#gnc womyn

[marxistapesimista]

okay I know that girl on girl hate needs to end and all that but can people reporting it not ignore the misogyny gnc womyn face and turn “girl hate” reporting into a defence of femininity?

like, most times I’ve seen people reporting “girl hate” it’s directed to girls who “identify more with guys”, and yeah, we’re all aware of how saying things like “I’m one of the guys!” is harmful but could we perhaps focus on how gnc girls are isolated from other groups of girls, not due to them being “assholes” like most of these posts claim but due to the fact that any non-feminine girl is seen as out of the norm and rejected? is this not “girl hate” too?

[hot-flanks]

I think thats whats going on here is different ways of being GNC which are independent but often overlap. One can be GNC aesthetically (ex: snapback dykes), behaviorally (in speech, style of walking, body language & mannerisms), and morphologically, which I think is what you are talking about - The kind of GNC where a womans very body is GNC, regardless of whether she presents as masculine or feminine aesthetically and behaviorally (pt 1).

Of course, there are other ways to be GNC, such as working in a traditionally male field or being a lesbian (as another person pointed out), but I think these 3 categories (aesthetics, behavior, and morphology) cover the range of gender non-conformance pretty well. Now if we could just think of a catchier term for ‘morphologically gender non-conforming’, I think we’d have the word your looking for (pt 2/end).

I agree with you on the level that there are different types of not conforming to gender, but I do disagree that the word that I’m looking for should be a snappier version of ‘morphologically gender non-conforming.’ The experience that I’m talking about happens to womyn who do have bodies that conform to gendered expectations as well (have visible breasts, hips, etc), so I don’t think that using MGNC (let’s shorten it for this discussion ;)) is correct in this instance because it is not the body that is gender non-conforming - it is something else. To be clear, I’m speaking of experiences these womyn have even when wearing clothes from the pink side of the store and/or having long hair. It’s not their presentation, it’s not their body, but they’re still given the double take and assumed to be men at least on occasion. worthy-of-armor just wrote a really good post elucidating her experiences with this and how she’s experienced this phenomenon of being perceived as male no matter what sort of identity or presentation phase she was going through that might better describe this than I can.

Is it posturing? Is it body language? I’m really not sure what leads to this perception of an easily visible female as a man, but what I’m talking about is an experience that possibly combines these notions of different ways of being GNC and talking about them just as how they affect the way the world perceives and therefore reacts to us. So while I agree with you that we could probably divide gendered behavior and expectations into these categories, I’m not sure where to go from there in terms of analysis of the practical applications of the lived experience of those categories. Does that make sense? 

I think there should be unquestioned support for womyn who are told that they do not do womon correctly, and I understand that those womyn don’t want to be told that they’re gender conforming and I certainly don’t mean to tell them that they are. I just think that being told that you do womon wrong and being told that you’re not doing womon at all are two distinct experiences, and if GNC is a term we should use for both then I think we need a more direct term for those of us that occasionally or regularly get erased and assumed to be men.

Prior to Tumblr, the only way I had ever heard GNC used was to describe the experiences of Butches, Studs, or other womyn who were percieved as “masculine” or “male-like” (as much as I hate those terms). I don’t think this is correct either, as it prioritizes identity, depends on cultural identifiers of womonhood, and pretty well ignores the lived experience of people who don’t identify as these words but still get erased as females at times. I’m trying really hard to sort out if there is a better or more direct word that can be used, and I appreciate your input and thought on the matter <3

[hot-flanks]

