How do I not be like this?
December 2, 2020 12:49 PM   Subscribe

(Content warning transphobia) I’m worried I’m turning into a TERF. No queer-friendly therapists or community available to me. Who can I talk to or how can I train my feelings to match my values.

My intense feeling of grief, disappointment and stress at Elliot Page’s coming out as trans is very at odd with my intellectual cheer on his behalf at finding his authentic self. I’d actually been vaguely concerned for Page’s well-being based on interviews the past few years so hopefully this will bring him peace and joy. But, as a small-b butch woman in her forties I’m feeling a loss. I get that this isn’t my loss to feel, that Page wasn’t what I (and he) thought, but the feeling that I am being edged into a narrower and narrower space between binary expressions where I’m the one who’s wrong (again) persists. I hate feeling this way, and I have that this feeling is so close to the way transphobic women talk, reason and agitate. I absolutely keep these shitty thoughts to myself and argue against them where I see them dogwhistled by others and love my trans homies, we are all one family.

I’ve been having complicated feels for a while about (forgive me) “butch erasure”. The thought that the ways I expressed my gender as a kid would, today, if my parents had loving, open intentions, probably been interpreted as gender questioning. Intellectually I realize that of course that it’s more a struggle to get validated as trans than to accidentally transition. A coworker was telling me her kid may be trans as they hade anything to do with being a girl. I wanted to ask if their kid has any women who look and act like me in her life, her mom is about my polar opposite.
Equally I’ve been having weird and shitty reactions and thoughts about “women in X” where X is a male dominated field or hobby. There is a growing number of women in these fields which is great. There’s also a disproportionate number of trans women, which is also great and arguably an even harder row to hoe, but I can’t seem to be as excited or identify as easily. It’s gotten that when I hear a woman has done something in a field like that I find myself googling to see if she is trans. I worry that this is some displaced obsessive disruptive thoughts, and while that is something I could possibly talk to a mental health person about I don’t have any access to someone who would take that seriously I think, because of their own generalized transphobia.

Any frameworks for dealing with these thoughts or how I can work through them without encumbering trans people more? Is there an aspect of queer theory that handles this? I am fearful of the internet as I am afraid of and disgusted by those who would tolerate these thoughts and “get their claws “ in me.
At the same time as I feel these are bad questions and I don’t want to put them on the internet, I don’t know where else to ask. Mods if this just feels like a transphobic screed I understand if you need to not post it.
posted by anonymous to Society & Culture (50 answers total) 47 users marked this as a favorite
 
Did you see this Judith Butler’s interview? It might help. One relevant quote:
“ Feminism has always been committed to the proposition that the social meanings of what it is to be a man or a woman are not yet settled. We tell histories about what it meant to be a woman at a certain time and place, and we track the transformation of those categories over time.”
posted by CMcG at 1:08 PM on December 2, 2020 [15 favorites]


Please memail me if you feel comfortable doing so.
posted by Kitchen Witch at 1:09 PM on December 2, 2020


And I understand if you need to not post my reply, as I am in the elderly age category, not up on the right way to perfectly express my feelings, and it may not be strictly politically correct - but it is how I feel. I (hetero female) absolutely adore the butch women of my acquaintance. I admire them for their confidence, fearlessness and ability to just do their own thing without (seemingly) worrying about whether what they do is "gender-normative" or not. While I 100% support anyone who comes out as trans, I do love it that there are women - who are comfortable being women - who just don't give a shit what anyone else thinks and choose careers, lifestyles, etc., that are fulfilling to them. I have often thought that had I been born with this brain my life overall might have been way more productive and happy.
posted by flowergrrrl at 1:10 PM on December 2, 2020 [11 favorites]


Do you know any trans people in real life? I feel like a lot of your worries/fears here are very abstract and I think knowing actual trans people is a good way to defuse many of your fears. Obviously not in terms of making them educate you, but just spending time around them. If that's not a possibility, or you are worried about your ability to do so without becoming a drain, then absorbing a lot of trans-created content may provide a similar salve.

Also, I should say I had some very similar feelings as you when Danny Lavery came out as trans. The level of my feeling of betrayal was shocking to me, because I thought of myself as an ally. About a year later, I figured out I was trans too, though in a different way from Danny. I'm not saying you are trans but is it possible that these deep feelings that are at odds with your values are telling you something about yourself? For me, it made me realize that I felt a lot of identification with Danny as the kind of "woman" you rarely see in culture, so I felt kind of betrayed.

I say this because I think a lot of women who become TERFs really do have some deep issues around gender that are triggered by trans people, and because they don't do their own work on those issues, they wind up becoming radicalized and scapegoating trans people. You seem aware of this danger as you talk about people "getting their claws in you." But I really do think the answer is looking within.

Again, a lot of your fears seem very abstract (something that would happen if you were a kid today, a sense of being wrong, but to whom?), but I feel like they are hinting at feelings of loss or a fear of loss. What exactly are you losing? What are you afraid will happen to you?
posted by lunasol at 1:11 PM on December 2, 2020 [19 favorites]


You can also memail me. I'm trans and I won't brook any TERF ideology but I think I understand where you are coming from and I'm willing to chat and be empathetic.
posted by lunasol at 1:12 PM on December 2, 2020 [15 favorites]


Oh one more thing: one of the real benefits for me to knowing more trans people has been realizing how complex and overlapping these identities can be. I am trans AND non-binary AND butch. A lot of the trans men I know in real life never even identified as lesbians. It's so much harder to see all of this as a zero-sum-game when you start to see that it's not either/or.
posted by lunasol at 1:17 PM on December 2, 2020 [27 favorites]


I see that you're saying that there are no queer-friendly therapists available to you, but it's hard to believe that in 2020 with virtual mental health services everywhere now, that if you have the internet (to post this question) you wouldn't have access to queer-friendly therapy. But more specifically, you don't necessarily need "queer-friendly" therapy if you can find a therapist who is willing to work with you on a specific problem, and that problem as you see it is internalized transphobia. For real, the way I would seek out a therapist in this instance is to go online and get a list of therapists, and then call or email their offices and say: "Hello, I'm looking for a therapist who can help me with my internalized transphobia. Is that something you do?"

