a gender moment

Recently out with some classmates, I was describing that there are two kinds of lesbian:  the crunchy granola teva-wearing kinds, and the hardcore butch/femme kinds.  [I am aware that this is a gross over-simplification, but we were drinking and joking around. It was supposed to be funny.]  I identified myself as the latter, of course.

And then one of my classmates got real serious for a moment, and said to me, “FG, that’s so interesting that you would identify yourself as butch.  You’ve always seemed so lady-like to me!”

Yes, she missed the word ‘femme’ in the description.  Maybe her brain got stuck at ‘butch’, after all it is a loaded word.  But lady-like??  for realz?  omg, where’s my gown?

funny husband meme

How well do you know your husband?

I had to steal this from facebook.  hilarious!

Here’s a chance to see how well you really know your husband. Cut, paste and fill in the answers, then forward . . . shoot, you know what to do. The real challenge is to send it to your husband to see how right you really are.

I changed the pronouns to gender-neutral here, just to be more appropriate, since M. doesn’t use male pronouns.

1. Ze’s sitting in front of the TV; what is on the screen? 
Football or baseball.  I got in trouble for saying Seinfeld — apparently that was just in the 90s.  but we don’t have a tv anymore, so it’s a moot point.

2. You’re out to eat; what kind of dressing does ze get on hir salad?
Italian/vinaigrette or blue cheese.

3. What’s one food ze doesn’t like?
Leftovers.  Oatmeal.  Scrambled eggs made by me.  Lentil soup.

4. You go out to eat and have a drink?
Most likely beer.

5. Where did ze go to high school?
The middle of bumfuck nowhere, with a bunch of narrow-minded creeps.  oops did I say that out loud??

6. What size shoe does ze wear?
Uh, 6.5.  haha.

7. If ze was to collect anything, what would it be?
This is really funny.  Once M. vociferously defended hir right to collect coins after I scornfully scoffed at the possibility that anyone would ever spend their money or time doing such a thing.  Right now there is no collecting going on, except maybe of smiles from pretty girls…

8. What is hir favorite type of sandwich?
Grilled cheese.

9. What would this person eat every day if ze could?
Me!  oh wait, seriously?  Pickles for sure.

10. What is hir favorite cereal?
Raisin bran.  but we never eat cereal.  maybe my home-made granola.

11. What would ze never wear?
A thong.

12. What is hir favorite sports team? 
The New England Patriots!

13. Who did ze vote for?
Ze tells me Obama made the final round, but I’m pretty sure there was some Clinton support going on in the primaries.

14. Who is hir best friend?
I wouldn’t say I know.  Definitely not me; we don’t consider ourselves best friends, we’re more like lovers.  But of course we confide in each other.  

15. What is something you do that ze wishes you wouldn’t do?
Oh boy, it’s a toss-up between making a mess and being bossy.  But there’s easy remedies for the latter, so I’ll go with making a mess.  M. jokes that ze can always tell exactly what I did as soon as I came into the house because I leave a trail behind me…

16. What is hir heritage?
Hard-core Irish, of course.  Can’t you tell?

17. You bake hir a cake for hir birthday; what kind of cake?
Well, the required birthday cake is always chocolate, an old old family recipe.  But when I bake a cake because I love hir, it’s always a cream cake with sugar and nutmeg on top.  If you’re very, very nice to me I just might make you one too, random internet interlocutor.

18. Did ze play sports in high school?
Oh hell no.  You kidding me?  Sports?  where we’re from??  We would have to sit down over a nice pot of tea for me to even start talking about our high school, no joke.

19. What could ze spend hours doing?
That’s not a topic for polite company.  Which now that we’re talking about tea, this is.  Suffice it to say that it’s an activity I greatly enjoy as well.

20. What is one unique talent ze has?

Oh, do I have to say?  Making me swoon from across the room with just hir eyes.  Guessing the colour of the next gumball correctly more often than not.  Distracting me from anything and everything by kissing my neck.  

What do you think, baby?  Am I on track?

there’s no place like home

I missed you all so much!  I haven’t even caught up on your blogs yet.  What an experience I had last week…I think a picture is worth a thousand words, so here it is:

Yup, that was my week.  Let me tell you, the view from that outhouse is stellar.  I spent last week with a group of student volunteers in the high desert in AZ, installing water tanks in a remote community of native americans.  With no running water, or much electricity, or cell-phone coverage.  All I have to say is that my little femme self was very brave indeed, and was strong through it all, including the part where I didn’t wash my hair for six days.

The community was amazing — they welcomed us into their homes, they cooked for us and talked with us and taught us how to participate in their activities. But there were some surprisingly awkward moments.  One night they held a traditional story-telling, and a man got up and told their creation story.  It was all good until he launched into the part about the ‘purpose of life’, which is ‘to reproduce’.

