Yknow what, fuck it. Anon off. I've had to deal with too many asshats to stand by when you said something that made me finally feel a bit more seen and respected in public and have people being aggressive at you for it and saying you were wrong to say the things that made me feel supported; if you want my voice in support too, I'm happy to provide.
It's me. I'm among the butches that gets very tired of people insisting that the word means something that doesn't apply to me instead of what it does mean. Especially since they then insist that I instead fit a word that is used to belittle and dismiss me. And then go "what about meeeee" when I say "please use this word instead, the other one makes me feel infantilized and fetishized"
Preaching to the choir but.
Butches do not have to go on T, or even as *that common* of a trait, that is not a firm separation (in fact, none of the butches I've known IRL have gone on it, a lot of them are even on E). It also has nothing to do with my personality holy shit, that's extremely offensive to me, it's a label used to help a community find solidarity in their gender expression and to a lesser extent their interests, not a determination of personality.
Also. Tomboy is a label that people have tried to FORCE on me ever since I was a child for the things I enjoy, and was used as such with the intent that it was expected to be a phase. The term is *still* used to belittle and dismiss me as lesser than the cis men in the male-dominated hobbies and jobs I spend most of my days in. Every. Single. Day.
Butch is the word *I chose for myself* and it connects me to a community that respects me as an adult with agency. It has nothing to do with my personality or being on hormones (I'm actually on estrogen!). To insist that the label I chose for myself means those things about me or others in the community is deeply offensive to me and wild to me that they're acting this offended that you said "hey cis men consider being less weird about GNC and maybe the language you use can help shift that mindset?" and they're responding by *making personality generalizations on a label that has nothing to do with personality*
"Tomboy" is forced on me by people that *use it to dismiss me as a child when I'm in my 30s* and it was expected to be something I grew out of and become more femme and traditional when I "grew up." It's also used to dismiss my queerness. "We didn't used to call you girls lesbians, we used to call you tomboys and then you grew up and married men." Calling myself "butch" makes it clear that no, this is not a phase, and I am an adult (and in my case, queer and not ashamed of it) and will not simply stand by and allow you to treat me as anything else.
I promise you, folks getting pissy at Crim for suggesting to not force the word on other people without their permission, cis men are using the word Tomboy to dismiss women in their spaces as lesser. If you want to use it for yourself, that's fine! But this aggressive backlash to the idea of cis men not fetishizing GNC women is actually making me feel like they *don't* respect me, my agency, or my identity.
It also makes me really sad that butches are being labeled as serious and basically "men with boobs." Cause like.
My mom is a Butch. My mom loves dogs, loves being outdoors. She has worked with animals her entire life. She often does have scraped knees. If she sees an animal on the side of the road she will stop and help it. She and her partner took me and my sisters camping several times every summer. She's so brave, and has held a wolf's mouth open and shoved pills down its throat, but she will freak out and jump on a chair if she sees a spider on the floor even if it's tiny. She has a hot temper but it's also easy to make her laugh. She loves videogames like Mario and Donkey Kong. When the Sims 2 came out she made custom content so that she could make Sims that looked like her and her partner. She has tattoos on her shoulder blades that look like an angel and devil version of Tinkerbell that I watched her painstakingly design herself in MSPaint on our old Windows XP. She loves cartoons and her favourite one to watch with me growing up was Gargoyles. To this day she will roll her eyes if her mother tries to get her to wear girly clothes.
My mom is also in her fifties and will stare at you like you're an alien with five heads if you called her girl or tomboy.
You don't become boring and serious when you grow up. You can still be all the things you pin to childishness as a woman. The personality isn't going to get sucked out of you.