I literally did this for another problem I had, and I was able to find someone to work with me. Setting up too many barriers to helping yourself is probably just another way our brains trick us into staying in our bad mental habits.
posted by juniperesque at 1:18 PM on December 2, 2020 [1 favorite]


This take on the issue by butch poet and theater maker, Joelle Taylor, might be helpful?
posted by EllaEm at 1:18 PM on December 2, 2020


I don't know if it helps to know that there are still plenty of women out there who are gender non conforming or butch, and also who are comfortable being women and don't give a shit what anyone thinks, and live fulfilling lives that don't revolve around men.

Some of those women are transgender! And have more in common with you than you might imagine.
posted by quacks like a duck at 1:19 PM on December 2, 2020 [4 favorites]


I don't, off the top of my head, know of any resources for you (though n-thing Judith Butler forever), but I will happily take a look in my usual haunts to see if I can find any and will report back.

But I will say as a trans man, it is reassuring to me that you're questioning these thoughts and examining them rather than just letting them inform your opinions of and interactions with trans people. I'm not here to hand you a Get Out Of Jail Free card here, there's still work you have to do, but I will say the following:

This stuff is hard. It's hard for trans people and it's hard for cis people. Why? Because we've been raised, largely, in a society that values cis expressions and concepts of gender. We've been raised with these values, they've influenced practically every area of our lives since birth, so of course it's not easy to unpick it. It's natural to have doubts and confusion and it's good to be honest about them, as long as you're not leaning on those doubts in order to do harm to actual trans folks in your life.

In general, remember that the trans men you're concerned about might well have had the exact same experiences as you on their journey. I identified as a (bisexual) butch woman for a while before moving into a more non-binary, then eventually binary male expression. You have more in common with trans men than you think. Perhaps considering that aspect will help you find some sympathy for trans men rather than your immediate negative reaction.

You are doing the right thing in wanting to examine and unpick these thoughts, as well as seeking out different ways to frame them. Continue doing that. Feel free to memail me as well if you want to talk privately.
posted by fight or flight at 1:20 PM on December 2, 2020 [21 favorites]


I'm not trying to be unkind in my response, but the internet doesn't allow for tone, so please understand that I am trying to be kind here, as it's good that you're noticing these feelings and pushing back against them.

What I noticed in your question generally is a centering of yourself in situations where, it is not about you, full stop. Elliot Page's transition is not about you. Your co-worker's child being trans is not about you, and having you as an example in their life does not make them not trans.

Sentences like the feeling that I am being edged into a narrower and narrower space between binary expressions where I’m the one who’s wrong (again) persists are not helpful framing. Your gender expression is no less right or wrong than anyone else's because there is no right or wrong way to express gender.

You speak specifically about trans people making you feel this way, as opposed to for example, your (I'm assuming cis) co-worker. Why does your co-worker's gender expression not seem to affect you, but Elliot's does?

I think you'll have to work on stoping the belief that other people's gender invalidates yours in any way. I'd talk to a therapist about absolutism, empathy, and boundaries.
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 1:21 PM on December 2, 2020 [56 favorites]


As someone who is primarily attracted to butch women, I feel like I may feel your loss from the other side of the coin. I know that in lesbian circles 10 or 15 years ago we were already wondering if all the butches would disappear. I have had that sort of betrayal feeling when someone (who I thought was a butch woman) I really admired from afar turned out to be a trans man and not butch, but what helps me is to take a deep breath and remember that their life/presentation has nothing to do with me and I have zero ownership of that situation. I'm the problem here, LOL.

I hope that you can go on with your awesome butch self. That representation is important too. We need to see *all* kinds of people in society. (And the butches won't really all disappear, any more than all straight people disappeared when gay people started coming out.)
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:22 PM on December 2, 2020 [39 favorites]


These kinds of obsessive, troubling thoughts and intense feelings deserve to be honored--not treated as facts, not used to guide behavior that conflicts with your values, but honored as a painful thing you're experiencing rather than simply trying to squelch them down (which doesn't work and won't help anyone). I know you mention a lack of therapist options in your area, and maybe you've already done this, but just in case: one of the surprising things to come from COVID is that, with everyone going online, you can now look at any therapist licensed in your state, not just those in your direct area. There might be an LGBTQ+ focused therapy practice elsewhere in your state that you can trust to hook you up with someone who won't reinforce transphobia but can help you to understand and lovingly shift the thoughts you're having. I like juniperesque's suggested language, above.
posted by theotherdurassister at 1:23 PM on December 2, 2020 [7 favorites]


Is it helpful at all to frame these thoughts as "developmental" (I almost said transitional, too confusing), as in you are in the process of re-assembling/developing your framework to include facets that weren't originally in it, and the process of coming to these understandings is hard, sometimes contentious, and literally neurologically uncomfortable sometimes? But knowing that generally you can expect to reach a satisfactory internal coherence and intact values eventually?

Like, most of us have to travel through a jumbled and sometimes shitty place to get to a better place on almost everything, from big social issues to matters of personal or family behavior. We all luck out now and then where we run into a brand new concept and just *click* it fits into what we think and feel like it was always there, but for the most part most of us struggle often enough with "b-b-but what about ME??" as a part of this, and especially so when your specific personal identity experiences a contextual shift and a sort of challenge, ideologically, so this is personal and not just academic to you.

Which is all to say that terfs aren't going to show up at your door and yell gotcha just because you're working through the mental exercise. I don't think you can be unknowingly indoctrinated because you already know.

And I'm saying you won't be "like this" forever just because you had the thoughts and needed to work through them. I do think this situation is high-profile enough that there will be some useful thinkpieces emerging - along with some awful takes - and hopefully you have some ideological guiding lights to look to for reaction and assessment.

If you don't (and I always worry I don't have enough, so I'm asking for me too), maybe some of the commenters here could suggest who the Smart People are to watch who are likely to address and provide nuance for exactly these feelings that are likely to be coming up as a result.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:24 PM on December 2, 2020 [11 favorites]


From the blue this summer, you could read the series of Real Life Comics strips in which the author comes out as a trans woman. The comics portray her inner thought process in a really touching way (at least in my cis-person opinion).
posted by heatherlogan at 2:00 PM on December 2, 2020 [3 favorites]


First, I recommend this awesome NYT article and video from April: "The Renegades: Queer culture and the arts would be much poorer without the presence and contribution of butch and stud lesbians, whose identity is both its own aesthetic and a defiant repudiation of the male gaze." I also recommend the TV show Work in Progress starring Abby McEnany: I think you might relate (we all can in various ways.) And Pose to see how trans Womxn of Color have always been leading the LGBTQ+ rights movement but were erased from recent LGBTQ+ history like wtf?!

