Im not for the exclusion of bisexual women from wlw spaces but i do have something to say about the butch femme thing. Im sorry if this sounds exclusionary that’s not my intention. If bisexual women call themselves butch or femme, words now associated with lesbians mainly, then if they get with a dude that guy can go ‘i got with a butch/femme girl’ and people assume lesbian and it could increases negative stereotypes about lesbians ‘just waiting for the right man’ kinda thing unintentionally idk
That’s some really twisted exclusionary, gatekeeping bullshit. Whether or not you think it is, it really is.
When you distill that down to its essence, what you’re saying is “bisexual women are actively detrimental to lesbians just by existing, because what if they get with a guy?? Their existence as non-gold-star wlw could, by its association with gold-star wlw.”
That is, at its core of it, what you are actually, factually saying. That is the core of the issue that you have. “Bi women dilute gayness.” The 1990s called and they want their political lesbian talking points used to argue that the ‘B’ shouldn’t be included in Pride Parades back.
Even if that were not the excessively biphobic core of what you are positing, conforming our behavior to the expectations or biases of The Straights™ is not the path forward to queer liberation. Because lemme tell you something:
Straight Dudes™ don’t respect lesbians or bi women or bi femmes regardless of how we react, how we present, or whether or not any AFAB has slept with a man, might sleep with a man, is attracted to men, might be attracted to men, has slept with no one, doesn’t want to sleep with anyone. The idea that whether or not bi women use the word ‘butch’ figures into their disrespect is about as far from reality as I am from being able to build a summer home on Pluto.
The Straights are not going to respect us or change their ideas about how we figure into their fears and spank-bank fantasies no matter how we act or react or how we censure and censor and subdivide. Pushing bisexuals out of the lesbian community – because bisexuals were part of the lesbian community until the 70s – did not suddenly make The Straights respect lesbians. TERFs cozying up to the far-right Republicans is not going to make The Straights respect lesbians. The Straights will not respect lesbians even a little bit more if ‘butch’ is only associated with lesbians. The Straights are not going to respect my lesbian daughter one iota more if I stop using the word ‘butch’ and start calling myself a ‘stag’ or a ‘crow’ or whatever other culturally-appropriating, diminutizing, dehumanizing terms people come up with and insist I should use.
It is not going to matter, and suggesting that it is going to matter very much comes across as concern-trolling.
This is exactly the same kind of mindset that has transmeds telling me “you can’t be non-binary, you’re keeping The Cis from respecting us!” and I am not here for it. The Cis, The Straights™, they are not going to suddenly respect us because we police one another’s usage of terms that they don’t give one single solitary fuck about anyway. They are not going to suddenly say ‘gosh I don’t hear anyone who’s ever admitted to being attracted to a man called “butch” anymore, that’s going to keep me from hitting on this woman because she’s described herself as butch.’
Don’t be fucking ridiculous. The Straights ™ are not gonna hear that and say ‘oh I was gonna harass that woman but now that I know she’s a Certified Lesbian ™ I’m gonna leave her alone.’ None of our self-signifiers matter to them at all, and to paraphrase Pray Tell, every generation thinks they’re gonna be the one who are finally gonna get invited to the party. That this is when we go mainstream and are totally accepted by the gracious Straights™.
That shit ain’t gonna happen. The Straights are not gonna finally invite us to the party and accept us. They’re gonna tolerate the compliant ones, to a degree, but that’s it. That is not the way to queer liberation.
Queer Liberation is not asking nicely and shaving off all the inconvenient parts of ourselves and our community. Queer liberation is not permitting the next generation to sweep under the rug the history of political lesbians (those who would become TERFs) driving bisexual women out and forcing the creation of a bisexual community. Queer liberation is not allowing this historical revisionism of painting a picture of a rosy past in which bisexual women, femmes and AFABs had a joyous co-existence with a separate set of community pasts, rather than a shared and interwoven community history.
I am absolutely not going to let you lay the disrespect that The Straights™ have for lesbians, bisexual women, and wlw at the feet of bisexuals, not in any way, shape or form. And I am not going to give up my identity based on the historical revisionism that says this isn’t my history and these aren’t my words.
Butch is my gender identity. I don’t give a fuck if the Straights respect it, because they never ever will. I’m not interested in them respecting a version of my self that is sanitized for their comfort, because that’s what you’re asking for.
I will fight for liberation, in which I can exist as my authentic self and you can exist as yours, and we are given the space to live as our selves by The Straights™. I will not, ever, accept respectability politics as an acceptable way to frame our community.
tl;dr: that’s gross and biphobic as it blames bisexuals for the difficulties of all wlw for the idea that they might date men, don’t ever say it again.
Remember that post with like a billion notes, with a screenshot of some channer saying “Pretty sure the only people who like that butch shit are lesbians.”?
That’s the level of butch/femme discourse The Straights are on. They don’t even recognize that these are queer-coded terms half the time, and don’t respect them when they do.
Respectability is not liberation. For an awful lot of us, it’s a slightly prettier closet.