Gender Non-Conforming

In light of recent discussions and confusion, I’d like to propose a more concrete definition for gender non-conforming. A Gender Non-Conforming female is one who must calculate her risks every single time she goes into the women’s restroom, because gender nonconformance, or existing naturally, for a woman is perceived as being like a man. This is different than fearing you will be recognized as a lesbian. Simply put, if you are able to move through the world without this threat to your safety and personhood you are not gender nonconforming. We can talk all day long about thoughts and patterns of expressions and the way that they are gendered, but when it comes to material reality, this is the objective difference between gender non-conformance and gender conformance. Being recognized easily as a woman is a huge factor in gender conformance, and even those gender non-conforming womyn who are biologically easily distinguished as female (with visible hips and breasts) experience the erasure of being perceived as a male and the violence that comes with it. The discussion of this experience is so important to the women who have been harmed this way. This is why it is so difficult when people who have not experienced this derail conversations of gender conformance by claiming that their brand of expression is gender non-conforming, even when their sex has never been called into question. If we’re not allowed to use these words to describe this specific experience, then I don’t know what we can possibly use that is still explicit about our lived reality as females.

[hot-flanks]

Watch this, and spread it far and wide. She doesn’t talk about dysphoria, but she talks a lot about the social conditioning we all go through and how it leads some people to decide that transitioning is the “true” path for them.

She talks about identifying as Butch too (or rather, not identifying as Butch), and how a label isn’t important to her because only material reality is important: being a woman, and being a lesbian. Obviously I use the word Butch for myself, but that’s mainly as a shorthand way to speak about my experiences in a generalized way that most people can understand. As it is an identity word, I don’t feel the need to police or protect it - only to protect the young womyn that need these words to have positive connotations so that they can grow into self-assured, confident adult Butch lesbians.

This is fantastic. We all need these role models. 

[hot-flanks]

I think one of the more insidious complications of the GNC female community is the constant use of male-coded words to define ourselves. The fact that Butch is not a word derived from a male reference is a huge part of the reason why I use Butch for my own self-identifier, and further why I move more towards just Amazon as I continue to grow and learn about myself and the world. I have gone through many phases of identification throughout my life – from a 13 year old newly-out lesbian in 1999 figuring out how to embrace “butch” and “dyke” as my own in a very small Wisconsin town, to moving to a much bigger city in high school (partially because my parents realized that it wasn’t safe for a young woman as easily identifiable as a dyke as I was and am to even exist in a small town and I thank them endlessly for that) and embracing the boi moniker, to college and discovering post-modernism and a genderqueer stepping stone to full-on transmale identification and transition, then back through masculine-of-center to reclaim lesbian, dyke, and Butch as my own words of power and identification. If there has been a word for GNC womyn, there is a strong chance that at some point I thought it was a word for me and as I learned more about the implications and history of each word my feelings regarding that word shifted.

I stepped away from “butch” and “dyke” as a young lesbian because in the queer scene I had entered into, they were archaic. Butch brought up ideas of this toxic misogyny, strict community enforced rules about behavior and dress, and being unattractive in any sense at all. It felt too small to encompass all that I was. I took on boi during my first real relationship, and felt exhilarated when she called me her boifriend and our relationship was understood as being not very different at all from heterosexuals – just with two females - without the gross power dynamic I associated with butch/femme (this should be painfully obvious how fucked up this thinking is). Then I started to loathe being recognized as a female. Now, female felt too small to encompass all that I was. I learned there were words for my dysphoria (which I have experienced my whole life and experienced as a separate issue from identifying with men until this point) and a community of people who experienced and understood it, and there were words for us like “genderqueer” or trans. These were words of freedom to me – open-ended, vast, and available for self-interpretation. I could fit into those words. I held them for over six years. At the end of those six years is when thinking critically about words started becoming really, really important to me. I began discovering the power of words that are used correctly to accurately convey one’s thoughts. I discovered that words have objective meaning, and that it’s worthwhile to dig down into them and make sure that the ones you’re using are the ones you mean. When you convey your intentions in this manner, there is much less room for misinterpretation or the hurt feelings that arise out of it. I backed out of male identification partially because of my issues with the language that we use to describe our experiences, and a sense of disconnect from why my experiences could not be part of a female reality. I began putting in the exhausting mental work of learning to recognize myself as female again. I moved through calling myself masculine-of-center because I still held all of the negative notions regarding Butch that I learned in my teens. At the time I thought masculine was still a good word to describe myself – a female person. I hadn’t yet realized that this constant use of male-coded words (masculine, boi, etc) only served to further delay my healing and reconciliation with being female. When it finally clicked that no healing would come of continuing to use this language for myself, and that I needed to find new, non-male-coded ways to describe my experiences, I began to embrace Butch again.