Second, here's my take on the current state of LGBTQ+ identities and acceptance in the USA. We've got a long ways to go but we've also made noticeable progress in a very small amount of time. While everyone's experiences are different, my experience as a bi cis woman at 37 are very different from even people with the same identity who are 7, 17, 27, 37, 47, 57, 67, 77, 87, and 97. Arguably, although some will disagree (and that's cool bc there's no one right answer), we have been the same person all of our lives but, based upon when we grew up, we've all had very different words to describe our genders and sexual orientations due to external societal factors.

I am so grateful to have been born when I was but part of me wishes I had been born later. I love being around younger queer people because they have had so much more freedom to find the right words to express their identities and more acceptance in how they live it. I was really punished in some ways for being openly bi as a smaltown teacher but fewer people in earlier generations could even openly claim the identity. And I helped make things a little easier for younger people by being open about myself. You did, too. You don't even realize it but you are likely a quiet hero to some LGBTQ+ people you've met in your life!! You are part of the generation that really pushed the needle forward towards progress but also was denied the ability to "enjoy" the fruits of your labors. You are a vanguard and simply by being you, you have made the world a better place for younger LGBTQ+ people, including Elliott Page. But it's never easy being a trailblazer!

Your identity is as valid as ever, just as everyone else's is. FWIW, I think butch women are super awesome. When someone misgenders you (assuming you're a trans man, for example), you can politely correct them: "actually I'm a butch woman!" with a smile. My androgynous/butch ex-gf would get this all the time. It sucks that we STILL live in a heteronormative society that makes us feel like there's only room for one or two non-straight, non-cis identities to be in the mainstream at a time.

Talk to people about their identities and experiences!! There's a difference between making assumptions and asking people to share about themselves. Share about yourself first, and ask to hear their story. When I sponsored a new gay-straight alliance at my high school (as a teacher), I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing, unintentionally letting my own experiences or bias affect the teens, so I mostly listened and it went great. If your area has a PFLAG, that's a great place to connect with adults and younger people, too. You could post a question in your local PFLAG Facebook group like "I identify as a butch woman. I respect all gender identities and sexual orientations and want to know more about YOURS! Please share whatever you feel comfortable or send me a PM. My goal for 2021 to is to meet more queer people of different backgrounds and celebrate our similarities and differences." Hearing more about every day people you know is so amazing and will surely be positive. And you can find fellow butch women with whom you can privately discuss the concerns and things you've most ashamed of. I found this with some fellow bi womxn and it made a huge difference in being OK with not being perfect.

I'm glad you asked and are so open to hearing everyone's response. We are all working together to better understand ourselves and make the world better for all of us. <3
posted by smorgasbord at 2:07 PM on December 2, 2020 [17 favorites]


I wondered slightly if this was also something about representation. It maybe is the case that in the past, when it was considered less acceptable to be trans, some people chose to describe themselves as butch rather than in other ways. But that doesn't mean that butch cis-gender women are non-existent. This trans-affirming article: Where have all the butches gone? might be helpful to you, and the author has her own blog: Adventures of a butch dog walker.
posted by plonkee at 2:12 PM on December 2, 2020 [5 favorites]


Other folks have said a lot of smart things about this already. I suppose I just want to be another voice saying that many of us -- including trans people -- have these kinds of feelings. We're all in this soup, and we can't control the fact that we've spent all our lives in a deeply transphobic world.

It sounds like you're being very thoughtful about your own reactions, and careful not to burden trans folks with the darker parts of how you're feeling, and that's great -- that's really important, and does a ton of good.

Honestly, in my experience, this is a process that takes time, talk, and empathy. We all need time to privately process our reactions and our feelings. We all need to be able to talk through our messy thoughts with people we trust to be kind while also aligned with our own values -- a friend who won't berate you for your disappointment over Elliot Page, but who also won't say transphobic things you don't agree with. And as others have said above, I think it's vital to spend time listening to trans people talk about their lives and their experiences and their perspectives -- every one of those trans women in tech, for instance, is an individual person who had to face her own specific difficulties, just as is the case with cis women. I think it helps -- and is important -- to resist the very human tendency to lump people together.

I used to identify as a woman. I used to spend many many hours privately agonizing with friends over how it felt like womanhood was a sinking ship -- like everyone I knew was abandoning it, desperate to be any other thing. And even now, years into identifying as trans, I STILL feel this way sometimes! I direct these same ugly thoughts at myself! It's been hard, and I think it probably always will be. We're all doing the best we can, but we're all in process. We're all figuring out how to be kind and empathetic to each other.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 2:18 PM on December 2, 2020 [13 favorites]


Hey there, I realized my previous comment (about the Real Life Comics strips) isn't really relevant to your actual question.

I'm a slightly-butch/tomboy/non-femme/fashion-clueless/non-breeding/physics-professor woman and I am 100% a woman. But I'm not famous and I'm not in the news. I think at this cultural moment there's a lot of light being shone upon trans people [which is fine], which can make it seem subconsciously like they are a much larger fraction of the population than they actually are. This too shall pass in a decade or two, as being trans becomes as much of a no-big-deal as being gay.* The majority of the population is likely to still be cisgender. There will always be cis butch women who are women, and they (and you) (and I) are NOT "doing it wrong".

*Edited to add: I live in Canada where being gay -- and married! -- genuinely is no big deal.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:22 PM on December 2, 2020 [16 favorites]


Maybe it would be helpful if you could reframe your thoughts about this into the space of how difficult it is to cope with the reality of how difficult it was to find and express your identity in a less progressive time. I am not suggesting that it's easier for anybody to cope with their identity today in our current societal hellscape, but it is certainly different and it doesn't necessarily honor or center the coping skills you had to invent (and learn, through coded solidarity) throughout your life. Perhaps it's not your butch identity you feel is being erased, but your struggle with your identity in a time that has now passed, and a way in which the translation layer does not exist that makes you feel other in a community where you once felt centered?

