i love you male lesbians! i love you lesboys, i love you guydykes, i love you butch men, i love you ftm lesbians, i love you gentleman dykes, i love you transmasc lesbians, i love you genderqueer lesbians, I love you nonbinary lesbians, i love you gender non conforming lesbians, i love you bigender lesbians, i love you genderfluid lesbians, i love you intersex lesbians, i love you two spirit lesbians, i love you lesbians who were men, i love you lesbian men!

i love the many ways one can be a lesbian, and the variety of identities that the community contains! be loud, be proud, be your lesbian self!

“For all our boyish clothes and mannerisms... we women did not pass as men or boys... our point was not to be men; our point was to be butch and get away with it... A dyke learns much of her social function from other dykes... Whether she ever has the chance to enter a Gay bar or not, she imitates dykes, not men. She may identify with traditionally dyke figures: Diana the Huntress, Beebo Brinker, Gertrude Stein, Bessie Smith, Natalie Barney, Queen Christina, Joan of Arc, Amy Lowell, Oya, St Barbara, modern athletes, and other leaders... the social message she bears and is delivering is not ‘I am a man’ but rather ‘Here is another way to be a woman.’”

-- Judy Grahn

⚠️ WARNING⚠️

⚠️ NUANCED TAKE ⚠️

But transness does not equal gender non-conformity. A trans person can be just as gender non-conforming as a cis gnc person. Gender fuckery is for literally everybody. The inverse is also true here. A trans man can be as stereotypically masculine as he likes and a trans woman can be as stereotypically feminine as she likes. It's all irrelevant. Fuck around. Have fun with it. Or don't, and be trapped by gender prison forever. You do you boo❤️

Let men be GNC.

What the title says.

Let men be gender non conforming.

Let men embrace whatever is going on with their self expression.

Let men be men in any way, shape or form possible.

Let men be whatever the fuck they want.

Male impersonators and women who performed in men's clothes of the later 19th and early 20th century in America and Europe

Gladys Bentley - a prominent figure during the Harlem Renaissance and out lesbian who brought her own unique spin to male impersonation

Vesta Tilley - a music hall performer and was England's highest earning women in the 1890s

Josephine Baker - first African-American woman to star in a major motion picture – Zouzou (1934) and was bisexual

Renate Müller - famous actress in the 1930s

Marlene Dietrich - stage and film actress and singer who helped Jewish people escape during World War 2 and was said to be bisexual

Jackie 'Moms' Mabley - one of the first gay and female stand up comedians, performed her lesbian based stand up routines in a suit and tie

Ella Wesner - a popular Vaudeville performer during the Gilded Age

Bessie Bonehill - one of the most wealthy performers during her time, a Vaudeville performer and singer

Anne Hindle - the first to do male impersonation in the United States

Those whose sexuality is not listed were assumedly straight, which was not uncommon of the women doing male impersonation, though the audience they attracted were largely lesbians

Y'all are fine with GNC guys until we're not conventionally attractive, or we're trans, or we're suddenly too masculine or too feminine for your taste, or until we use pronouns you didn't expect based off our presentations, or we have confusing presentations, or we're not GNC on purpose, or we're anything other than skinny white cis dudes in maid dresses.

Willex but they're both non binary.

They talk about how as a kid, it always felt weird being a young man, and growing up, their mind shifted when someone referred to them as "that guy" as if they just remembered how they are perceived.

Willie talks about in school, classmates would mock him for putting his hair on a braid and teachers would say he should cut it if he wanted to look respectable, he didn't, he felt pretty with his braided, he liked brushing his hair slowly and curling strands around his fingers, he started to give a middle finger to anyone who made fun of it, but he did wondered "what if i do look like a girl" and the thought never felt weird on his skin.

Alex talks about how he never could quite grasp what it meant to be a man, he used to think he'd never understand and would never fit in, but he figured out that if he tried to hard to act and look like a guy, he'd blow it, so he (unconsciously) took the mannerisms and the slang boys around him used, it wasn't an effort, it wasn't an effort to be around his sister and her friends and the girls at school, til someone called him out and said "boys don't act and don't speak like that" and suddenly he felt like being torn apart, thinking of every move and word and how they appeared to others.

