The Bastardization of Identity
To “identify” has taken on a special meaning in the GLBTLOLWTFBBQ and feminist communities. Let me illustrate with a short dramatization:
Person Who Is Obviously Not X: “I am X.”
Sane Person: “No you aren’t.”
Person Who Is Obviously Not X: “How dare you?!? I identify as X! Who are you to question my identity!”
“Identifying” has become a means for people to lay claim to/appropriate groups they are not a part of, with the added bonus that anyone who dares to question the “identity” is villified as closed-minded/transphobic/hateful/etc. We are expected to buy into the nonsense that claiming, wishing for, seeing oneself as, wanting to be seen/treated as, thinking that one should have been, etc., is the same/on a level with actual being, or that there is no “being,” and the category being appropriated is something that anyone can choose or not choose.
Two examples of this behavior are bisexual women who “identify” as lesbians, and “mtfs”/”trans women” (in quotations because it is, of course, impossible for a male to “transition” into femalehood or womanhood) who “identify” as women.
Some women are not yet aware of their true sexuality and some just flat out lie, but I can scarcely imagine why any woman who openly admits to bisexual behavior or desires would “identify” as a lesbian, so I googled it, and, not surprisingly, came up with nonsense. In many cases, part of the philosophy behind “identifying,” whether conscious or not, is that words can mean whatever the hell we want them to, and that is clearly illustrated here:
“If you define a lesbian as a woman who emotionally, sexually, and spiritually centers her life around women, then I am a lesbian.”
Sorry, but a lack of sexual/romantic interest in/relationships with men is part of it, too. Hell, by this definition, any straight woman who has mostly women in her life is a “lesbian.”
This example is just sad:
“I remember talking one time with a bisexual friend about how I wished I could identify as a lesbian because that word sounded so powerful. Lesbian women sounded so sure of who they were. I wished I was that sure.”
“Others, for political and social reasons, may wish to identify with the lesbian & gay communities. “
Ok…pretending you’re something you’re not and appropriating lesbianism…exactly whose politics does this further?
Assuming this is a real question, the personal confusion here is pathetic:
“So basically I am only attracted to women and have only ever been with women but for the past year have been dating a guy. I still feel as though I’m lesbian though and I really think it’s only this particular guy.”
She’s only attracted to women, yet she’s dating a guy. Is she not attracted to the guy she’s dating?
I won’t even get into posting examples of the “mtf” and “trans woman” appropriation of womanhood (not to mention lesbianism, intersexuality, motherhood, and more!) because you can find that it has exploded in “queer,” GLBWHATEVER, and even feminist blogs/communities all over the internet like a sewer pipe stuffed with dynamite.
The sad part is when people who really are what they claim to be bend their knees to the specious “identites” of others by “identifying” themselves. Anyone who is really a woman, or lesbian, or whatever else, and “identifies” as such is only supporting the appropriation of her identity (true identity, not the bullshit “you-are-whatever-you-say-you-are” identity) by fakes, wannabes, and privileged/ignorant morons who have spent too much time swallowing postmodern, linguistic nihilism to recognize the importance (or even the possibility) of accuracy, truth, and the political necessity of certain group identifications.
I do not “identify” as a woman. I am one.
I do not “identify” as a lesbian. I am one.
What Is A Butch? Part 4: Butches Aren’t “Doms”
This is another topic to file under “Avoiding Patriarchal Language.” Language constructs reality, and imprecise, incorrect, and negative language helps to construct nightmares.
No healthy, consensual relationship involves domination. Domination/submission is the language for master/slave (and other abusive) relationships; it is not, in general, proper language for the characterization of relationships that butches and their partners are in.
It seems to me that what people often mean when they characterize butches as “dominant” is closer to something like “taking the lead” or “initiating.” It is obvious that these relatively neutral ways of behaving have nothing to do with the harmful behavior of dominating.
What Is A Butch? Part 3: Not Trans-Anything
A blunt summary of the concluding point of the previous post is that gender does not exist except as a tool of oppression and a cultural fiction.
Proper conceptualizations of any given phenomenon must eschew patriarchal language. To my absolute horror, I have read people try to paint butchness as a “gender identity,” usually some type of transgender. Aside from the fact that (in the U.S., at least) butchness does not have the cultural stamp of approval that is the fundamental component of any gender, and is thus not a gender at all, the term “transgender” is problematic from a feminist perspective because it defines people in terms of the patriarchy’s (fictional, harmful) categories. It reifies gender with the claim that those so labeled transcend/cross/etc. it(depending on the sense of “trans-” implied). While it is sometimes useful to describe using patriarchal terms in order to underscore opposition to the default or expected patriarchal order, there can be nothing healthy about a personal identity or a definition expressed or conceptualized in patriarchal terms. Besides, the patriarchally-brainwashed point out that butches aren’t like “regular women” every chance they get – they don’t need the help.
