I am butch, hear me blog!

I hadn't planned on making another entry so soon after my last one, but I'm playing catch up with my friend's you tube videos and one such video reignited a train of thought.

I have been spending time on twitter, and through there I have found a number of butch lesbian resources. I remember when I identified as a lesbian, there was so few websites online that really catered to us. The particular site I found was called Butch Voices, the front page has the following;

We are Butch Voices

We are woman-identified Butches. We are trans-masculine Studs. We are faggot-identified Aggressives. We are noun Butches, adjective Studs and pronoun-shunning Aggressives. We are she, he, hy, ze, zie and hir. We are you, and we are me. The point is, we don’t decide who is Butch, Stud or Aggressive. You get to decide for yourself.

This got me thinking. When I moved from identifiying as a lesbian to identifying as an FTM, I left behind the butch tag too. It didn't occur to me at the time that I could be FTM and butch at the same time. On clicking the link to this site, I assumed it was aimed at butch lesbians and that it would not directly appeal to me. That the butch lebsians are one camp and the FTMs another, and they don't mix well. But on reading that statement, it made me realise, my masculinity is not defined by the fact that I'm FTM.

I am both FTM and Butch.

In my friend's video, he talks about not wanting to be defined as either male or female, about the fact that he liked wearing make up, that he doesn't want to wear boy jeans, that he wants to be androgynous. I also watched an interview with an FTM, who talks about being a rather camp and effeminate gay man (I will try and find out their name!), and how they were also confused by this.

In the cisgendered community, there is varying levels of masculinity in bio males. Why should we be any different? Why should an FTM be considered any less male than any other FTM? We are all individuals, the level of our masculinity should not mean that we are excluded from the queer community. The beauty of our community is the uniqueness of the members and the fact that we accept each other for that individuality. No one should ever feel they are not 'butch enough'.

Transgendered Blah
Transgendered Blah Part 2