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When I blogged about Chaz Bono I said gender is complicated and that I felt like I needed to write an entire series in order to cover everything that Chaz's announcement brought up.
Well, gender is complicated and here I am blogging about gender identity much sooner than I expected to be.
Thanks @hedonia and @honeybeast for suggesting BlogHer might be interested in blogging the Top Hot Butches. It's a very bloggable topic and I thought I'd just pitch to Zoe since she's our GLBT blogger. But first, I decided I had earned a bit of eye candy surfing time.
I was already familiar with Sinclair's Top Hot Butches site. I'm a big fan of SugarButch and I'd already surfed my way through a few of the Top Hot Butch photos. (Melissa Ferrick #51, awesome! Have you seen her new haircut, HOT! Err, sorry, where was I?)
What I thought was going to be a quick surf became a long read about Sinclair struggling with the removal of 13 Trans Men from the Top Hot Butches list.
Wednesday, 24 June, 9:30am EST: This morning I removed 13 transmen from the list. There has been much, much critical feedback and discussion about the inclusion of transmen, and I appreciate all who have taken the time to email me and to comment and to participate in the conversation. I am reading through as many of the discussions as I can. I’m working on a full statement, which I will issue later today, and will try to figure out what to do about the holes in the 100 (now 87).
Now that's bloggable.
Look at the opening paragraph of Zoe's post about butch identity.
butch identity is at the other end of the spectrum, playing with masculinity and masculine roles, but not necessarily seeking to lose femaleness or to become male.
That's a pretty good start at looking at the butch identity. Let's look at it a bit more from the Top Hot Butches site, why butches?
I use the term here in the broadest sense – as an adjective descriptor, meaning an intentional display of masculinity.
I am using it instead of another term – like androgynous, genderqueer, or transmasculine – because I, personally, want more butch reclamation and visiblity, because I think butch identity is more widely varied in range of expression and identity than is usually represented, because I think it is the most accessible and recognizable word representing some sort of female masculinity, because I want to encourage its reclamation and intentional display, because it is sharp and satisfying as a title, and because it is slightly controversial and will stir up interest.
Clear right? You know a butch woman when you see one. Now, let's look at what happened on Top Hot Butches.
When I saw the list the first time, it did include some Trans Men. I found that odd and a little troubling because as I've said before - Trans Men are not women, they are MEN. Including them on a Top Hot Butch list undermines their identity.
Sinclair got some amazing feedback from the blogosphere and this helped her make the decision to remove those men from the list. Here's a snippet from her statement about why she removed the guys. You should read the entire thing.
The main critique of this list has been that trans men are not butches. Yes, of course, I know that, thoroughly. One of the ways I anticipated addressing this issue was that I clearly differentiated between butches and trans men in the copy of the Top Hot Butches site: I know trans men are men and not butches, but this is a list of butches and trans men, not only exclusively butches. What if I had a list of “favorite birds and cats” – no one would say “hey, you can’t include cats on that list, they aren’t birds!” But of course that is not an accurate equivalent: cats don’t spend significant time differentiating themselves from birds. I think a better equivalent is more like, “I’m making a Top Assholes List, and you’re on it. But don’t worry, I made a note and said you aren’t an asshole.” That would still be insulting to most (unless you self-identify as an asshole, I guess), and I think that is closer to the level of insult here.
You should also check out the comments where people very nicely jumped in with more butch women to fill in the gaps once the