Willie mentions the portion of androgynous kids at his neighborhood and how confident they looked but also how they never floated above the world, simply existing as if none saw smth wrong with them, Willie felt safe under that thought. Alex talks about sneaking into clubs and dancing the whole night and how none cared the way he moved, except to cheer him on it, dance always blurred the lines between masculine and feminine moves, he was just Alex, til someone in the club would compliment him and finish with calling him "girl", with no ounce of mockery, while that didn't made him feel right, didn't made him feel wrong either.

Neither of them ever showed a problem with liking "girl stuff", it was never a secret that Alex had a thing for pink and none in his band ever said smth bad abt it, Willie knew the adults always criticized his hair, his pierced ear and all his bracelets, but he didn't care it was just them being old, most of kids his age were getting those.

Things only became quite clear when they became ghosts and entered the new queer generation, that talked loudly about gender non conforming people and mixed up pronouns. Sure it sounded like a whole mess, but Willie was all about the mess. Alex was startled by how everything came to surface so fast and had a ton of questions.

Julie was already used to answering his questions, so after explaining what gender non conformity is and non binary different labels to Alex and Willie, she proposed to make experimentation party. Flynn was invited, the boys were there to mess around, everyone was trying on makeup and painting nails, cross dresing, some harmful mockery was made by Luke and Reggie but dutifully corrected by the girls, leaving even Willie and Alex with a new lesson. God, how awful was their time? Of course Luke and Reggie apologized, even Alex apologized because he never thought that jokes like were actually harmful.

After their little party, it wasn't unusual for them painting nails, even Reggie was wearing more eyeliner before their gigs (hell knows how he applied it without a mirror) but it was for fun. It felt different for Willie to have his nails painted and putting on girl shorts, for Alex, it was about intertwined terms when referring to him. It felt so new to both of them, and different, and old. It felt like realizing he was gay again. Willie was the first to tell Alex he didn't felt like he was boy entirely, like it was okay for him to behave like one, but he didn't felt attached to it like an identity, Alex said it was okay and that he'd still be his boyfriend.

As Willie started to present way more androgynous than before, now as a conscious decision, Alex started to question himself about that, spiraling again about what changes he'd had to adapt to if he thought about his gender identity. It was so easy for Willie, just changing without really changing. But for Alex, it carried multiple questions like, would that make him not a guy anymore? Would he still be gay? Would he have to come out again? What if he asked to change pronouns? "You don't have to do anything." Julie said. "There aren't rules to be non binary, hon, you see me? I'm genderfluid but i just love being girly." Flynn said. "And if there were, they certainly wouldn't apply to us." Willie said. Alex wanted to give it a chance. He didn't wanted to make a big deal out of it, so he just gave everyone a heads up before starting practice.

"She as in...girl?" Luke asked when Alex told he was going by he/she now. "Yeah." Alex didn't felt like explaining everything inside of it, sounded too complicated for the first conversation they were having about it. "Cool. Is that it?" And before Alex could say yes, Willie called out and said he was also changing pronouns, going only by they/them. Sure, everyone said. Reggie got confused and had the same questions Alex did when he spiraled about it, Alex said it didn't had to change anything, he was still alex, still gay, still their drummer, "whatever change it is, it's good change." They said. Alex agreed.

Except Alex didn't changed that much apart from being referred as her, being called girlfriend occasionally by his partner, and Reggie ranking girl petnames, Alex was okay with princess but not with dollface. Especially when Reggie added a southern accent to it. Willie changed, a hundred times, going back and forth. Alex liked their changes and celebrated each one.

So Alex and Willie were most definitely not girls, but they weren't exactly attached to being guys either. They were just ghosts. A ghost drummer, a ghost skater and each other's ghostfriend.

Protecting ourselves from the experience of oppression within the patriarchy

All women experience dysphoria because all women are oppressed. The system is set up against us so severely that we're expected to hate our bodies and behaviours, and spend our lives fixing that to appease the patriarchal expectations placed upon us to play the part of woman.

When we don't fit - a few things can happen: 1. We think this means we aren't women and transition. We want a penis becuase we see the benefit of having one in this society. Being male means we would no longer experience the oppression women face.

2. We try harder to do what is expected of us to be women. We perform femininity to gain acceptance and benefit by obeying what patriarchy demands of us.

3. we reject the stereotype and refuse to conform to gender stereotypes. We become GNC. We reject gender norms and choose not to obey what patriarchy demands of us.