While it is true that one person's identity and gender expression does not invalidate another's, it is the negative space where a person's experience crafting and expressing their identity with the tools and attitudes available to them at the time they did that (i.e. their youth) that I think is where the most hurt feelings can come from.

I suspect that it's not actually about your identity. It's possible that it's about the struggle tied to how you learned to express yourself and exist and how hard that was for you and how much validation you received from others to help you get across the finish line, and the fear of that being erased.
posted by pazazygeek at 2:26 PM on December 2, 2020 [3 favorites]


To address the small part of this that I can speak on:

"Who can I talk to or how can I train my feelings to match my values."

There's a large sentimentalist project in philosophy, originating with Hume, that says that you have this backwards, that your values bear some strong dependence on your feelings. It's a project that I took very seriously, back when I took philosophy seriously, in part because like you I have a tendency to try to train or reason or argue my feelings in line with how I thought they should be. But that's not how feelings work! Our feelings help to drive our values. At least, many people who have thought about this kind of thing a lot have thought so, and I think so too.

It's especially hard these days because we are so interconnected that we feel intense pressure to conform our feelings on all topics--we have access to so much more information from a more complete array of sources when we bring our intellect to bear on 'fixing' our shameful feelings. But it's perfectly fine to feel the way that you feel. You already seem to be on top of the key thing, which is that your feelings don't justify your actions. You can take control of what you do and what you say, while still privately acknowledging and respecting the way that you feel. You can and you will tenderly nurture your feelings over time in ways that you find desirable, via some of the methods that others are suggesting. But you have to acknowledge and respect your feelings along the way.
posted by Kwine at 2:28 PM on December 2, 2020 [8 favorites]


One small thing is: spend some time consciously focusing on trans people who came out years ago, who are more settled, rather than people who have come out in the past few years and/or are still working through stuff (whether that's their own understanding of themself or navigating the world's response.) There's a particular kind of intensity when people are in a process of sorting through or settling in, and that intensity itself can be a lot, but that isn't the sum of what trans-ness is.
posted by needs more cowbell at 2:29 PM on December 2, 2020 [6 favorites]


These two articles might be helpful:

What trans women have is far more complicated than trans privilege. Unpacks the limitations of arguments about “socialisation” which are sometimes used to argue that trans women have male privilege.


“I never want to dismiss how my life has been shaped by these events, because to pretend that I haven’t been extended certain benefits in life due to my apparent status as a white male strikes me as dishonest. But like Binnie, I stop short at calling this “privilege.” As is commonly used in feminist vernacular, “privilege” refers to unearned advantages — things that one doesn’t pay for, but acquires through circumstance. What cis feminists call trans women’s “male privilege,” I would instead characterize as “fringe benefits,” because make no mistake: I paid for them”


Butches and trans guys and tension, oh my!. This article is from 2011 so some of the language is a bit dated, but it unpacks and challenges the anxieties that some older butch women feel, that butches are “disappearing” or that young butches are being pushed toward binary transition rather than challenging gender norms.

“Some lesbians lament the increased transition rates, and decry the "loss" of butches in the lesbian community. I get this sentiment--I really do. But it overlooks the important fact that transition has only recently become widely available. This means that for a very long time, there was probably a backlog of women who would have wanted to take T and have surgery, but because they couldn't, they identified as butch--the closest identity available. They may have always experienced gender dysphoria, but had no way to do anything about it. Indeed, it might not have even occurred to them, since trans visibility is a relatively new phenomenon. In my opinion it's likely that these factors artificially inflated the number of female butches. If I'm right, then we're not "losing" butches; we never "had" as many as we thought to begin with. We just got to borrow thousands of trans guys until society caught up.”

And for ample evidence that butch women and butch culture are very much not disappearing, check out the wonderful Butch is not a dirty word. It’s a print magazine, with social media feeds, celebrating butch identity across the generations. It’s also trans-inclusive and very much focused on exploring complexity in both gender and gender expression.

It might also be worth exploring whether there’s anything about your own experience of gender or gender expression that you feel isn’t working for you right now. Feeling sad in response to someone else living their truth might be an indication that you have your own truths that you feel you can’t live. I’m not suggesting you’re trans (although trans identity can sometimes emerge in unexpected ways) but are there other aspects of yourself that you feel you can’t express fully because of the limitations of your environment, your friendship circle, your workplace, etc? Can you find ways to change those things, or transform the culture in your profession, so there is more space for women like you *and* for trans and gender diverse people? I’ve found that environments that truly honour and affirm trans and gender diverse people are typically also spaces where I feel safe, as a gender-complicated person who typically presents as a butch woman. Maybe you need to be in those kinds of spaces more?
posted by embrangled at 2:35 PM on December 2, 2020 [17 favorites]


I'm a cis straight lady who doesn't execute on a lot of typical femininity. I have had similar pangs of loss/left out in the cold when women who look like me come out as lesbians, for instance Elliot Page in one of his early roles in the TV show ReGenesis, playing a straight teenage girl who looked more like me than probably any other teenage girl character I've ever seen. (Double oopsie on that one lol.)

But instead of framing it like the pool of acceptability for what a straight lady looks like just got smaller, I try to be myself a little more showily, you know, for the kids. For example, one reason I got involved with the Girl Scouts was to be a visible example to young girls of another acceptable way to be a woman. No, I don't have a husband, not interested, but I am dating the man you saw carry cookies last weekend. No, I don't have any kids of my own, I have 12 girls right here and that's plenty. No, this isn't a boy haircut, I am a girl, so how can it be a boy haircut. Etc.

Maybe engaging with your community in a way like that where you can expand other people's experience of womanhood just by being yourself would help you feel less erased? There are a whole lot of ways that it's ok to be, and the world needs to see you, too.
posted by phunniemee at 2:39 PM on December 2, 2020 [39 favorites]


I was rereading your question and everyone's answers and thought of this: Due to societal bullshit, shame is a huuuuuuuge part of the queer experience that we don't address enough (out of shame!) So many of us felt ashamed for being LGBTQ+ growing up but now as adults will also feel shame: shame for not having come out sooner, shame for changing our ID with time; shame for not having had more sexual experiences, shame for having had so many sexual experiences; shame for not understanding and supporting all other gender identities and sexual orientations as much as we'd like; shame for having tolerated bullshit by straight/cis people and queer folks alike, etc.

