It seems like once you have identified as homosexual or even if you haven't you tend to get grouped in the traditional rolls of either butch (the masculine side) or femme (the feminine side). For the longest time and even often today there is no middle ground given. You have to choose which you are and it is looked weird upon if you date with in your label. I don't know how many times my friends looked at me weird when I was dating my last girlfriend because we both have a very butch appearance and attitude. However I do not identify as butch or not in the usual sense of the label any ways. I tend to be in the middle Im not truly butch or femme more gentlemanly and sensitive with masculine look. Its awkward because people don't usually see this and they see me as to butch or to femme for what they are looking for in a partner. Its ridiculous that even in the discriminated groups there are those that are ostracized. And its not just with the Butch/Femme Dichotomy. Its in the entire LBGT community. The Lesbians and Gay Men tend to look down on the Bisexual individuals. Yet they get the same looks and the same discrimination that we do... more in fact. Not only do they get discrimination from the heterosexual community but also from Gay men and Lesbians. I have a feeling that this is in part due to the large number of young women who have decided to jump on the band wagon of the recent trend of young straight women saying they are bisexual to impress their potential boyfriends. The young women and young women and men who use bisexuality as an excuse to be promiscuous give bisexuals a bad name.
Butch or Fem.... Why Choose? and other ranting about discriminations within the LGBT community
By Equality4All89 - Posted on June 8th, 2008
It must vary by community, because in Minneapolis, we don't have that kind of role playing at all. I mean, sure, there are some people who embrace a butch or femme identity, but for the most part, people can just be themselves. I and all my friends are in the neither category. We can be femme when we need to be and butch when we need to be. Our relationships are completely egalitarian.
I have heard of communities that still embrace the butch femme thing, though. It was once (and maybe still is in some areas) a way of passing in society. Framing their relationships in a way that straight people could understand, i.e. masculine and feminine, gave them some legitimacy. Also, in the past there were no relationships but straight relationships to emulate. Have you ever read "Stone Butch Blues" by Leslie Feinberg? It is a fascinating work of autobiographical fiction that tells the experience of her GLBT community in the pre-Stonewall '60's.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Maybe its just the fact that I live in a very rural area and have all of my out life.
No I have not read this book but I will try and find it and give it a look. Thank you for the suggestion I am always looking for Movies, Books and other art forms pertaining to the LGBT community
Stone Butch Blues should be required reading before you get into the club. It's amazing. It is not the feel-good book of the year, though. It's pretty intense.You should also read as much poetry you can get by Adrienne Rich, especially from Dream of a Common Language (that's her most lesbionic work). My partner recently read one called Name All the Animals that she said was pretty good. It was by a lesbian author, had a lesbian main character, but I don't remember the author's name. Also, Dorothy Allison is a lesbian (Bastard Out of Carolina and Cavedweller). The Wicked books, by Gregory Maguire, have a very gay subtext. Let's see...what else? I'll think about it...
Ooh. At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill and The Line of Beauty by I don't remember whom.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
My experience has been similar to Ediblewoman's, in that I see very little but complete acceptance of bisexual people among the many gay people I know. I have heard some people make ignorant and discriminatory comments about bisexuals before, but I can't recall any such comments from any of my gay friends.
I'm a guy who is attracted to guys, but I totally understand why someone, male or female, might be attracted to females or to people of both sexes.
As far as people being more masculine or more feminine or a mix of the two or neither or both, I don't make any assumptions about who someone else will find attractive, whether they are mixed sex or same sex couples. A girly pom-pom girl type may be attracted to another girly-girl on her team, or she may be attracted to a female auto mechanic with short hair, or to one kind of man or another... it makes no difference to me. And I know big, macho football player type guys who are attracted to sporty, strong girls and others who are attracted to the dainty little type of woman and others who are attracted to another beefy hunky, male teammate... or to a guy who is not like him at all. Again, I say good for each of them... seek out the one that YOU like.
My next door neighbor is a beefy, hunky man built of solid muscle, who likes to play sports, goes out to the ballet and theater, paints art in his own studio, is highly educated and intelligent, has a successful career as a doctor, tells funny stories, cooks a delicious creme brule, has revovated his house and garden to be a showcase, etc. He's the last person who would pigeonhole himself into a category and convince himself that he can't do one thing or another because he has some sort of a sex role to play. None of his gay friends tell him he should stop cooking or planting flowers because it's too feminine or that he should refrain from playing rugby because it's too masculine.
I don't mean to negate what you're saying and I agree with the point that people should be able to be themselves. I just wonder where you are finding these people who are so jusgemental and if it might be an issue of the circles you spending time in.