i do. the feathered sideburns, the tight body moving over the feminine partner, the jaw muscles, the feminine glint of her eyes on a masculine expression, the slight tilt of her head forward as she rocks… oh wait.

It's usually on a smaller, more low-grade scale- at my job, I work with a bunch of dudes. I'm about as femme as they come, on the dyke scale, but all the men at work ask me these dumbass questions like, "why do you act like a guy", or "so, do you feel that you are like a guy basically?" At the same time, when I venture out to lesbian clubs, shows, or parties, people stoically refuse to believe that I'm a queer. Plenty of times folks are only friendly to me once they see me with my butch partner. I've been told flat-out that I'm too tall and thin to look like a lesbian (!), too inexplicably feminine, too somehow-just-straight-looking. It pisses me off mightily.

I'm curious about the craigslist poster. As a teen growing up in a small southern shithole town, I found myself in relationships with other women who could mostly pass as straight. Let me tell you something about the straight world and acceptance: I've been jumped by strange men, shoved and hit in bars, spit on, and attacked in various other creative ways by straight men angry at seeing two hot girls on a date together. Not to mention the barf-inducing propositions of "joining in" or "watching the action" which turn inevitably to anger. This woman's idea that there's some normal dyke persona that can get the straights to all accept you, is the worst kind of bullshit. My experience has been that you are whoever you are, and assholes are going to find a way to get angry about it. That's when you learn to fight.

In a town where there's only one lesbian bar and you're either girly or boyish (mostly boyish although this seems to be changing slowly) this is a discussion that simply wouldn't even take place. You steer clear from the scary dykes, who stand at the bar, with their elbows wide, so you can't order a drink. You watch bemused as groups of dykes or femmes cluster on either side of the dance floor. And you remember those days when not a single dyke in the room would touch you with a loooooong stick. This 'discrimination' has been around for as long as I can remember. And we certainly are unaware of all the wonderful labels that the US LGBT community has devised to define everything and anything.

Maybe things have changed, but I'm not the best judge as I've been out of the scene for too long and prefer mixed company (i.e., straight and gay friends) when entertaining or going out (and so our friends).

That said, this afternoon, my SO and I were entertaining our munchkin in the park and half of the sandbox wall was occupied by a group of 8 butchy-looking women who had joined a straight couple with kids. There is no secret handshake for lesbians of either denomination. They stuck to their side and we to ours.

Should we have made the cross-over, waving the white flag, given that one of them was the ex of the ex of my ex (entourage!)? Should they have taken the first step across the sand divide?

Who knows? I certainly don't.

my posting was flagged down twice, but i posted it back up a few times too. in the midst of it all, i received 6 emails telling me that femmes aren't really queer, 5 or so claiming w4w/lesbian community/queer community should be "women-identified" space only, and about 7 or so applauding me for my righteously rad gender politics.

we have a long way to go on all of this. i was hoping it was just narrow-minded midwesterners, but i guess not. sigh.

on the upside though, one of the 7 who complimented my defense skills, struck up a correspondence of sorts, and we went out on a date last night that was more than fairly successful. i guess that's a plus ;)