butch, please
Jan. 21st, 2019 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sciatrixI was sitting down to compile a signal boost post for the week, which will probably be pretty big since I missed last week's. And I pulled out a link that I had a bit more to say about than I thought I did, so I figured it could have a post of its own.
staranise had some discussion a few days ago about the history of "butch" and "femme" as terms, and whether or not they're lesbian-only words. Spoiler: her conclusion, which I'm 100% down with, is 'no'. I often bring up an anecdote, actually, about a slightly awkward joke my (gay, male, about twenty years older than me) boss once made off-the-cuff to an audience of mostly straight colleagues, back when I was new to the lab: "If you use the word butch... you're probably not." I, who am pretty butch, was a little confused and startled before I realized that the joke actually makes sense if you're habitually assuming that the people who use 'butch' are mostly gay men (which is, I think, his context; he coughed and backtracked a little bit when I stared at him in confusion).
We actually had a lot of those little "huh wha?" moments the year I was new to the lab. I think I was still adjusting to bringing up queer culture where there were straight people, which at the time I would have never bothered to do and which he (I think deliberately) makes a point of doing sometimes. And I think he was probably still adjusting some to me being there with my own context, which was (and is) very different from my boss' while still being recognizable. In retrospect, I'm a little sorry about having come into the lab with the trauma I did from Tumblr exclusionists; I think he was very excited to have a queer mentee, and I don't think he had any context for why I would sidestep conversations and tuck away my own perspective in (not-outwardly-visible) fright when he would toss topics of conversation out at me.
It turns out that when you're largely accessing queer community through the scars of gatekeeping and trauma, and you have been really seriously immersing yourself in the attacks mounted by exclusionists--at the time I was coming off of two years of doing that very heavily--you start developing a fear reaction to people who are "unassailably" part of the community and who don't do a lot of obvious and visible stepping to make sure you know you're welcome. Which, since I didn't actually tell him that I ID as ace and that colors my experiences really deeply until... oh, the summer after I joined the lab, after he spent two weeks with me in the field (so around each other 24/7) trying to figure out what the hell I was and why I wasn't responding like either a straight person or a queer person to the conversational gambits he'd toss out, obviously he didn't know to do. (And just as obviously my experience was totally outside his context, which makes total sense, and just--augh.)
I'm more open about it right now, but it's been gone on six and a half years, and I'm still trying to work out how to talk about my own experiences both to other folks in my field--will they criticize me for openly holding an identity that is so often ridiculed?--and within my department. It's easier with folks about my age, but it's not like older people are all in total agreement with exclusionists, either. And it's hard unlearning the signifiers I initially learned on the internet.
I hate how the context of exclusionists drives certain community experiences to hide and fear connection to other groups, while at the same time being totally unseen by wide swathes of the groups exclusionists are ostensibly protecting. I hate that my fear drove me to hide because I had associated the presence of "real" LGBTQ+ people with potential judgement and threat, especially when I think at the time I was probably the only other openly queer person in our department. (I think I may be that now--we had another cis male gay grad student who had been in the same undergraduate lab as I was join, but he has since left to pursue a career in data science. And I don't think either of us know anyone else.)
Anyway. That little story was such a perfect encapsulation of two people whose queer contexts and communities are different meeting with a little bit of a bump, and such a perfect "yeah, no: suck it" story for those exclusionists trying to insist that "butch" and "femme" are terms only for cis lesbians.
staranise had some discussion a few days ago about the history of "butch" and "femme" as terms, and whether or not they're lesbian-only words. Spoiler: her conclusion, which I'm 100% down with, is 'no'. I often bring up an anecdote, actually, about a slightly awkward joke my (gay, male, about twenty years older than me) boss once made off-the-cuff to an audience of mostly straight colleagues, back when I was new to the lab: "If you use the word butch... you're probably not." I, who am pretty butch, was a little confused and startled before I realized that the joke actually makes sense if you're habitually assuming that the people who use 'butch' are mostly gay men (which is, I think, his context; he coughed and backtracked a little bit when I stared at him in confusion).We actually had a lot of those little "huh wha?" moments the year I was new to the lab. I think I was still adjusting to bringing up queer culture where there were straight people, which at the time I would have never bothered to do and which he (I think deliberately) makes a point of doing sometimes. And I think he was probably still adjusting some to me being there with my own context, which was (and is) very different from my boss' while still being recognizable. In retrospect, I'm a little sorry about having come into the lab with the trauma I did from Tumblr exclusionists; I think he was very excited to have a queer mentee, and I don't think he had any context for why I would sidestep conversations and tuck away my own perspective in (not-outwardly-visible) fright when he would toss topics of conversation out at me.
