butch, please

[sciatrix]

I 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.

Comments

[wellthisisnice]

Ugh, i totally get the shitty long-reach influence exclusionism can have, even within safer queer spaces.

I'm having an issue right now with other spanish-speaking online ace activists because they tend to spend a lot of time fending off both haters and ace elitists on their outreach projects, and as a result, tend to be constantly on the defensive when in social media. And i always forget that, and thus sometimes make some casual critique without making sure to first thank them and let them know i think their work is valuable and this is not a personal attack-

It sucks, for everyone involved, is what i'm trying to say. I want to be able to connect with other ace and queer activists and organizers, but this whole context of online antagonism is just so uuuugggggghhhhhh.

[staranise]

Whenever I talk about Tumblr Kids These Days with commodorified (the gf) she tends to end up saying, "I feel like... these children... do not realize they are not actually the boss of anybody else."

Like, they DO NOT ACTUALLY GET to tell someone how they dress, or what they ask their friends to call them, or who to sleep them, or what relationships they form, or what rights they can lobby for. Nor should they GET to.

That's the kind of thing I'm afraid to say on Tumblr, because so many people view themselves as having a moral responsibility to police other queers people aspiring to LGBT-dom.

[felinejumper]

This overlap of queer mentorship and science mentorship is *catnip* for me, wow. WOW. I am so sorry about ~exclusionary communities, and empathize a lot with...the threats of a group that is ostensibly yours. I wanna think more about it but for the moment: yeah! Sucks! I'm sorry!

I'm super interested in your experience of overlapping scientific and queer mentorship—er, or the possiblity of it. Do you think forming a queer mentorship/friendship with your PI (er, boss, don't know your lab structure!)— I mean, is that even how you would characterize it? Is he a scientific mentor and queer friend, or scientific AND queer mentor? How did those interpersonal identities (queer and scientist) affect each other?
I am asking, I think, because in my lab life people were either one or the other—people above me scientifically were either new queers or not at all (or reaaalllly not my type of gay, and bad scientific mentors to boot), and people scientifically on par or newer than me were...queer in similar ways, but not merging their queer/scientific identities.

Yes! I agree.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I've had the good fortune to work in intergenerational and international LGBTQ+ spaces. So I find the exclusionist gatekeeping around the assumption that everyone has moment of revelation in adolescence and adopts a gold-star ideal lifestyle to be terribly naive. Because so many people come out in middle age (or later!), often with a heterosexual spouse and children, trying to gatekeep people based ideals and first impressions just isn't done.

So it's a real disconnect for me between tumblr and doing city or regional LGBTQ+ work, where you'll run into all sorts of LGBTQ+ people who flunk tumblr purity tests.

[moem]

To my mostly-cis, mostly-female, rather unfeminine self, it felt like a revelation and a relief when I figured out I could call myself a straight butch. I'm happy that most people seem to feel that I can use that word.

I'm the type who is often assumed to be a lesbian; I'm not, but I don't always bother to correct that assumption. I don't care that much. It's not a bad thing to be called.

[sylvaine]

... I realized I do this too. Whether in straight or queer spaces, I am always careful about which parts I mention, especially irl. Pretty much everyone "knows" I'm a lesbian. Most people don't know I'm ace, or genderqueer, or technically bi. And part of that is not wanting to explain every time, and part of that is not wanting to have to deal with people who think being ace isn't a legitimate queer identity, or truscum who think I'm not trans enough. And I know that one of the people in the local queer youth group I used to go to was both, so. Good thing I didn't say anything, huh. :|

[saxonvoter]

Being on the first cup of coffee for the day and pretty much unable to write English in a way that makes much sense, I just gotta say I couldn't agree with this more. As a fellow ace plus a transmasculine person who's still trying to figure out the finer details of their gender identity, the gatekeeping I've seen over at tumblr, twitter and instagram (the latter two I use way less, but have still come across it a lot which is very telling) has definitely caused me to think twice before revealing any details of my queerness in real life. I went to the local LGBT+ group's party for the first time about a year ago, and at the entrance they had different kinds of stickers with flags & labels you could stick to your clothes if you wanted to. You could even make your own if they didn't have your particular one, and of course they didn't have an ace sticker so I made my own. But about 1/3 through the evening I came to the conclusion I was the only ace there, so I got too scared and took it off. Similarly, my friend has been going to the group's meetings but I've been too afraid to, because I'm very much non-passing (and it pains me to care about this) and I'm afraid they'd just laugh me out of there even though my friend has told me they're all nice people.