What a Female Identified Butch is, and is not! We don't take 'T' to change our appearance!

MasterAmazon
Response to a Butch who mentioned that she or others take 'T' and consider themselves a 'female identified Butch'. NO!:

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You take 'T', as a masculine female, you're on the way to transitioning. Maybe it stops with the 'T'. Maybe having facial hair, arm hair, chest hair is enough, breast binding and a large clitoris that some think is now a micro penis.

NOBODY takes 'T', EXCEPT those in peri- or post menopause to bring sexual desire back to one's self, but those are at small amounts compared to those who take 'T' to change their appearance, while vastly increasing sex drive, almost a certain kind of high, which I've heard about from a couple of you around here. .These are two different intentions. Unless one is taking "T" to have more male aspects and strength to succeed in sports, but then if you're found out doping with 'T' , you're OUT. That's cheating.

One cannot simultaneously be a Female Identified Butch AND be taking 'T' in order to appear more male. These two things are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. A Female Identified Butch is PROUD to be Butch, AND PROUD to be a Dyke and to be FEMALE. But see, this is what the trans movement doesn't get. We're a different kind of Female, expanding the definition as we've always have FOR MILLENIA, what it means to be Female in a Female body, strong, powerful, courageous, taking on the world and not letting men or anyone else put us in boxes of what we can wear, what we can do, going into the trades or sports of men. We're not dainty, we've resisted femininity all our lives, we've been made to feel like we were freaks and weirdos, told 'you just want to be a man', when what we want is ALL the PRIVILEGES men have, including lusting/loving womyn, without being made to feel strange or weird about it, and being ostracized by hetero males and females and other womyn who can't stand our strong powerful out of the box Butch natures. Who think the only thing we should do is either feminize and soften somewhat, or harden up and become a 'real man', and pass and act as a male. We're NEITHER. We're Females who love Females in our own powerful dynamic, Butch Amazon Womon Centered Way. We put another face on Femaleness, we're tomboys and Butches and Bulldaggers and Dyke Daddies, and Amazon Warriors, and muscular in your face tuffy Dyke Strong women. We don't take shit, we look you right in the eye, and we take up our space. And no, we're NOT feminine, we have our soft and vulnerable sides, but we're nonfeminine, and decidely Dykey, with our primary energy flowing towards the female and partnering with females, and FOR THAT we're hated. We're Homosexual, Lesbian, Dyke, Gay, Queer Females....and obviously and blatantly so. We don't 'pass'. We're IN YOUR FACE Female Homosexuals, Ceremonial Dykes, and we hold down the Dyke image in the most obvious and blatant way. We don't waver in this. We don't fuck gay men, or men as a whole....and in fact we take up our space and stand up to them, even though they, and their women, have all the power.

For that, we face annihilation. We're beaten on, sexually assaulted, killed, denied jobs, housing, healthcare, access to privilege and many other things. We don't pass as male, as FTM's and some Genderqueers do, except the exceptional few, and for that, primarily for safety, not for desire. We don't pass as straight either. Even if a Butch tries to feminize to keep her job, she'll still do the Butch stomp, she'll look awkward, uncomfortable and unnatural in those clothes, because they're not her, that is, they're not us. We were forced to feminize on occassion, enough in our families, as actively as we resisted it...on our own time, why bother, except for sheer survival? We look like drag queens if we do so. And we've been shamed, over and over again, for not being 'feminine enough', for being too blatantly Dykey, Lesbian, Homosexual looking, and now, with this brave new world, for not being 'masculine' enough, so here comes the lies, the surgeries and the hormones. And who gets fat and rich off that? The doctors and the psychiatrists and the pharmaceuticals. Wait till all these young girls 10, 20 years later come down with heart disease, cancer, and who knows what else from all those years of taking 'T'. How are you going to feel about your body then? How are you going to feel when you have to get off 'T' cuz it's literally killing you, and revert back to your softer more obvious Female form? If you had learned to love it in the first place, had the message that us older Butches are trying to pass on that you CAN have your freedoms, as much as possible, you CAN live as a different kind of Female and BE POWERFUL in that, you CAN connect with your Sisters, Butch and Femme alike who admire you just for the different kind of Female you are......and retained your natural body, AND your health.

I've been in Female Identified Butch groups, countless Lesbian, Dyke and Butch internet sites, and I can't tell you how many young women, young Butches/Masculine Tomboyish/boyish women are being actively PRESSURED to transition by their peers, cuz being Butch is NOT enough. And then the damage being exposed of these practices...too tight of binders affecting breathing, heart health, and bones, like what whale bone corsets did to women in the 18 and 1900's. This body obssession instead of true body acceptance, this narcissism, arrogance and male attitudes and power over, and then the same dangers dealing with young FTM's/Genderqueers, the rages, the sexual violence ect from the use of testosterone. Look what it does to men, and how they victimize women. The SAME THING is happening with FTM's taking out their rage and their lusts on women fueled by testosterone they can't handle, and their bodies were NEVER MEANT TO HAVE.