It's so sad that we have shame -- because really no one else would want us to -- but it's part of almost everyone's life, sadly, especially queer folks. I don't want you to feel any shame about who you are but I can see it in your wording. I want to send you love and also encourage you to probe deeper into that shame to understand the roots of your feelings and also forgive yourself for feeling this way. And remember all the wonderful things about yourself because shame is part of who we were but it doesn't define who we are or keep us from being good people. There's always lots of good stuff!!
posted by smorgasbord at 2:44 PM on December 2, 2020 [23 favorites]


Keeping this as brief as possible -- the struggle to define one's own gender is a long and difficult one for anyone who doesn't identify with cis-straight norms. And the identity one arrives at is often quite influenced by the people and role models we have around us. So it's quite possible that two people with similar internal feelings about gender might arrive at different gender identities if they have different influences -- one person might identify as a trans man while another might identify as a butch woman.

But, that's also 100% completely OK. A huge part of gender is about the way we interact with those around us and the way we are perceived by them, so it makes perfect sense that people's environments and influences affect the gender role they choose for themselves. And gender roles are not fixed, either -- if someone's environment changes, they may eventually change the way they identify, and that's OK too.

I am speaking here from my experience as a gender-nonconforming queer AFAB woman (possibly nonbinary), as well as the experiences of my trans friends. I was raised in a pretty liberal environment, and I often wonder whether I would identify as a trans man if I had grown up being taught stricter gender roles. But in the end I don't think that question is answerable and I don't think the answer really matters, either -- I don't see it as a question of "what am I truly at my core?" but rather a question of "what identity feels most comfortable to me in this moment, in this place?" and most importantly "what does that identity mean to me?" And the answers to those questions may change over the course of my life, and I'm totally fine with that.
posted by mekily at 3:00 PM on December 2, 2020 [14 favorites]


Out of my depth on the meat of your question but on the TITLE of your question, one suggestion: you're not "being" a way. You are having thoughts and feelings that you don't enjoy having or agree with having. You are doing actions (that do not reflect the fullness of your thoughts and feelings because you don't agree with those thoughts and feelings).

None of this is a reflection on your immutable value as a being.

You might argue with me that this isn't what you meant by "be like this" but I think even our casual word choices matter and change how we frame things. The thoughts and feelings you have are not the entirety of YOU, and one troubling feeling, among all of the thousands we have every day, is most certainly not the entirety of you.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:01 PM on December 2, 2020 [14 favorites]


God save me from a world without butches. For context, I am a cis femme lesbian about your age in a relationship with non-butch non-binary person, but I have an enduring love and admiration for (and tbqh attraction to) butches and butchness in general.

You've gotten so many good answers already, but I want to amplify the point about queerness being invested in expanding the range of options for how to live and how to identity. One thing we do, as queer people, is push against the norms of love and sex and gender and imagine new ways to inhabit and practice those things. This is something trans people are doing too, and they aren't doing it in competition with us cis queer folks, they're doing it in collaboration with us. Also, I definitely know young lesbians who identify as butch, if that's at all reassuring; trans people aren't replacing butches at all.

I also wonder to what extent these feelings are being exacerbated by a moment where we're all so disconnected from community--I see my partner and zoom with queer friends regularly and that is all wonderful and great, but I sometimes find myself daydreaming about spending time at the gay bar/queer and trans yoga/the queer coffeeshop I used to go to in Brooklyn, because I miss the kind of ambient queerness that I get to feel in those spaces. Those spaces also give us a chance to exist alongside the multiplicity of queerness, and serve as an important reminder that our community is vast and varied. Being disconnected from that sense of community, even as it is embodied in strangers, is very unsettling, and I can imagine that being unsettled in that way could lead to looking for someone to blame.

I also want to echo those who are saying how important it is that you posed this questions and are doing the work to resist this impulse. This is so complicated, and there's so much to unpack here, and your question does not read like a transphobic screed. It reads like a person trying to cope with complicated feelings without succumbing to bigotry.
posted by dizziest at 3:15 PM on December 2, 2020 [24 favorites]


Is it possible that a very big part of this is that you were just crushing really hard on Elliot before, and you felt a connection because you felt he was part of your community, so this is registering as a loss in a more personal way? I think sometimes we feel a false sense of intimacy with celebrities because they are meaningful to us but we don't really know them. We just know their public image and we protect so much onto them. For example, you've said you were worried about Elliot based on some interviews. I read somewhere once that when we see familiar TV characters and actors, the part of our brain that's activated is the same as when we see actual friends we know in real life. We think we know these folks, even thought we don't. Like if Elliot had come out as a straight cis woman dating some dude, would that also have been a loss?

I don't at all mean to diminish your concerns about aligning your feelings with your thoughts, but it's also okay to register something like this as a loss without that meaning you having some hidden transphobia. It's possible to be supportive of trans folks and be concerned about your butch community. Gender and gender expression is super complicated, and we thoughtful folks will probably always be trying to untangle what is us and what is society's expectation of us and our alliance or defiance of those expectations.

I also think that our 40s are often a time of reflecting on what we have and haven't done in life. It's when we look back and see a path we've followed, even if we didn't mean to get exactly where we are. It's a time when start to realize that oh, life is going to end someday, and certainly youth ends, and what exactly have we been doing with our time? So we can begin to look around at others and try to figure out why they've gotten where they did. (The one time I felt some jealousy about a trans woman's prominence and success in a male-dominated field, I thought about how tough it must be to come to terms with understanding yourself in that way, and also... this woman is a profoundly brilliant and talented person anyway.)

I think it's good to interrogate our attitudes towards others, but it's also true that sometimes, especially in a really shitty pandemic year, we presume too much about total strangers, and we can feel things as being intensely personal even when they aren't about us at all.
posted by bluedaisy at 3:26 PM on December 2, 2020 [7 favorites]


polite request that gender-conforming cis people attracted to butch women wayyy decenter their attractions here--if we're (reasonably!) asking that butch cis women ground ourselves by remembering that Elliot Page's transition is Not About Us, by god this issue is certainly not about cis femme women's attractions
posted by needs more cowbell at 3:41 PM on December 2, 2020 [22 favorites]


I feel drawn to responding to this even though I don't have an answer exactly. But I'm your age and sounds like I have a similar gender presentation. And I have a lot of ambivalence and complex feelings around gender even if it's a somewhat different set of feelings.