Perhaps more horrifying is the use of “butch/ftm,” as if there is some sort of connection between the two. This sometimes rests on the idea that both butches and ftms exist on the same “spectrum.” Spectrum of what, though? Some say masculinity, but, masculinity being nothing more than a patriarchal wet dream, no such spectrum exists.
Give The Patriarchy Back Its Toys; They’re Dirty
This is a topic that leaves me sputtering and slapping my forehead so, I scarcely know where to begin to express myself coherently.
Let me begin with a perspective. I actually think of this as “the truth,” but I refer to it as a perspective to put the reader into my shoes.
I’ve already discussed masculinity and femininity. They are fictions. They are tools of oppression, perpetrated through the generations by various means: shaming, ostracization, violence, etc. They are examples of what are called “gender roles,” social roles, stereotypes and expectations arbitrarily assigned to people based on genitalia and secondary sex characteristics. Clearly, they are bad things.
Holding onto that state of mind, imagine my shock, confusion, and irritation as I behold the following sequence of events:
The “roles” in “gender roles” is mostly omitted. People now speak of “gender,” or, sometimes “gender identity.” People talk about “choosing” and “finding” their gender identity. They talk about “gender” as if it’s a personal characteristic. They speak of it as if it were something positive. They don’t want to disrupt or destroy the system of gender; they want to play with it, respect it, champion it as a form of diversity, and so forth and so on.
Did I miss something? When did gender become something positive? When did something that is more or less forced on us become a legitimate part of one’s identity? How does one choose something that is by definition chosen for us?
Thinking the meaning of “gender” changed when my back was turned, I did a little research on this topic. I checked dozens of dictionaries, paper and online. I checked all sorts of websites: websites for “gender” clinics, psychiatry websites, “queer” forums, personal websites that described someone’s “personal gender.” Most of them were too vague to be of help, using the terms without explanation, either explicit or implicit. Maddeningly, several wasted my time with what we call a “recursive definition” in computer science, using the word being defined in the definition. Some defined “gender identity” in terms of “gender,” although the two seemed to be used interchangeably in many other places.
Most recently, I have come across several books and blogs written by and/or about transsexuals and/or the transgendered, and, occasionally, extrapolated to everyone, and they seem to confirm that “gender” has not changed so much after all; they write of it as a kind of social role. What is utterly bizarre, however, is that they and many others seem to think that one or more “genders” is a part of who they and others are, and/or are freely chosen. That they conceive of “gender” as something positive, or at least neutral, is unambiguous. The message coming out loud and clear is that (most of them) want no part of being forced into patriarchal gender, but there is some other “gender” system, it has more than two components, hell, practically infinitely many components, and everybody can have whatever “gender” they want to have, and if only everyone would follow this system, it could help to put an end to genders being forced on people.
My short response to this is, what the hell? The longer response is hey, you know that saying about the master’s tools? Just as some people think they can somehow drag two specific genders, masculinity and femininity, out of the patriarchal sandbox and play nice with them as they choose, others (and there is certainly overlap) think they can take the the whole dull hack saw of gender itself out of the butcher’s shop and neatly organize their lives with it without severing any veins.
Now, I know that the dumb and dull masses (here I cannot truly speak for populations outside of the U.S.) are content to spend their lives grazing on patriarchal fictions, sheep happily fenced in by more or less rigid gender roles. Perhaps foolishly, though, I thought that the various sorts of “queer” people would have more of a feminist consciousness than to be duped into the same old lie: that Gender Is Good, Gender Is Natural. At least some of them know that “genders” are culturally and historically contingent, as I often see mention of “two-spirits” and this culture’s x and that civilization’s y, yet they continue to speak of some sort of personal gender, as if it were something that exists outside of society. Even some of those who eschew claiming a gender seem to think it’s like choosing not to wear a belt or get a tattoo, as opposed to a significant act of bravery of political ramifications, that, nevertheless, is not completely within their power to live out, to the extent that most (if not all) societies will continue to gender them whether they accept it or not.
Gender is a cultural phenomenon; there are no individual genders. It is a system created on a foundation of sexual difference, so it makes no sense to say that “anyone can be x gender;” if anyone can be x, then x is not sex-specific, and thus isn’t a gender! If we’re talking about personal characteristics that are not sex-specific…wouldn’t the proper term for that be “personality”?
Gender is not something to play with. It’s something to be destroyed.
What Is A Butch? Part 2: Reclamation of Masculinity
Something that I did not touch on in the previous post’s denunciation of the descriptive and/or definitive use of “masculine” in relation to butches (and everyone else) was the possibility of the reclamation of the word. I do not think the term “masculine” can be legitimately reclaimed by anyone for the same reason I do not think it can be claimed by anyone: namely, because what it denotes does not truly exist.
The proper, fundamental definition of masculinity (as well as femininity) is: A particular set of personal characteristics + an unfounded sexist perspective on who can/does/ought to display/claim/embody them. Insofar as one accepts that there is no reason to believe that only/mainly men/boys can/are/ought to be the displayers/claimers/embodiers, and that this attitude, conscious or not, is an integral part of what masculinity is, then it is clear from this analysis alone that masculinity is a fictional concept.
