My new kitten has been named Mia. I don't know if she cares or not about her name, but she has taken to following me everywhere around the apartment, sitting by the door looking heartbroken if I leave, and laying next to me on the couch looking as adorable as possible while I'm trying to read or watch TV. She's figured out that staying as close to me as possible maximizes the attention she gets. I try and give an even amount of attention to each cat, mostly to reassure Maggie that I still love her and am not replacing her, but it's difficult when you have a tiny black shadow who winds herself around your ankles when you're trying to walk and puts her head directly in the way when you reach for anything.
Remember a while back when I was all mad because of a lack of good trans literature? My system came to my rescue yet again! The literature IS out there, and I just needed someone else to find it for me. "Someone else" being my working-class literature professor, who assigned a book called Stone Butch Blues for the class. It's by Leslie Feinberg and it is a FANTASTIC read. I recommend it to all.
Some of you are probably thinking, "He's crazy, right? He's been so adamant that sexual orientation and gender identity are two different things and now he's talking about a book with 'butch' in the title, and butch applies to lesbians, who typically identify as female! I do not understand!!!"
Don't worry. I shall explain. Like, right now.
Yes, I have been very insistent that gender identity and sexual orientation are two different things. That's how it applies to ME, and that's how it applies to many people. However, there are exceptions to every rule.
Maybe I should have covered this before, but honestly, I was focused on how gender identity and sexual orientation apply to myself and the majority of people, which was probably very selfish in retrospect. And, seeing as I am an exception to many rules, I feel bad about it. It's just that stuff like this is generally very difficult to explain, and sometimes it's more convenient to explain it in the simplest terms possible. But here is a more complicated aspect of gender identity and sexual orientation, put as simply as I can:
Gender is a spectrum.
Sexual orientation is also a spectrum.
If you really think about it, EVERYTHING is a spectrum. No one really defines anything in exactly the same way, right? For example, you probably have a different definition of "femininity" than I do. The guy sitting next to you probably has his own idea of what that is. We each define our own gender and sexual orientation and race and class and religion and just about anything else we can think of in our own terms.
The thing is, since everything is a spectrum and not a category, things are bound to blend together sometimes.
I am NOT the leading expert on butches. The term, the identity, the lives of, all of that, don't ask me about it because I'll be like, "Um...right...and speaking of dinosaurs, did you know that triceratops were like the deer of the Cretaceous period?" and you'll be like, "Whoa! He's like a ninja of distraction!" and then you'll be so absorbed in me talking about dinosaurs that you'll totally forget what you asked me.
Stone Butch Blues covers an area where gender identity and sexual orientation merge: a specific community of butch lesbians, who often dress in male clothes and can be perceived as male, but generally still identify themselves as female.
I don't want to go any farther into this description, for fear of:
a) offending someone
b) offering up potentially wrong information, seeing as I am again not an expert
I can relate to what happens in the story on a certain level. I am often perceived as female and it annoys the f*ck out of me. I cannot relate on some levels because I am NOT a woman. There IS a difference between transmen and the particular type of butch described in the story.
What really struck me about Stone Butch Blues are the areas to which I CAN relate. The prejudice, discrimination, and blatant humiliation; being perceived in a way that you don't want to be perceived; being different and unable to help it; everyone trying to change who you are to fit their own standards. It's something we all go through, EVERYONE. I don't care who you are, whether you're a part of the LGBT community or not, I can guarantee that you've experienced some kind of prejudice or discrimination based on something about yourself. Everyone has. It sucks and it shouldn't be that way at all, but it still happens.
I knew my system wouldn't fail me. I now have another book to add to my arsenal.
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