So NO, a Female Identified Butch DOES NOT take Testosterone in order to change her appearance and appear more male. The two concepts are mutually exclusive, like a red light and a green light, you''ll never see the two on at the same time......
-MasterAmazon

Posting on a site quoting Mary Daly and about her life, in response to others' commentary criticizing her

Mary Daly and her Lesbionic Amazon thinking.
Posted by FeistyAmazon on January 10, 2010 at 11:53 PM
I don't agree with all of what Mary Daly espoused, but much of it. In some ways she's a kindred spirit. There are things she wouldn't agree with me in regards to my personal choices, and others we may come to some agreement on..and her book Gyn/Ecology certainly woke me up. I realized she is both a Witch and an Amazon Warrior, as I am, both of us in our ways..intensely questioning the male centeredness of patriarchal religion, even amongst those who try to reform it.

As far as MTF's and FTM's, both weaken Lesbians as a whole, and women in particular. MTF's would make their needs primary before any bio woman alive. To me, they're still bio-males, maybe not benefitting any longer from male privilege, but still with the assumption of male thinking in their minds, bodies and spirits, no matter HOW surgically or hormonally altered. They never had a girlhood and all the attendant and difficult problems we faced as girls. As far as FTM's go, MANY Lesbians, and I'm sure if Mary Daly were aware of the current trends, would heartily mourn so many butch and boyish Lesbian types wanting to chop off their breasts, take hormones and consider themselves male, that literally the patriarchy took hold in their own bodies, minds and spirits.

Some of us no longer believe the lies of the trans movement, it's clouding the issues, it's anti-feminism, it's lesbian hatred, and it's diminishment of women's issues and lives, to merely 'gender' issues, that we can put on and take off 'gender' like so many clothes, or surgeries or hormones. That indeed the 'cure' for our problem(female oppression living in an intensely patriarchal and bio female and lesbian hating world)is to transition to male..and then we'd be 'cured of our problem. So many have been convinced of this in so many ways.

So for all the 'liberation' you claim by conforming to gender roles by altering your bodies, and going on hormones and surgeries, by having to kowtow to doctors both psychological and medical to get at these hormones and surgeries, is furthering the oppression in so many ways, not liberating us from it!

Like myself, Mary Daly questioned questioned, questioned women and Lesbians' status in intensely spiritually, religiously, politically and socially patriarchal societies throughout the world, which neither want women free or even more so, Lesbians free. Better to transition to male and 'pass' as male, married to a woman, than be homosexual. Same for the MTF's...pressure in Iranian and other Arabic/Islamic societies to transition to the opposite sex for the 'cure' to homosexuality.

Separatism for better or worse, is the ONLY movement that continues to solely advocate for the empowerment of Lesbians in particular and women as a whole, by literally unplugging from patriarchy every way a Dyke and a woman can...spiritually, sexually, emotionally, and as much as possible physically.

She saw into the Background, another place for us Wildwomyn, us Witches, us AmazonDykes to go by and for our OWN agency, questioning the patriarchy that destroys so many FEMALE minds, bodies and spirits...and even threatens to destroy the very planet Herself!
-FeistyAmazon

Butch=Amazon

Neverspeak in her blog posits the question 'What is a Butch?', if a Butch isn't 'masculine' then what is she? Here is my answer:

January 4, 2010 at 5:45 am

For me, according to your analysis above, but that few Butches these days ascribe to, is that Butch=Amazon, the original defiers of male imposed roles, laws, ability to love women, become Warriors, and live their lives as equals to any man alive…with their own strength, power and courage with many of the positive traits men are often ascribed and women are not….so, for me, I’ve come to the conclusion, heart, body, mind and soul, with much study, ritual, affirmation and teaching of Amazon mysteries, as well as years and years in the Martial Arts, and being out as a Dyke brought out by the Dyke Witches, one who greatly influenced me who was Butch, that modern day Butch=Amazon. It fits and works for me, and I am identified and recognized as such.