Apparently at one point the women got tired of the men, and sent them to live on the other side of the river.  Things went fine for a while until the women started giving birth to ‘monstrosities’.  And then they decided they needed the men after all.  At that point I felt kind of bad, but what can you do.  I wasn’t going to get all up in arms; we were there participating in this incredibly remote and isolated community, and it’s not exactly a surprise to me that most cultures stress heterosexuality as the proper way of life.  But then the story teller went on to say ’so when the gay people go out into the streets and demand their rights and want to get married, just remember that the purpose of life is reproduction’.

And that’s when I just felt awful.  Yes, I know that if men and women don’t get their respective zygotes into close proximity with each other there won’t be any babies, and we will die out.  I know that.  The prospect doesn’t really upset me, but I get why people care.

It made me want to ask him, and ask every other person who believes that I am an unnatural abomination, why am I here?  Do you think I woke up one morning and said ‘hey, what I want to be when I grow up is outside of society, hated, rejected, and marginalized’?  Because I didn’t.  I didn’t choose this.  And my parents didn’t exactly raise me up to be gay either.  I strongly subscribe to the idea that you don’t have control over whom you’re attracted to.  And if you don’t have control over it, then where does it come from?  If sexuality is inborn to any extent, and you believe in god, then BY ITS VERY NATURE it is god-given.  That’s the point of an all-powerful god, right?

So how do you explain it?  Did god make a mistake?  Am I not actually human, but some sort of fantastical devil-made creature?  A demon of sorts?  I tried making out with boys.  I didn’t like it, and when I started making out with a girl it was the most amazing thing I had ever experienced.  That hasn’t changed at all for me.  

And now I’m home.  Listening to music, catching up slowly with you all, and realizing again how important you all are to me.  All the other women on the trip were straight, and mostly very open-minded and well-meaning.  But sometimes it’s just so exhausting to be around people who don’t get it.  One girl, my vacation crush (she was totally butch for a straight girl) actually taught me in all seriousness how to fist a rock.  

She was ostensibly teaching me about rock climbing.  But oh my god I could not keep a straight face — it’s a good thing she was looking at the rock and not at me — I totally lost it when she said ‘just flatten your hand, slide it into the crack, and then make a fist.  Now it’s not going anywhere…this is a really strong hold’  No kidding.  You would have lost it too, believe me.  She’s tall, and definitely butch-y, and very cute.  And straight.  Sigh.  I wonder if she was deliberately messing with my head…

I had to bite my tongue about a hundred times a day to keep from saying something inappropriate — they make so many comments if you said out loud in a bunch of queers we’d all be laughing our asses off, but if I had responded in kind they would have been shocked.  I’m used to having my slightly naughty sense of humour appreciated, you know?  

Not to mention when they all started talking about p0rn, and denouncing the kink in it as ‘unrealistic — no one really has sex like that.  It’s just a fantasy, and the women are all exploited’.  Two things:  one, yes I do have sex like that.  and two, there is p0rn out there that doesn’t exploit women, but it’s dyke p0rn and you would probably still hate it but I think it’s awesome.

How do you have that conversation?  Needless to say I didn’t, and just sat there feeling really really awkward.

In spite of all these trials and tribulations, the trip was actually really fun, and I enjoyed getting to know all the other people I travelled with.  But when M. was standing there at the baggage claim, packing, with a dozen roses, I was so happy I nearly passed out.  Let’s just say I REALLY missed her, and my community.

So once again, thanks for existing.  I really mean it.

um, somebody nominated me…

for an award…this is kind of weird!  But nice.  Thanks, whoever you are.  So, if anyone else wants to nominate me, feel free:  you can click on the graphic and fill in the urls of your favorite lesbian blogs.  

If you want to find more people to nominate, just take a look at my blogroll, where there are tons of cool lesbian blogs.  They all deserve nominations too.  I knew playing “Save the Whales” as a kid was sending me the wrong message — now I want everyone to be nominated and win awards.

and every other blog that you like!  

[But it seems like a lot of work, you have to cut and paste all these different addresses into the form...I don't know that I have the energy even to nominate my esteemed spouse, much less anyone else...]

candlemas/imbolc/groundhog day…and my gender

As usual, the moments of the year that I especially take notice of as I go about my life often have a pagan celebration to go with them, and this one is no exception.  The pagan festival of imbolc is celebrated half-way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and involves fires and weather divinations.  I wonder if I should be a pagan… These past few days have been ecstatic for me as I watch the sun coming back and smell the wild promise of spring on the air, even as there is still a deep snow cover on the ground.  A classmate randomly mentioned it yesterday — she said ‘look how light it is — the sun just snuck up on us’.  I’m so glad that I’m not crazy to be excited about this turning point in the year.  