It turns out that when you're largely accessing queer community through the scars of gatekeeping and trauma, and you have been really seriously immersing yourself in the attacks mounted by exclusionists--at the time I was coming off of two years of doing that very heavily--you start developing a fear reaction to people who are "unassailably" part of the community and who don't do a lot of obvious and visible stepping to make sure you know you're welcome. Which, since I didn't actually tell him that I ID as ace and that colors my experiences really deeply until... oh, the summer after I joined the lab, after he spent two weeks with me in the field (so around each other 24/7) trying to figure out what the hell I was and why I wasn't responding like either a straight person or a queer person to the conversational gambits he'd toss out, obviously he didn't know to do. (And just as obviously my experience was totally outside his context, which makes total sense, and just--augh.)
I'm more open about it right now, but it's been gone on six and a half years, and I'm still trying to work out how to talk about my own experiences both to other folks in my field--will they criticize me for openly holding an identity that is so often ridiculed?--and within my department. It's easier with folks about my age, but it's not like older people are all in total agreement with exclusionists, either. And it's hard unlearning the signifiers I initially learned on the internet.
I hate how the context of exclusionists drives certain community experiences to hide and fear connection to other groups, while at the same time being totally unseen by wide swathes of the groups exclusionists are ostensibly protecting. I hate that my fear drove me to hide because I had associated the presence of "real" LGBTQ+ people with potential judgement and threat, especially when I think at the time I was probably the only other openly queer person in our department. (I think I may be that now--we had another cis male gay grad student who had been in the same undergraduate lab as I was join, but he has since left to pursue a career in data science. And I don't think either of us know anyone else.)
Anyway. That little story was such a perfect encapsulation of two people whose queer contexts and communities are different meeting with a little bit of a bump, and such a perfect "yeah, no: suck it" story for those exclusionists trying to insist that "butch" and "femme" are terms only for cis lesbians.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-22 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-22 09:26 pm (UTC)I'm particularly glad they were good about it because at least two folks who were there while I was have since picked up national advocacy positions--one who seems to have been taken under Laverne Cox' wing, another who was featured on the new Queer Eye a while back--and so I'm this weird mixture of really proud and really glad that those are the people whose voices are getting amplified.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-22 09:41 pm (UTC)(And there's other factors that make a local queer group just not half as necessary to me.)
Ooooh, was this - oh, what was his name - Sky? Skyler? - the trans guy? How cool that you (peripherally, at least) know people doing that kind of advocacy!
no subject
Date: 2019-01-22 09:51 pm (UTC)It was! He's a few years older than me and I think had graduated a year before the year I was there as a senior, but was still hanging around the org at the time because... well, that's where your social circle is, you know? I had known there was a trans character in S2, but had no idea that he'd been to college with me until the episode rolled around and I spotted his face. Reading the interviews and the general reactions to the episode, especially the people worrying that his agency was overridden to present a more appealing picture to straight/cis people, was kind of hilarious to me--mostly because I could visibly see the wheels turning as he was settling into I Am A Representative mode, and I know he has no compunctions about playing a particular role as an educator and representative generally.
It was enough of a headfuck that I kind of can't settle back into Queer Eye as brain candy, though--too close! real people now! which is a shame. I really liked what I'd seen of it previously, and maybe I'll be able to pick it up eventually.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-26 11:56 pm (UTC)Aww, that *is* a shame! I hope you can find that distance again eventually.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 12:19 am (UTC)(Also he really is that into snapback hats. I am incredibly not surprised by his wall of hats. I didn't even know him that well--I was closer to the nonbinary+ace+genderqueer contingent than the pack of trans guys, and most of them were underclassmen--but that was very very obvious back then.)
no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 12:36 am (UTC)