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my belief that butches/studs suffer most in the lesbian community will always be unrelenting.
i also believe that 1) there is a very certain time of misogyny only butches/studs experience and 2) very few of y’all outside the lesbian community (and honestly, many lesbians themselves) have a true grasp of the butch/stud experience.
idk why the definition of being a butch/stud, which is the complete and absolute rejection of femininity and using that rejection to attract other women (specifically femmes), is so difficult to understand and why y’all insist that butches/studs are somehow men.
butches/studs have a complicated relationship to their gender that the rest of us will never fully understand. to quote hannah gadsby, they are “incorrectly female.” they completely defy the societal expectations of women. but they are still women.
i’m fucking SICK + tired of y’all thinking butches/studs hold privilege over y’all. every single butch lesbian i’ve personally known has faced, at the very least, harassment and torment over merely expressing who they are.
women are not oppressed because we are feminine. we are oppressed because we are WOMEN. femininity has nothing to do with it. butches/studs suffer through misogyny AND lesbophobia AND a separate discrimination for being masculine lesbians. what is not clicking?
do y’all understand how much at risk butches/studs are constantly in merely by existing? often times when going out, my own girlfriend tries to lean into people’s first impressions that she is a man and not a masculine woman. she knows that her own life depends on it.
i’ve seen way too many of y’all say that butches/studs have this privilege of “seeming” like men. but they don’t genuinely want to be seen as men? if they do, it’s out of safety. why would you want the world to view you as something you’re not? how is that a privilege?
unlike those of us who are feminine, butches/studs’ identities are a megaphone to their surroundings. just as i cannot hide that i’m a person of colour, my butch girlfriend cannot hide that she is a lesbian. by presenting who they are publicly, they put a target on themselves.
butches/studs are the absolute contradiction of societal norm. they are homosexual and have no attraction to men whatsoever. they reject gender roles + femininity and choose masculinity. for studs, they are obviously black. everything expected of them by society, they defy.
butches/studs are the bane, the heart, the soul of the lesbian community. how dare y’all fucking continually disrespect them when we owe so much to them.
anyway i know i make these “i love butches/studs more than anything in the world” threads like, every two or three months or so, but butchphobia and the “masculine privilege” discourse never stops so i feel that it’s necessary