My thing is, I tend to be very harsh toward butch identity, even though I am most definitely a butch. I kind of avoid other butches and tend to downplay the importance of my gender presentation. Even though intellectually I absolutely believe in the amazingness of butch gender identity and I also recognize it's been a core part of who I am for basically my entire 40+ years! I resonate with the commenter above who talked about how various queer and gender nonconforming identities tend to be steeped in shame and I think I have a lot of unexamined shame in that area that I'm in some denial about - having been 'out and proud' since, well, forever.

So I'm sharing all that to normalize that you're not alone in just carrying around complex feelings about gender and self identity.

Around trans issues, most of us carry around unexamined transphobia. So good on you for examining it! You're miles ahead of most. It's interesting that you shared that anecdote about your coworker. Thinking about trans kids brings up these feelings for a lot of people. What does it mean? I have struggled to really listen about this. I do know some trans kids now and getting to know the kids has helped me/forced me to examine what's going on for me about it. I too was a masculine kid/tomboy and I too wonder how I would be perceived if time worked differently. I don't have an answer here, just sharing. This stuff brings up feelings for a lot of people. I think our actions are important.

I'm not sure what happened for me exactly but one of my first exposures to trans masculinity was reading Stone Butch Blues. Maybe because of Les Feinberg's personal orientation around their own gender, I started seeing myself as part of a transgender identity. That helped me to formulate my perspective as I met more trans people. I feel fine with she pronouns. I don't really move in trans specific spaces. And I'm not really public about it. But for me, butch identity is trans. I'm not a good enough theoritician to explain why that feels right to me. But it set me up for feeling trans positive as I started meeting more trans people and understanding more about trans-ness.

Again, no answers, just trying to swim around in a neighboring pool of feelings.
posted by latkes at 3:58 PM on December 2, 2020 [5 favorites]


You're not bad for having messy, complicated feelings, or wanting to feel one way but feeling another way. That's the human condition. You can simultaneously support Page coming out while you process your feelings about what his transition may mean for butch representation. Butch representation is a valid thing too, and I can see how Page coming out could feel like the loss of a role model for you. Act as an ally to trans people and feel what you feel. I'm trans, and I wish more people were as well-meaning and thoughtful about this stuff as you are.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:16 PM on December 2, 2020 [5 favorites]


Slightly peripherally, as a trans man, I did mourn the loss of community with butch women when I came out. But, I realized that loss results from tribalism that is both healthy (we all need community) and unhealthy (we define ourselves in contrast to others). Maybe thinking about how to define your tribe slightly more broadly might help with the sense of loss of members of the community.

Thank you for the time and energy you are putting into thinking about this.
posted by lab.beetle at 4:20 PM on December 2, 2020 [8 favorites]


A younger person in my life said to me today say that she used to identify herself as an "androgynous woman" in terms of gender, but that then that gender presentation "went away." There's this developmental piece about aging and generations and gender and sexuality that I sense in your answer, a sense of being made invisible or passe as an older butch woman (and maybe also some wistfulness that the kids these days have gender options and representation made visible to them to choose from that their elders did not, back in the day). But the thing is: Your gender is *yours.* Yours alone, sovereign, yours to define and express and own. It is not subject to trends or fashion -- although changing times may expand the options you think of as being available to you. You get to be a butch woman if you want. (You also get to define yourself as non-binary, or trans, or whatever other gender if that feels right, and you also get to change your mind an unlimited number of times, because your gender is *yours.* It can't "go away," like my younger friend expressed.) And more gender expressions, more vividness and creativity and openness in how we present ourselves, all of that is good for the world. I'm sure there's a young butch woman out there today who feels that she "has to" define herself as non-binary or trans even though it doesn't feel right because she doesn't know that "butch woman" is a thing she can be. So be the thing she needs to see, with pride and joy, as long as it feels right to you. (I'm a genderqueer currently femme-presenting person in my late forties, if that context is helpful to you.)
posted by shadygrove at 5:00 PM on December 2, 2020 [14 favorites]


The thought that the ways I expressed my gender as a kid would, today, if my parents had loving, open intentions, probably been interpreted as gender questioning.

If your parents had loving, open intentions, they would have taken "No" for an answer and respected you when you went on identifying as a cis woman. To do otherwise would, frankly, be mistreatment bordering on child abuse.

And there are plenty of people like you in younger generations. I know so many queer cis people who had complicated genderfeels as kids, or who actively questioned their gender as kids or adults, and then said "Nope, I'm cis" and stuck with it. I'm sure some people in the trans community were dicks about it, because there are dicks everywhere. But by far the most common reaction I see to those people, even in parts of the community that skew young, is "Oh, cool. Door's still open if you change your mind, but we respect you."
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:13 PM on December 2, 2020 [4 favorites]


Like smorgasbord above, I was also struck by the shame emanating from your question. You are right to question thoughts and feelings that don't align with your values -- and it sounds like these thoughts and feelings don't align with your values to an extreme extent, so it feels appropriate to respond by extremely questioning them. However, the extreme end of questioning isn't shame. That's a trick. Shame is actually antithetical to the exploration and understanding that needs to happen to be able to deconstruct and disempower a thought or feeling.

Shame urges you to hide -- hide the feelings from yourself, and hide yourself and your feelings from others. In that way, it is self-protecting -- it's not on your side, but on its own side, trying to hide something that wants to continue having power over you. It has taken your values hostage, making you feel like it is dangerous to explore that area lest you end up having to dismantle this thing that you care about (not being a TERF, very rightfully); but the thing it doesn't want you to dismantle is whatever is hidden behind that. Like others have said, this isn't about Elliot Page, and I think it probably isn't even about trans people or being scared and ashamed of possibly slipping into terfdom -- there's something that is even more scared and alone behind all of that. There's been some really excellent insights here, and you seem like a motivated, introspective person, so I have faith that you will be able to find the scared thing and bring it into the light.
posted by Pwoink at 9:17 PM on December 2, 2020 [6 favorites]


Oh, I FEEL this, and I've worked through many of these feelings myself over the years. I would love to memail with you about it too, though I know you've already gotten some offers.