I am a Female Identified Butch, therefore, for me, because my first love and loyalty is to other Dykes and women, and the Goddess in all Her Forms, and Mother Earth, and recognition of the power of Sisterhood together, in ritual and in friendship, I am Amazon. And I am definitely Butch and have been all my life(from tomboy to Butch), and especially since I entered the martial arts at the tender age of 14, at puberty. I set upon Her Path as Her Female Warrior….little did I know at the time…until I came out at 21, with the Dyke Witches, but didn’t figure it all out till some years later…

This does not preclude those Femmes who also claim an Amazon identity, but for me, first and foremost, those Butches who aren’t male identified, who are strongly Female Identified…they really are truly Amazons in my book..and especially because of all the heat we take for being who and what we are in life. Women who love womyn who won’t be contained by the rules and boxes men would attempt to put us in…we’re wild and free and untamed, like our Amazon sisters before us….
-In Sisterhood,
-M.A.

Mary Daly died January 3rd, 2010

Even though I didn't always agree with her writings, specifically some of the leatherphobic stuff...but I did agree with much of her stuff on Goddess worship, living the wild Radical Dyke life, being a Hag, a WildDyke, and outside the patriarchal thoughtprocesses and radically questioning them...she did inspire me onto the Path, when I read her book Gyn/Ecology at the tender age of 20 in my 'Women and Philosophy' class. It definitely influenced my thought process around Radical Dyke Feminism, along with Sally Gearhart's 'The Wanderground'.

Here's a quote from her about who and what she was:


"EVER since childhood, I have been honing my skills for living the life of a Radical Feminist Pirate and cultivating the Courage to Sin. The word "sin" is derived from the Indo-European root "es-," meaning "to be." When I discovered this etymology, I intuitively understood that for a woman trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, "to be" in the fullest sense is "to sin." Women who are Pirates in a phallocratic society are involved in a complex operation. First, it is necessary to Plunder--that is, righteously rip off--gems of knowledge that the patriarchs have stolen from us. Second, we must Smuggle back to other women our Plundered treasures. In order to invent strategies that will be big and bold enough for the next millennium, it is crucial that women share our experiences: the chances we have taken and the choices that have kept us alive. They are my Pirate's battle cry and wake-up call for women who want to hear."-Mary Daly

Should we all be inspired by her WildWomon/WildDyke/Haglike example, and question all we've been taught and ALL our containers as Dykes and as Females. And so we all shall be Pirates! I've done the same, learning a man's skill to share with the womyn!
-In Dyke Sisterhood
-M.A.

Check this blog out...it is very direct and to the point about how we've been duped

http://lesbianplusfeminist.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/appropriating-womanhood-in-7-easy-steps/

From LesbianplusFeminist with her permission:
"Lesbian + FeministAppropriating Womanhood in 7 Easy Steps
December 3, 2009 at 9:59 am (Uncategorized) (appropriation, woman)

1. Re-define “woman” as a “gender identity.” It will never do to allow “woman” to continue to refer to an adult female, as people who do not fit the biological profile of an adult female will never be able to claim to be women. Do not dwell on the fact that this re-definition gives no information whatsoever about what it is exactly that someone so identified is saying about himself; the vagueness makes the word easier to claim.

2. If absolutely necessary, back up this re-definition by explaining how hopelessly vague the meaning of “woman” currently is (ignoring the fact that it’s never been so vague as to include men, of course), that language is fluid and changes over time, or that strict definitions are inherently oppressive. Do not mention that none of these shortcomings lead to your re-definition. With skill, it is even possible to argue that “woman” should be re-defined to include “mtfs/transwomen” because otherwise, it excludes “mtfs/transwomen.”

3. Convince people that gendered pronouns exist to reference “gender identities,” as opposed to biological sexes. Bonus points for convincing people that the proper use of pronouns is determined by feelings.

4. Continue with the brainwashing phase, pretending that “woman” was a gender identity all along, or should have been, at least. Try to avoid being dragged into discussions about why it should be that way, except to assert that the alternative is transphobic.

5. If anyone refers to the common meaning of woman (an adult female) in any way, slur them as biological essentialists. Throw in “transphobic” for bonus points.

6. Pretend that everyone who refuses to accept you as a woman is specifically ignoring/disrespecting your “gender identity,” despite the obvious fact that most people don’t know what “gender identity” is, don’t care, never use the phrase/concept and have no need of it, and obviously don’t agree with your self-serving re-definition. Be careful not to frame such situations in terms of a difference in definitions, as this will draw attention to your tactics. Instead, frame it as ignorance of/transphobic refusal to admit what woman “really” means.

7. Reinforce the conceptual superiority and cultural hipness of your re-definition by talking about educating people/raising awareness about it.

ADVANCED APPROPRIATION: If possible, convince people that “female” is a gender identity. This tactic will allow you to skip straight to appropriating femaleness, and will even make appropriating womanhood easier."


Check this out....very astute observations of exactly what we're struggling against.
-M.A.