Comment Followup on "Questions"

Essin' Em: By the way, while I might put boi with butch, I wouldn't put FTM there; I'd place that separately on the trans spectrum...

Avarice: You're right! Scratch that! I think I was trying to differentiate between masculinity and femininity on female bodies... but that doesn't fit right. There are butches who are butch but still distinctly female, and there are butches who really smudge the gender lines and can pass for a male...? I have read or heard of somewhere a taxonomy of butches. Where is it?

Dylan: how is femme a trans identity? i'm not saying it isn't, i just really don't understand that line of thinking.

Avarice: I agree with Sinclair (See also: Sugarbutch) that a Femme identity, for certain people, is an intentional change from one gender to another. In my case, I have not always been femme. I have always leaned toward the feminine, but I was not -a femme- particularly. Since I have adopted the title, I have said, worn, and done things I would have never dreamed in my old gender. My former gender was drab, matronly, inconspicuous and hesitant. Intentional Femme is none of those things. No, femmes don't cross over from being masculine to being feminine (although perhaps some have done that) but we do sometimes change from some shadow of a feminine gender into brilliant, vibrant, luxe Femme.

Dark Delilah: chapstick lesbian?

Avarice: While the credibility of the following website remains under scrunity, it is after all, a "slang" term... Urban Dictionary defines "chapstick lesbian" as, "A female homosexual whose gender identity is slightly to the femme side of neutral on the femme-butch continuum of gender presentation but whose appearance and preferences stop short of those of a 'lipstick lesbian.'"