I think a lot of what you're feeling is just: there was a high-profile person who seemed to be unusual in the way you were unusual, and wow it was so nice to have them to point to and cheer for as someone who was famous and attractive and successful and seemingly pretty smart and thoughtful but also very much like you...but it turned out everyone was wrong and they're unusual in a whole different way, and you feel sad to have lost this association you had with someone. That doesn't make you a TERF, it just makes you human! You're allowed to be disappointed when you feel like you're in a community with certain rad members and one of those members leaves in a high-profile way. But because this particular community has so many cultural signifiers tangled up in it, you're feeling like it makes these feelings of disappointment and abandonment Bad and Wrong or a sign of some larger nastiness in you. I'm not saying definitively that they're not, but I am saying they don't have to be. You were allowed to be happy and excited to have someone like Elliot Page on Team Butch, and you're allowed to feel sad he wasn't on the team after all. We who don't walk the straight-and-cis narrow have so few role models to begin with.

Like others have said, wrt your concerns that you resent trans women in your male-dominated career (been there too - software) I'd encourage you to get to know more trans folks at work if you can. I do feel like it's easy to impose a narrative on this very misunderstood class of people, and to generalize from a few examples, none of whom are actually particularly typical.
posted by potrzebie at 12:05 AM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]


Looking at your question again, I'm struck by the "how do I train my feelings" question. In my experience - a very butch kind of question! Stepping back totally from the content of your question, ask yourself: can you brute-force your emotions?

I think there's a much deeper project here, as others suggest as well, of digging into what is underneath the feelings that you're experiencing. Exploring what deep experiences and beliefs this set of issues is touching on might be a path forward. I think you're ready to do that, based on the fact that you're hear asking this question and thinking deeply about the source of your distress already.
posted by latkes at 6:23 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're feeling, and having emotions about Elliot Page's transition doesn't mean you're turning into a TERF (I'm assuming you're not also posting hateful things online right? Judging by your thoughtful and nuanced question I highly doubt you are).

I'm not a lesbian, and I'm a cisgender straight white woman, just to be clear. But I like to dress in a more masculine way sometimes, watch my friends fix their cars, do more typically masculine hobbies, etc. To me the emotions you're feeling don't need to be reduced to the idea that you're worried about butch erasure. I think the idea that women still don't have as much freedom to dress however we want without being judged still resonates in 2020. You're absolutely right that Elliot Page, before their transition, gave off an image of being a woman that wears whatever they want, without trying to be pigeonholed into ideas of appropriate femininity. I can see how that would have made them a sort of icon to you. You can be happy for Elliot Page being able to come out about their authentic self, and that trans people in general are starting to feel (and be) safe and accepted enough to come out more broadly. And you can simultaneously feel sad or mournful that butch women are not as widely represented in media as stereotypically feminine characters. I'm sure many people feel this way (myself included).

Just wanted to share this story from the NYT that came out this year in case you haven't already seen it. I personally learned a lot about the butch identity from reading it. Hopefully it will cheer you up :)

The Renegades: "Queer culture and the arts would be much poorer without the presence and contribution of butch and stud lesbians, whose identity is both its own aesthetic and a defiant repudiation of the male gaze."
posted by winterportage at 10:27 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


Just wanted to share a great quote from the article I linked above.

"By refuting conventionally gendered aesthetics, butchness expands the possibilities for women of all sizes, races, ethnicities and abilities."

Maybe another aspect of what you're feeling is that the media has a tendency to see things in black and white. Before, Elliot Page was an icon of butchness. Now, that cool actor is an icon for transgender people. The reality is much more nuanced than that. Maybe that "erasure' you're feeling is due to the lack of nuance in general in media's representations of gender. And keeping in mind the quote above, maybe because butchness transcends so many categories of being, it's bound to resist the black and white thinking of the media's gaze? It gives women many options of how to be. I think it's okay to be concerned about representation for women, while also believing and advocating for trans people deserving an equal representation. But the media doesn't like to see that complexity.
posted by winterportage at 10:39 AM on December 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


Late to contribute and everyone has said so much helpful stuff. I'm also a “butch-ish” presenting lesbian – a bit older – in my early 50s. I dealt with similar feelings in the past and did a lot of reading and talking to my friends (some trans some not).

We also had a wonderful session at my work a few years ago now (I work in higher-ed) about trans issues and how to be a good ally. Many of us in that session were gay. That was very helpful to me. These feelings are not uncommon, I think, for people like us. Talking about this and being open to new understanding makes us decidedly not TERFs to my mind.
posted by Lescha at 11:37 AM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Hiya. Cis woman here who is queer (in a bisexual way) and who has gone from unhappy femme conforming to butch over the past few years. Lost my marriage to a man along the way, some friends, but made a huge group of other friends too. My kid just came out an a huge number of her friends are queer too. So I've been thinking about stuff like this as well as experiencing the newest generation exploring queerness as well.

Which resulted in a group of twelve year olds telling me my name doesn't suit me because I should have a more gender neutral one.

It was weird but also indicative in terms of cultural shifts. The first butch woman* I met had a very feminine name, and her partner was also butch and had an even more feminine name. To me that was normal. To my kid's generation the changing of those external gender indicators is a part of the journey. And I get it. I was so made when my breasts got big that I bound my chest (until my mother banned me because holy shit that's dangerous kiddo). In contemporary times there are binders, more awareness, but also therapists who can differentiate between "I am a boy" or "I am non-binary" and "I hate what woman is meant to be" and can help navigate that.

And I know the more I am me - hairy legs and buzz cut, and top knots and shorts - the more space I make for girls who need that model. Which includes boys as well. For some folk looking like me, being butch, is part of a journey to somewhere different. For some, being butch is the journey.