[I have a real soft spot for beltane too, since it's close to my birthday and also involves bonfires.  Do you sense a theme here?  Really I need to figure out how to have a birthday party that involves bonfires and fertility rituals...any takers? or ideas on where to do such a thing?  I am going to be a prime number again...  Now that deserves some celebration!]

Last month we had a Boston visit from our favorite NY celebrity, and it was a blast.  She asked me about my gender, which sort of startled me; I have spent so much time discussing M.’s non-conforming gender (and non-conforming gender in general) that it hardly occurred to me to think about my own, though I did write about what femme means to me here.  I could make some sort of snarky point about structural sexism here but I won’t.  Suffice it to say that I’m still thinking about it; it seems to me that femme is a more subtle distinction from traditional femininity than is butch, so the need to think through it is less pressing.  But I am planning to write more about this, so thanks, Sinclair, for bringing it up.

On a random note, I find it really funny that someone regularly searches for the title of the song that I used for my post about how we took our wedding rings off lo those many months ago.  I wonder if it’s all different people who are really looking for that song, or if that’s how someone remembers how to find my blog.  If it’s you, leave a comment or something!

the ones i love

I have been thinking about this topic, about why I feel torn about whether or not M. decides to transition, for a long time.  Sometimes I feel really guilty for having any kind of preference at all, because I think it’s a horrible thing to do to another person to say, “look you have to stay exactly the way you are or I’ll break up with you”.  And of course it’s more complicated than that.  

When I meet a butch, all my senses go on high alert.  There’s a look in their eyes that devastates me.  They make me feel like I would do anything for them, defend their honour, bandage their wounds.  Especially that, because (at least the ones I’ve gotten to know well) they have a lot of wounds, and scars from where they’ve healed.

I have a long-running joke with M. about how all transmasculine persons are a little bit crazy.  There was a personal ad on craigslist a while back from a femme who wasn’t fussy, but she did want a butch who wasn’t ‘obviously insane’.  Now that shows a gentle but well-informed femme in my opinion — she knows it’s too much to ask for one who is rational and down to earth.  All she wants is one who is generally functional most of the time.

I think there’s truth in the stereotype — but I also think that given the level of crap that they have to put up with on a daily basis, they’re doing better than okay.  But this is not a post about the psychological profile of the average butch (is there such a thing?  because I suspect they’re none of them average…), it is a post on my feelings about butches and my complicated feelings around transitioning.

I was at a local lesbian cafe with my mom not long before we left for the UK, having lunch.  I was thoroughly distracted by the hot genderqueer dykes who kept walking by, and at one point one of them caught her eye.  She said to me, “I just don’t understand why anyone would want to look like that”.  At the time, I said something namby-pamby about how in spite of my mom’s assertion that these women were unattractive, some members of the lesbian community chose to partner only with women who ‘looked like that’, and clearly thought they were attractive.  

I couldn’t say that I was one of them, because my partner didn’t look like that then, and I was afraid to reveal that I thought they were desperately sexy.  For a lot of complicated reasons that are elucidated by our blogs.  I’m glad I stood up for them, even then, though I didn’t do a very good job of it.  But if I had it to do over again, I would say this:  

I love those women best of all.  I love the square, unapologetic shoulders.  I love the short, spiky hair.  I love the tattoos and the piercings and the attitude makes me swoon.  I love the way they sometimes look at me, as though they really see me, as though they see that I see them, and we have a little tiny moment where we sink into each other and experience, just for a moment, the promise of the fireworks that this butch/femme thing is if done just right.  

I love them.  I love their short, gender-neutral names.  I love that they have female bodies under their boy’s clothes.  I love their soft, soft skin and the smell of their sweat.  I love that they sometimes crush my hand when meeting me for the first time, but always hug me after that.  And I love that when we hug, they do that little collapse moment where we hold each other as though we really loved each other.

Because I do love them.  And on some level I think that they can see that.  

And that’s why I would be sad if M. transitioned.  I would be happy for her, and supportive as best I could be, which I think is a lot.  But I am just not sure if what we are together would be the same afterward.  And I feel that it’s a real betrayal of my soul to say that it wouldn’t change things between us, because I strongly suspect that it would change everything.  I don’t know for sure, and I would never say something definitive about it one way or another until it were a reality in my life.  But it’s a topic that holds a lot of angst for me, because I’m afraid of coercing her to stay the way she is because she’s afraid to lose me.  And I feel guilty, like I’m selfish for not wanting the best for her.

She wrote a post a while back about how she’s not planning to transition, and you can read it if you like.  Reading it makes me feel less guilty, like my feelings aren’t really involved in her plans, for which I am deeply grateful.  But then I feel guilty about feeling grateful.  So there you have it.