Words matter and the words we choose to convey our own life experience are incredibly important. I also learned through my journey that there are words for GNC womyn that are absolutely not my words to use (such as stud, which is a word of power for lesbians of color and therefore mine to appreciate in sisterhood but not embrace as my own). It is important to educate yourself on the history of the words you use, and asking questions along the way should be encouraged. The community of GNC womyn is very vast, and there are lots of self-identifiers that we all use in this community that we might use differently or define differently but at the end of the day we have many more shared experiences that we do differences. I have always understood Gender Non-Conforming to be the non-male-coded way to define what we would otherwise talk about as being “masculine-of-center,” and a way to be positive about our shared female reality rather than equating ourselves to being “of or relating to males.” I still take some issue with this, because I think what we describe as being GNC for womyn is mostly just existing as female in a natural state, but I think it is the least problematic of the terms used to describe this experience that I have seen thus far because it correctly identifies the system of oppression (gender, and specifically performed femininity as defined by males) and our relation to it (non-conformance).

[hot-flanks]

I used to have this concept of the body I was “meant to have.” This body went hand-in-hand with my concept of the person I was “meant to be.”

As I’ve grown older, these concepts of what’s “meant to be” have slowly but steadily been replaced with ideas of what I want to be, and what makes me hungry to get up and keep hustling every single day. I no longer cling to an idea of something being “meant to be,” instead, I just go out and hustle until it’s mine. I fight every day for my mental health and for my body.

I find it much more empowering to envision a goal that I want and desire and hunger for and then go get it, than I do thinking about what I “should be” or am “meant to be.” These days I think about the body I want, the peace of mind I want, the life I want, and I bust ass to get it. The only thing in between me and what I desire is how hard I can work for it. Trust, I’ve been working very, very hard.

[hot-flanks]

One big step in working to manage my dysphoria was learning to exist without a shirt on. A few years ago I adopted the idea that I would work to live a life in line with everything that I had always told myself I would do post-op, or once I had achieved some nebulous level of comfort on T. I choose to go shirtless for a variety of reasons now, though most are rooted in comfort and practicality. Although I still deal with my own issues with my chest, I no longer suffer any shame for the fact that I have breasts. It's a good place to be, and I'm constantly improving as I strive to live a life as free from societal/patriarchal constraints as possible.

[hot-flanks]

How do I know if I'm butch? I'm usually perceived as butch, people call me that though I have never called myself anything. idk. I don't feel like I fit anywhere. I don't really pass as straight. I just dress comfortably and let my body be as it is and I'm categorized as butch, but is that all it is? I don't want to take a word that doesn't belong to me, or use it wrongly.

I think that when it comes right down to it, being Butch is an individual thing. In my mind, Butch is a specific sub-category of GNC womyn. Most GNC womyn don’t pass for straight, dress comfortably/practically and let their bodies exist naturally, but certainly not all GNC womyn would call themselves Butch. For me, Butch is a specific identifier of how I relate to my body, and very roughly boils down to being a GNC female with sex dysphoria, with an added side note of being mistaken for male frequently. I know that description may seem too broad or too narrow to some, but Butch is an identity term and therefore somewhat nebulous. That being said, because it is an identity term and is not based or founded in an objective biological difference of reality, I think that Butch is a word that any female who feels that it fits her should use. I think it is a word of power and strength and solidarity, and that if you feel it fits you then it is yours to draw power from. 

Also, dear anon, I understand the pressure to feel like you fit somewhere, and to find an identity that feels right to you. Finding Butch as a source of positivity was a big step for me in coming out of identifying as a man, so I know the power of identification very well. No matter where you fit in sub-categories, all womyn fit together in sisterhood and solidarity and no matter what word you use for yourself - I see you and I value your presence.