Why Aren’t All Butches Trans?

From Butch Wonders:

As a butch who has great respect for trans men but no desire to be one, I have a few answers to the “why aren’t all butches trans” question.

1. First, gender is culturally imposed.  The idea that men should wear ties and women should wear dresses is not biologically embedded in our brains.  If a woman wants to sample/use/enjoy “male” culture, why would this necessarily indicate that she would also want facial hair and a penis?  To me, the two feel totally separate.
2. “Genderqueer” means different things to different people.  But I most often hear it defined as existing outside the gender binary—someone who sees themselves as neither male, nor female.
3. “Genderqueer” is a fashionable thing to be right now.  But you need not identify as genderqueer just because you are a butchy dyke, or a cross-dressing man, or a transwoman, or anything else.  You can be a man in a dress who completely identifies as a man, or a woman in a tie who completely identifies as a woman.  Personally, I am not genderqueer.  I look rather butch/androgynous, but I completely identify as female.  Just because a woman has short hair, or binds her breasts, or wears a tie, does not mean she is automatically “genderqueer.”  

(more at the link)

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