All of these are attempts to liberate ourselves from the suffering the patriarchy inflicts upon women.

But none of them truly liberate us. Transitioning doesn't liberate us because we'll always be biologically female and will still experience facets of sex based oppression. Much like being GNC, the patriarchy won't see us as male. Men won't see us as one of them and we'll still be punished. Performing femininity doesn't liberate us because it hobbles us financially, physically, and spiritually. We spend more money and time trying to achieve this, we put our bodies through phsyical trauma - heels, waxing, surgery, makeup, and beauty treatments all consume our resources - that we have less of in general because we're paid less and generally spend more of our free time performing menial tasks. Being GNC doesn't liberate us because GNC women are rejected by society - we are punished for not conforming to gender stereotypes. This punishment can manifest in loss of employment, loss of support, abuse and ostracism.

I'm not suggesting we choose to do these things as a conscious act of self protection, I'm suggesting that they're partially a response to the feeling of existing as a woman under a system that is against us. I also write this from the perspective of a western woman living in relative safety in Australia. I accept that the experience will differ for women elsewhere in the world.

So the only way we can fix this is to fix the system itself. And to fix the system, we have to get to the root of the problem. That's what the "radical' in radical feminism actually means: To the root. We seek to fix the system by getting to the root of why it's broken.

We have to settle for now to live in the system we're currently in, and all three are ways we can survive in it until we achieve something.

transmasc dysphoric culture is running around shirtless when you were younger and questioning why your trans when your older.

Dysphoric culture is!

Also, a lot of trans people had moments as kids that they don't realize were signs of gender non-conformity until they're older. It definitely happened to mod (and life sure would've been easier if younger mod has received trans education...). Hopefully though you can walk around shirtless again someday anon if you want to!

I don't think enough Cis people are worried about the current political violence against gender non-conforming people, because their apathy is short-sighted. If you think the cross hairs of this violence is reserved solely on Transgender people and Drag Queens, you will be sorely disappointed.

The people pushing this violence think that women outside their roles as mothers and wives is gender non-conformity. More specifically, Women not focusing on birthing and raising more workers for Capitalism, is gender non-conforming.

Men who don't "put women in their place", and "wear the pants of the family" are gender non-conforming. Men who don't "bust their asses to provide for their families", who don't devote their lives to putting money in their boss's bank account, are not gender-conforming.

There's a reason why this increase in violence is correlating with mass-death from Covid due to capitalist work ethic, and the resulting increase in Union popularity. Targeting Gender non-conformity is a useful abstraction from the Hell World that Capitalism has created. It says that "if only people would just act right (read: cishet and capitalist inclined), the world would be fair and balance. A fucking delusion. They know they're trashing the planet and fully committed to as many genocides as is necessary to appease the God of GDP. Just as long as they can sit on the biggest throne at the end of it all, as the former Earth turns to dust and disappears among the stars.

Gender is and should be a wholly subjective expression of self, free from the expectation of our cultural institutions. We should not be at risk of state violence because we value our own bodily autonomy. The violence being inflicted is based on out-dated perspectives, not backed up by lived experience or scientific data. It is a desperate violence, hoping to cling to a static image of a dream (an awful fucking dream for anyone except the most privileged of aristocrats), instead of embracing this ever-changing world that requires us to reach out with curiosity and creativity.

TLDR: Anyone who isn't doing reproductive fucking to replenish the workforce, or isn't destroying their bodies making profits for billionaire demons, will be punished.

spent some time with our neighbors today. their kids were playing nearby on a trampoline and after a while, one of the kids went. "i can't tell if you're a girl or a boy! you are wearing lipstick, but you have a beard! and you are wearing pink, but you have a deep voice! i can't tell!"

i responded with "hey, that's okay!" and his mother responded with "your favorite color is pink," and the kid stopped bouncing and went. "oh!" and went on about his day, no longer questioning things. he didn't need anymore info than that. kids aren't scared of queerness, and don't reject nonbinary, gnc, and genderqueer people. they're just curious about us, and that's a good thing. if you just take the time to explain, they get it.

Embrace ugliness. Straight up. Not neutrality, not beauty. What would it mean to let yourself be ugly? To let yourself be? While terrifying, it is also sweet relief.