Last night my kid graduated and she wore her first suit. She paired it with braids and buns, and dangly earrings. All her friends wore pretty dresses. I am sure she will have changes in aesthetics along the way, maybe gender, maybe sexuality. But I know, from my own experience, that it doesn't stop. I had her and I tried for four years after that to keep being good at being a woman, keep being feminine. After all I looked pretty, why wouldn't I? But the relief I felt when I gave up trying to fit that mould was significant. I don't begrudge anyone finding their own space, because yes there aren't exactly a whole lot of prominent butch role models (and even fewer who are bi) but I don't want anyone to feel the way I felt while I was trying to perform femininity.

I'm likely the first butch woman these kids have met who is not a sportswoman or a lesbian. I can exist the way I am, even if it doesn't fit other people's expectations. Gender isn't a relationship escalator, it's a spectrum. And it can be a little discomforting when the acceptance and support for trans people becomes a kind of frame for interpreting gender non-conforming behaviour, it's also a way of being accepting. I've had people assume I am trans, or that my ex-husband was, because of the way I dress, and that's okay? I'm still me, under it all.

(I do take comfort in Butch Is not A Dirty Word though, and my friends and family support me, and my ex helped my kid with her suit and taught her to tie her tie, and I get used to being the odd one out even in butch circles.)

* As in actual Butch not my growing up working class and most of the women look like this because we all work the same jobs and you may as well wear your husband's work clothes.
posted by geek anachronism at 2:07 PM on December 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


Also I think there is a LOT of value in not taking role models from media. it flattens identities and due to how the media works systemically, tends to have "the one" when looking at or representing marginalised identities.
posted by geek anachronism at 2:50 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


I just saw this on Sonya Renee Taylor's igtv, and thought of you! It addresses a lot of what you mention.

What she said about a scarcity mindset affecting how we see things rang very true. The system can have a person fighting to keep their crumbs, instead of looking for who's got the whole fucking cake.

"No one loses anything when anyone steps into the fullness of themselves."
posted by neda at 3:21 PM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


As a vaguely gender-nonconforming cis woman who is keen not to approach gender identity and expression as a zero sum game, I've really enjoyed the podcast Gender Reveal. The guests have nuanced and diverse takes on gender and seem profoundly uninterested in gender essentialism.
posted by toastedcheese at 3:39 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


I don't have any specific resources because this depends on a lot of factors, but finding butch communities to be a part of that explicitly include both trans and cis women (and possibly kind of hanging back and consciously listening to the trans women in it for a bit) seems like it could be very helpful. I'm a cis lesbian (I don't really feel like either butch or femme fits me, but I definitely feel kind of tomboyish/gender non-conforming) who came out late in life and early on in that process I just happened to join some communities that were very welcoming to trans women.

Some of the people I've gone on to have the strongest friendships from those groups are trans women, because in talking to them we share a lot of feelings about how our gender fits us and how we've come to understand our gender feelings. My girlfriend (who is trans) and I both feel like the label "demigirl' fits us and have had some of our most emotionally intimate conversations about gender around that topic.

I think if you're able to find some butch communities that are explicitly inclusive of trans women, you might find you have a lot more in common with some of then than you expect.
posted by augustimagination at 4:00 PM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


I think the bigger picture is that every queer is pressured to stop being whatever they are, even though those pressures run in contradictory directions.

There are definitely butch girls getting told they ought to be trans. There are also trans boys whose parents and teachers keep asking them "why can't you just be a butch girl?" There are trans kids who are told "Eww grossss you're a boyyyyyyy" when they're presenting as girls, and then "Eww grossss you're not a boy you're just a weird dykey girl" when they start to transition. That's because our cultural response to queerness is to figure out whatever we're most attached to, and then knock it out of our hands.

I have in the same sentence been called a man, a girl, and a f*gg*t, and I'm sure if I'd picked one of those identities and demanded to use it, the person I was talking to would have taken it off the table and insisted on calling me the other two things.

Because you're a butch woman, you feel most intensely the pressure against butch womanhood. But please believe that other people are being pressured towards butch womanhood, not because our culture values butch womanhood in any way, but just because it loves to set us against each other, to push us away from whatever makes us truly happy, and to force us towards whatever does not.
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:53 AM on December 4, 2020 [22 favorites]


For what it is worth, I am a pretty "butch" presenting woman, and I have struggled with this perception that people who are born one sex but behave in ways commonly associated with the other are therefore trans. It's an uncomfortable reinforcement of gender stereotypes.
posted by easy, lucky, free at 6:21 AM on December 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


I've had some similar feelings as you before; it was difficult for me to view transitioning as anything other than promotion of gender essentialism, which I have been fighting my whole life. Eventually I decided that other people have very different relationships to gender and see gender as a much more important part of their identities than I do, which helped it make more sense to me... basically they're experiencing something fundamentally different than I am so I'm never quite going to grok it, but that doesn't mean I can't support them.

Please memail me if you'd like to just talk.
posted by metasarah at 7:15 AM on December 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


Sorry, I've got one more thought.

Gender-nonconforming people often get asked to prove we are the gender we say we are. And when that happens, my experience is that we turn to whatever arguments are available to us.

When someone asks my butch cis woman friends to prove they're women, they might point to their birth certificate, their anatomy, their socialization, or their history in women's movements. That's fine, that's reasonable, it sometimes even makes the assholes shut up. But I think for many cis women, the honest answer is that you could burn their birth certificate, prove they secretly had XY chromosomes, and so on, and they'd still feel, deep down, that they Just Were women — that they Just Knew that's who they were.

When someone asks me to prove I'm a woman, since I'm trans, I can't point to that stuff. So I point to behavior instead. It's honestly not easy, because I'm pretty fucking unfeminine. I have gender-neutral hobbies like biking and music, I don't wear dresses or makeup, blah blah blah. I don't fit those stereotypes. But to make the assholes shut up, I can trot out some behavioral evidence: "Oh, yeah, most of my friends were girls as a kid," even if we were running around in the woods pretending to be wolves instead of playing with dolls. Or "I never felt comfortable growing a beard and I've always worn long hair." Or whatever.

Still, you could take all that evidence away, and I'd resort to the same thing as my cis friends. "Sorry, I still feel, deep down, that I Just Am a woman — that I Just Know that's who I am."

The fact that my butch cis friends and I point to different evidence when we're challenged doesn't really mean we're all that different deep down. We've been pushed into different corners by a shitty culture. But for all of us, we Just Know who we are.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:27 AM on December 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


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