However, even if we try to separate the characteristics that masculinity denotes from the sexist connection to men/boys, we run into trouble. First of all, just what would we be separating? Without the underlying concept of “like a man,” how do we know what masculinity consists of? Not only does masculinity lack a neat and tidy list of what it does and does not denote; whatever semblance of a list there is remains hopelessly culturally-contingent.
Even if we ignore this difficulty, or qualify our use of “masculinity” as a set of characteristics that are generally recognized as such by, perhaps, most or some people in a given time and place, the fact remains that we are, curiously, naming a random assortment of personal characteristics. What possible reason for this could one have? Would we take other random sets of characteristics, perhaps something like introversion, manual dexterity, poor reading skills, a fondness for animals, and color-blindedness, and name them something-inity?
This analysis illustrates the inherently patriarchal nature of the term “masculine” by showing us that sexism is the glue that ties the various contents of masculinity together: without the unifying concept of “this is what men should be/are,” masculinity is just a rag tag bunch of possible personality components that anyone can have some or all of. In summary, although it would be theoretically possible to separate the characteristics from the sexism, the sexism is the only reason to conceptually group the characteristics together, and so the entire concept crumbles; thus masculinity is inseparable from sexism. It is to be rejected in its entirety, as it cannot be accepted in part.
What Is A Butch? Part 1: The Problem With Masculinity
As someone who seeks butches for dating, I have some insight into the issues surrounding the term “butch.” Having sought dates primarily through the Internet, I have worked to compose many a description that was meant to convey what I think is encompassed by the word “butch,” and I know something about what it is to describe butches. I have experienced the irritation of suffering through what I saw as clear self-misidentification as butch. All that is to say is, I know the importance of the question: What is a butch?
A simple response might be: A masculine woman.
But what is masculinity? My expensive Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of The English Language tells me that masculine is:
1. pertaining to or characteristic of a man or men.
2. having qualities traditionally ascribed to men, as strength and boldness.
…and the rest discuss grammatical uses of the term.
Hopefully, the problem here is obvious: We have a word we want to apply to women, yet it is defined wholly in terms of men. On the face of it, it may not seem such a big deal to refer to one group of people with a term that derives its meaning from a different group of people; however, when we consider the fact that the patriarchy does it’s damnedest to define women and men in opposition to one another, to perpetuate the charade that there are certain natural, universal, terribly significant differences between the two groups that justify women’s oppression, and in the process arbitrarily builds and re-builds grab bags of human characteristics called “masculinity” and “femininity” to further these causes, it becomes obvious that the concept of masculinity is but another tool of oppression.
When we examine what characteristics are commonly referred to as “masculine,” we find assertiveness, physical strength, bravery, sexual prowess, and many other qualities that are not only obviously possible for any human being, but have in fact been a part of the personality of all sorts of human beings. Some people mistakenly believe that this is what constitutes masculinity: a set of behaviors, looks/styles, and states of mind. The crucial concept that they miss, however, is that masculinity does encompass these things, with the qualification that men (and sometimes boys) are the default, original, natural, rightful, and/or most appropriate owners of these demeanors, looks, and thinking patterns. Thus, the man-centric definition (and popular usage).
The concept of masculinity being primarily about men cannot be separated from the word; it is defined in terms of men. It isn’t an originally neutral term that was hijacked; it is patriarchy-manufactured, -maintained, -stamped and -approved. One cannot use it to affirm certain characteristics in a person without simultaneously affirming the fiction that these characteristics derive from men. Clearly, “masculine” is not an appropriate adjective to use at all, let alone in reference to the bold patriarchy-destroyers that butches are. Such usage would confer the status of wannabe or imitation man on the woman thus described.
Not only does Dismantling The Patriarchy 101 tell us that a key dismantling tactic is the rejection of patriarchal language, it also instructs us as to the importance of defining oppressed groups on their own terms, so, the question remains: What is a butch?
Lesbian + Feminist Is Born
My name is H. and this is a blog about lesbian issues, feminist issues, and, particularly, issues that lie at the intersection of lesbianism and feminism. It is written from the perspective of an introvert, a single lesbian, a born and raised U.S. citizen, a butch-lover who is not femme, a social pessimist, and other things that I can’t think of right now.
This blog is not about the legitimacy of lesbianism or feminism (overall).
This blog, or parts thereof, may not be comprehensible to those who do not have a basic understanding of feminism. It may not be updated regularly. My opinions are subject to change (with good reason, of course) or deepen. Posts are subject to random, far-in-the-future edits as I think of ways to clarify my writing. Comments are open to all who don’t spam, demonstrate the ability to type comprehensible English, stay on-topic, refrain from needlessly repeating themselves, and refrain from name-calling and trifling squabbles. In-the-know commenters are encouraged to guide clueless commenters.
