Writing about being a butch #transfemme .

It's a fuckery:
- As a butch transfemme, you often find other transfemmes don't understand you, because they want to completely reject their masculinity (fair)
- Its difficult to feel appealing/sexy when transfemmes are mostly praised and lusted for when performing femminity
- There's even LESS representation for us.
- It feels like presenting butch is seen as "lacking effort"
- Feeling safe and included in lesbian spaces is... Difficult.

#trans

And then... My relationship to masculinity is _all over the place_. I fucking love masculinity in women, and I don't hate it in my self necessarily...

But as someone who was imprisoned by it as a teenager... Presenting _more_ feminine feels a welcome break. But there's still that tension: I want to be perceived as a butch woman, not like a dude.

Does wearing a dress invalidate my butchness?

It's all so confusing.

@QueerMatters Yeah, huge relate. "It's a fuckery" pretty much sums it up. I'm wearing that butch label more often lately and I still avoid using "the m-word" -- though I have to concede that it makes things clearer, I don't want me or my behaviour or my style or anything to be labelled masc, because of my fraught history with masculinity and because of my precarious and contingent gender.

@evelynf @QueerMatters ohh my god more trans butches , i thought i was the only one (not really) , lol .
i agree , i don't like calling it "masc" necessarily both because i hated any part of being masculine as a boy and also because it doesn't feel masculine in the way that being a boy did . also because i feel like masculinity as a construct is like generally kinda evil but thats a whole other can of worms . gghh i really need to read that paper on alternate masculinities i saw cited in an essay i read once.... also huge yes on the representation and that stuff i wish there was more love for butch trans women in this world !! as for my own butchness thoughts there's a sort of unique relationship with my body in butchness compared to when i was primarily presenting femme .... transitioning allowed me to Live In My Body , and butchness is a way to Live Through Her , or something like that .... but i digress

@evelynf thanks for sharing- because what you've said here has made me realise something...

I feel like for transfemme lesbians, the label "masculine" has much different connotations than for others.

For us, it chucks us into the "YOU'RE A MAN" bucket. In ways where it may not for others. I suppose that's why I _always_ describe myself as butch rather than masculine (in general).

There's soo much to unpack here. Its fascinating!

@QueerMatters It also feels like... idk, I'm probably projecting, but I feel like it makes my transition feel less credible to others -- you kinda touched on this with the "lacking effort" thing -- and makes it seem like less of a paradigm-shifting upheaval, when I still wear a lot of my pre-transition wardrobe, but not because I'm boymoding... I just wear t-shirts and they have tits in them now?

@QueerMatters @ikeWren it also interacts weirdly with my romantic and sexual dynamics -- cis butches certainly deal with this too, but there is a presumption of topness/domness that I think gets compounded by cissexism.

@evelynf @ikeWren oof, felt. People see your butchness and automatically assume: "ah, top and domme!" and its like noooo