#like my mum said she thought i was probably just a butch lesbian with internalised homophobia so i thought i had to be a guy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

designatedheckingadult · 6 years

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I am having complex trans lesbian identity feels. Warning, this is long and word vomity and probably doesn’t make sense.

Figuring out your identity as a trans woman is fucking nightmare. Every trans woman goes through this to some degree or another, but I rarely see it articulated, so I’m gonna start by talking about that. Okay, so I came out at 30, not long after I figured out I was trans. I had wanted to be a girl since I was a pre-teen, but nobody tells you that’s an option. Even if you’re vaguely aware of the existence of trans people, it never crosses your mind that it’s something you can just do.

Point is, by the time I said “Hey world, I’m a woman!” I had a good couple of decades of pretending to be a dude and wanting to be a girl saved up. So I started experimenting. It’s very much like being a teenager, except while the average teenage girl can get away with wearing whatever she damn well likes, a tall, broad 30 year old trans woman can’t. It’s not just “Do I like this, do I look good in this?” There’s a whole list of stuff that goes through your head.

I don’t like how this looks.

Does it look bad?

Is it just me hating myself?

Is it because I’ve been subjected to a lifetime of media talking about what is appropriate attire for a woman of a given age?

Same as above, but for women of a given size.

Fuck it, I like it, I’ll wear it.

But what if it genuinely and objectively looks terrible?

But what if it’s just conditioning?

Does it look too masculine?

Am I “not trans enough” if I wear this?

Is it going to get me read as a man?

Does it look too feminine?

Am I “trying too hard?”

Am I doing “performative feminity?”

Do I look like a man in a dress (or other feminine-coded article of clothing?)

AHHHHHHHHH!

*repeats*

Slowly, you start figuring it out. You find the middle of the Venn diagram of what you like, what you can afford, what you can get in your size and what looks good on you. Thing is, it’s not just clothes. It’s everything. Every aspect of your presentation, your mannerisms, how you walk, how you talk. All the while you’re bombarded with conflicting, confusing messages, some supportive, some decidedly not, about masculinity, femininity, maleness, femaleness, queerness.

How do you tell the world that you’re a woman without coming across like you’re trying to tell the world what a woman is?

Visibility is a huge thing. The “best” I can ever hope for is to be read as a trans woman. I’m 6′4″, I’m broad, I have a voice that never gets read as anything other than male. I just hope that people clock me as obviously presenting as a woman and treat me accordingly. But even that is a minefield. It reduces the chances of being addressed as “sir,” but it increases the chances of verbal abuse (or worse) in the street.

And then you add butch and femme lesbian identities and things get really messy.

I have a really complicated relationship with being attracted to women. As an AMAB person, it was the default and there was nothing to question there. It’s not something I’ve had to examine in that way. On the other hand, I’m trans and ace and after a lot of examination of those factors, I realised that what I thought was the expected sexual attraction to women, was actually wanting to be those women. It’s a whole other thing, but the short version is that liking girls has never been an issue in and of itself. I never had to come out as a lesbian, it was just a footnote on coming out as trans.

However, it’s really hard to get away from the butch/femme dynamic, especially if you’re community-minded and inclined to understanding and activism. Talking to people, reading about their experiences, grokking the difference, for example, between a butch lesbian who experiences dysphoria and is on T and wants top surgery and a straight trans man who does the same, is all really important to me. All of that leads to more self-examination, gazing into the abyss and all that.

My instinctive reaction as a trans woman has always been to reject butchness. It’s internalised fear of being too masculine. When you’re aggressively interrogating every aspect of yourself and exterminating unwanted maleness (especially when you’re absolutely terrified of exhibiting any kind of subconscious toxic behaviour) it seems really counter-productive to embrace that kind of gender non-conformity. Even when you’ve accepted that you are not a man and butch lesbians are not trying to be men, it feels like dangerous territory. Last night, as the result of conversations about Zarya from Overwatch, of all things, I was given some new perspectives on butchness. I always thought I had a pretty good handle on that, my first ever openly queer friend was a butch lesbian, I read plenty on the subject. Never thought I was an expert, but past Butch Lesbian 101, y’know?

What really struck me was that all these things I was hearing about butch identity that really resonated with me were things that I’d actually picked up from my mum. My mum is a simply amazing woman. A kick-ass single parent who exudes grace and style, while also having a shed full of tools and a passion for DIY. There’s a damn good reason I took her name as a middle name when I legally changed mine. I’m a practical person who fixes things (and if I can’t fix something, I try and learn how from the person I get to do the fixing.) I hold open doors and walk on the road side of the pavement. I want to defend and protect those around me. I’m sure and confident (anxiety aside) and I make damn sure that I’m listened to when I have something to say.

For the last few years, I’ve been kind of afraid of expressing those parts of myself too strongly, because they’re so often seen as masculine. The conversations I had last night made me realise that I’m not any of those things because I “used to be a man” or whatever, but because that’s how my mum brought me (and my brother and sisters) up to behave.

Five years into my life as Caelyn, I’m just starting to reach the point of not giving a fuck what other people think. Case in point, I actually bought a men’s denim jacket recently and Rune bought me a men’s flannel shirt. They fit right. They’re comfy. They look cute. And they don’t make me less trans or less of a woman.

I’m thinking that I need to treat myself, my personality, the traits that make up me, the same way. I am all those things I talked about and there’s nothing inherently manly or masculine about any of them. I’m a woman and I learned those things from a woman and they’re an inherent part of my womanhood. And maybe, that makes me butch.

#do not reblog #lesbistential crisis #trans #trans lesbian #lesbian #butch #trans butch

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