be "taken" by a man, fundamentally changes an important part of your identity. I think men are great, but they're simply not that powerful or important to who you are as a person.

This is also, actually, why I prefer qlw rather than nmlnm as a definition of lesbianism, inclusive as it was historically of ANYONE who loves women in a queer way, from bi women to transmascs/trans men. Centering a lack of attraction to men still, to me, centers a lesbian's feelings about men rather than her love for women. I'd rather focus on loving women than not loving men, y'know? It still centers men to make the entire identity about them, even if it's about NOT loving them.

I think lesbian can mean different things for different people, and can still mean "nmlnm" for one lesbian while meaning "qlw regardless of attraction to other genders," to another. As a pangenderfluid intersex system, too, sometimes attraction is complicated.

Back to the additional context, though. Most people were also focusing on the lesbian having sex with a man, and not the gay man having sex with a woman. I suspect you asked about lesbians specifically either because you are a lesbian or because that original context was unclear from the post I reblogged, which only stated "man" and not "gay man".

However, I'd still like to examine the bias in the responses to that original post. Why is it seemingly assumed that a monosexual gay man would be fine having sex with a woman, but not the other way around? Why were so many accusations of the gay man engaging in corrective rape thrown (homophobic rhetoric of gay men as dangerous predators mixed with radical feminist ideals of women as pure and incapable of abuse, perhaps?) but not a single one of the gay man being a victim of corrective rape? For that matter, considering the extremely high rates of rape of transmascs, often by cis lesbian women, why was it assumed both parties were cis?

Why did most responses take that the man was a monosexual gay as gospel regardless of who he had sex with, but felt they knew a lesbian woman's identity better than she did, and had the right to speak over her and contradict her own self-determination and autonomy from a single sentence about her life on tumblr dot com? Yes, this was about a fictional character, but people were saying this about real living lesbians as well.

The extent of the pushback against gay men was calling the OP bi (which was ludicrous, as he is a gay men who often talks on his blog about how much he loves men. His blog header also literally says gay, and by his own admission the one time he tried making out with a woman he was so not into it that he cried afterward. This, to be clear, is still shitty and homophobic, but nowhere NEAR proportionate to the backlash against the idea of a lesbian choosing to have sex with a man.

So tl;dr: The reasons include for fun, as casual intimacy between friends, because it still physically feels good, to deal with touch starvation, as a case of mistaken identity, because gender is blurry and multigender/genderfluid identities can cause exceptions to general attraction (including causing attraction to all genders in a multigender/genderfluid person but never monogender men), because sexuality is also blurry and attraction can occur without knowing someone's gender for sure, because not everyone even defines their lesbian identity the same way, because even heterosexual people sleep with people they're not attracted to sometimes and action=/=attraction, because you don't yet know you're a lesbian, because your partner does not yet know they are a man, because you are biromantic but sexually a lesbian, because you are aspec lesbian and choose to have sex to women or men both that you aren't attracted to, and because sleeping with a man can't change who you are.

The most important thing, of course, is respecting all lesbians, including lesbians who choose to sleep with men, including trusting that they are capable of determining their own sexuality and communicating it and recognizing that if they make different choices than you that doesn't make them less lesbian.

[aclosetfan]

hey! im kinda curious as to what your take on blossoomers dynamic is hsjsjjs

i rlly like ur writing and how u portray the ppg characters from what I’ve seen so I’d just like to properly see what u think of them 😖

sorry if you’ve gotten a question like this before!

It’s nbd! There so few posts about blossom and boomer that even if I had answered a similar question before, who am I to deny someone their rare pair content lolol

I did generally lay out how I interpret the boys and girls relationship here if you’re interested :) there’s also more below the cut!

Tbh Blossom’s one of those characters I have a hard time writing. Honest confession, she has a character personality I usually find boring probably because she reminds me too much of myself 😂 so I’m always trying to find ways to make her more fun for me to write. And when I realized I could do that best not shipping her with brick, I started pairing her with others, like Princess!

I ended up liking her relationship with Boomer more than I thought I would. To me, it doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship, but this duo would be so much fun to see in action.

When I’m pairing Blossom and Boomer together, I characterize Boomer as someone who wants to be respected and treated as a mental equal even though he’s not “traditionally” smart. And I’d believe Blossom would be able to give him that.

Blossom isn’t as rude as Brick, so she’d likely entertain Boomer’s ideas and see the merit in them before immediately putting them down, like his brothers do.

I also don’t think Blossom would be cruel enough to call people dumb or stupid (unless it’s her sisters, but that’s sister stuff, or if whoever really deserves it), so when Boomer starts beating himself up about being dumb in front of Blossom, who he sees as incredibly smart, and hearing her say “no, don’t say that about yourself, everyone’s smart in their own way,” that would probably be akin to a compliment that would go right to his ego.

So really, their relationship is built on shared respect. Blossom doesn’t treat Boomer like he’s incompetent, and in turn, Boomer listens to Blossom without arguing back like the sassy kid he generally is in the comics/show.

I also think their “flaws” compliment each other. Blossom’s serious, neat, and bookish. Boomer’s none of those. And while you could argue that Butch or Brick aren’t either, I’d say that Boomer is more so. Like going off fanon stereotypes, Brick is seen as her intellectual equal and they end up being too similar, and when paired with Butch, he’s characterized as a loyal henchman bad boy, which sort of exacerbates the characterization pedestal Blossom sometimes gets put on (does that make sense lol?). Like being a henchman sort of highlights Blossoms flaws in a bad way, not a “I’m forcing this character to grow” way, which depending on the story, can work out, don’t get me wrong.

But while Boomer listens to Blossom, he’s still Boomer about it. He hears what she has to say but sometimes he isn’t listening and he misinterprets what she really means, so they get into various forms of shenanigans, that stresses Blossom out but because Boomer is so “go with the flow” he ends up forcing her to relax and have fun. His general chaotic personality would force her to relax, and her serious lawful-good energy would force him to grow up and be responsible.

Basically, I think Boomer would be better at getting Blossom out of her comfort zone and vise versa.

And because they could have this vibrant relationship, you could really pull some meaningful character growth out of them and make a fic fun to read/write even if they’re not shipped together! But that’s just one way to construct their dynamic. It really just depends on the story you’re putting them in and the characterizations you want them to have!

It’d be fun to know what other people think!! People don’t dive much into these two together :)