Let yourself exist, rather than exist for others. Acknowledge that when you don’t exist for others, you are “ugly”. Laugh at the moon. Embrace your ugliness. Marvel at your free mind and heart space, and your free time. Be in your body as an experience, not as a performance.

It took me years and years to get to a place in which I was truly not giving space to the police inside and outside of my head; but i don’t believe it can be done in mind before it is done in practice. Doing it in practice creates the space for your mind to get there, too.

Mary Daly:

“Hag is also defined as ‘an ugly or evil-looking old woman.’ But this, considering the source, may be considered a compliment. For the beauty of strong, creative women is 'ugly’ by misogynistic standards of 'beauty.’ The look of a female-identified woman is 'evil’ to those who fear us.”

I don't see much talked about when it comes to GNC individuals so made a cute post.

This was tagged as butch bait, so I presume this is a jest post and I decided not to reblog directly from the original poster because of this. However butches and gender nonconforming women almost NEVER get shown as old in media, and our beautiful middle aged (and older!) butches never get to the public eye!

There is a future for butch and gnc women. We can grow old and be ourselves, without changing a thing. So I present to you pictures of older butch and gnc women!

Anne Lister, the lesbian diarist dubbed "the first modern lesbian"

L by Joshua Horner (c 1830), R by Mrs. Turner of Halifax (c 1822)

Anne Lister lived from April 3, 1791 - September 22, 1840. She was an independent landowner from England who was noted to always be dressed in black and not partaking in typical femininity. She became well known after her death when her diaries were discovered and decoded. The diaries were written from age 15 until her death, parts written in code, and detailed her history of attraction and relationships with women.

“Burnt Mr Montague’s farewell verses that no trace of any man’s admiration may remain. It is not meet [meant] for me. I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn my heart revolts from any other love than theirs” 29 Jan 1821 – written in Anne’s journal [reference SH:7/ML/E:4]

She did not appear to be ashamed of her sexuality as she would openly court women she was interested in and had many lovers. Her first love was a pupil and roomate at the Manor School in York when she was 15, Eliza Raine. It was with Eliza that she developed the code she would use in her diaries to write notes back and forth with. The first entry in Anne's diary was "Eliza left us." Her second named lover was Isabella Norcliffe and she remained an occasional lover through the remainder of her life but rejected her as life partner, perhaps because of disagreeing with Isabella's drinking. Isabella then introduced Anne to the woman that would become the love of Anne's life, Mariana Belcombe. Mariana married a man even though it upset Anne but they continued their affair for a while after. She eventually told Anne that she was ashamed to be seen with her due to her masculinity and they parted ways. Mariana would later try to get Anne back when Anne inherited a large amount of money and the Shibden Hall but she rejected her. She went on to marry (as a church blessing, not legally recognized) Ann Walker because she met her social standing. This would be the first gay marriage in England. Anne passed away six years after their marriage.

Her wearing all black everyday was a public statement to others of her being different, as at the time young unmarried women typically wore white or lighter colours while black was reserved for mourning. Men would yell and shout at her things like "are you a man or a woman?" and would follow her when she was in public. Because of her looks her nickname from the public was "Gentleman Jack". She largely didn't respect men as she believed to be more educated than most who only studied one subject.

“I know my own heart and understand my fellow man. But I am made unlike anyone I have ever met. I dare to say that I am like no one in the whole world” 20 Aug 1823 – written in Anne’s journal quoting Rousseau [reference SH:7/ML/E/7]

Anne was adventurous and liked to travel. She was the first woman to ascend Mount Perdu and the first person ever to ascend Mount Vignemale. At the time conventions called for women not to travel alone, they had to at least have a male companion to protect them. She did not abide by this and often travelled alone and later on with her wife. It was during her and her wife's visit to Russia that she was bit by an insect and succumbed to fever. She was 49.

Her diaries were originally first found by a relative of hers, John Lister, in 1890 but because John was also gay and feared his sexuality being found out if he broadcast her diaries, he reburied them. Later they would be found and translated in 1983 by historian Helene Whitbread. A section of her diaries remain lost.

"Writing my journal has amused & done me good. I seemed to have opened my heart to an old friend. I can tell my journal what I can tell none else." From Anne Lister’s journal entry of 16th September 1823.

Sources

https://www.annelister.co.uk/

https://museums.calderdale.gov.uk/famous-figures/anne-lister

I made a meme, I'm so sorry