I recently read a Facebook status up-date from an acquaintance that stated, “I do not realize why lesbians date women that appear to be guys. If you should be into chicks that seem like dudes, get with a just guy.” I became not 
just astonished that this status post ended up being authored by a lesbian that is self-identified but also that many for the reviews beneath the status lauded her assertion that lesbians should just date ladies who are feminine. My acquaintance’s belief is shared by many and, as being a feminine lesbian whoever fiancГ© falls more on the androgynous region of the feminine-masculine spectrum, I’m often asked point blank why i simply don’t date men. But, i have only been inquired about my choice for androgynous women by heterosexuals and gay guys, never ever by another lesbian. It isn’t from them: which they think femme/femme and butch/butch relationships are “unnatural. that i do believe that lesbians are resistant to adopting such archaic views, but i hear the exact opposite” regardless of who holds these views, these two perspectives are generally casually stated as matter-of-fact without giving any considered to the way they might be rooted into the misogynous, gender-normative, and heterosexist values therefore deeply ingrained inside our culture.
Author Kristin Russo recently compiled a list that is clever of13 Things not saying to Your Lesbian Friend” for Cosmopolitan mag’s site. To arrive at quantity 11 had been “However, if you would like girls that seem like guys. the trend is to would you like to date guys?” Russo’s reaction: “I’m not sure. You want to date my girlfriend who ‘looks like a boy’ if you like boys so much, why don’t? Case dismissed, overruled, approach the bench, goodnight.” Her snarky comeback is fast color to toss at somebody who just isn’t amply trained in, or might not also have the ability to start to understand, the intricacies of sex (terminology used to categorize biological distinctions) and gender (requirements developed by society in regards to the ways gents and ladies are meant to look and act).
This could come as shocking news for some people, however it is an entirely arbitrary, socially constructed standard that guys should wear bow-ties and females should wear pearls, and not the other way around. Moreover, guidelines regarding how gents and ladies should dress and act are constantly changing, further evincing why these constructs are subjective. It absolutely was once considered “unladylike” for “real ladies” (owned by classes that are certain racial teams) to complete “manly” things, such as for instance work beyond your house and wear pants. (Some sources report that Vogue mag failed to feature a lady in jeans until 1939.) Today, women can be working not in the house and continuing to produce progress towards securing jobs usually held by males. Also, there are lots of feminine presenting ladies who wear jeans and/or jeans on a basis that is regular. The power-pantsuit senators that are wearing CEOs of today aren’t looked at as wanting to “be like males” because culture has expanded its concept of exactly exactly what this means become a woman.
There was a standard myth that every self-identified women, no matter sexual orientation, who fall in the androgynous or masculine region of the sex range present just how I emphasize regardless of sexual orientation because people also often conflate sexual orientation with gender expression that they do in an attempt to “be men. You can find androgynous and masculine presenting females, such as for instance model Elliot Sailors, whom identify as straight.) Nevertheless, the stark reality is that none for the ladies we have actually dated have ever desired to be a guy, nor did we ever would like them become guys. They certainly were simply being true to themselves and observe that there was more than simply a proven way to be a lady, like the trailblazers whom dared to pave the real means for us to be attorneys and use trousers in the face of being told why these habits had been reserved for men.
Whenever I asked butch-identified Nuyorican author, poet and filmmaker Gabrielle Rivera to discuss her experiences with individuals let’s assume that she would like to “be a person” due to the way she dresses, she claimed:
Never ever for starters second while using males’s clothing or other sort of clothes, do we feel just like i do want to be a guy. You’ll find nothing about being a heterosexual guy that is at all attractive to me personally. I wear ‘men’s clothes’ because i love the visual. Personally I think sexier in a button-down and a bow-tie than We ever have in a gown. I will be drawn to men’s clothing me to be in control of how my body and person are perceived because it allows. No one has visual ownership of my curves, breasts, behind, or any other part of my body in men’s clothing. (Why do we have to gender components of clothing so hard anyhow?) Like settle down every person, the entire world is not planning to spin out from the galaxy. They may be just garments.
Brooklyn-based butch Susan Herr, founder of dapperQ, a fashion and empowerment site when it comes to unconventionally masculine, expanded with this stating that her spoken term piece “The Butches Conceit” is a reply to being questioned about her appearance and “speaks towards the fundamental attractiveness to be authentic.”
In her own article “My Gender Is Not Yours to determine,” LK Weiss, founder associated with Maine fashion weblog Jack Tar 207, writes:
Why is a guys’s top a males’s top and never a ladies’ top? What is the real difference? Whether it’s the cut, should never We look for just what cut fits my own body most readily useful? Therefore if we look for a top that is cut to match my human body well, also it is actually through the J. Crew guys’s department, does which means that we’m attempting to make the planet think I’m a person? No. This means I decide to wear clothes that fits my human body the real way i was born. Why is a tie or perhaps a bowtie ‘men’s’? Could it be because historically these people were just donned by guys? Historically we additionally wore bathing that is wool! Historically doesn’t make a difference anymore. Ties do not fit in with guys. Ties are an accessory–just just like a scarf, view or belt–that do not have a gender. When you de-gender-ize clothes, whatever you see is a person.
Writer Lindy western place it best in her post “Fierce Women’s Judo Competitors Offend One Man’s Delicate Sensibilities”: “To be clear: any such thing in the world that a female can perform doing is womanly. It really is impossible for a lady become unwomanly because a lady is a lady. Consequently, any such thing a lady does is womanly by default.”
I just are already interested in a female whom can fearlessly go out of your home without having a fall of makeup products, who appears dazzling with brief locks, and who has got a seductive silhouette in a blazer that is masculine. Certainly not performs this alone make me personally intimately enthusiastic about men or imply that i ought to be. I will be still a lesbian. Although guys can look razor- razor- sharp in matches, that are simply made from material all things considered, as a lesbian, they are found by me to be sexier on women.