However much I have tried to convince myself, I long knew I could not fit into modern transsexual ideology. It is not that I am opposed to transsexuality or transsexual identity; I am opposed to its modern ideological implementation. I would define modern transsexual ideology as being that some people are born with a brain that doesn’t match their body, their brain is the opposite sex, they experience great pain and discomfort, and once they “fully” physically transition to the opposite sex they are comfortable and happy. A mistake, a misalignment which must be corrected. 

Part of me longs for the days when a transsexual woman could say “I'm a man” without meaning that transgender people are useless or invalid. Part of me breaks when I hear a transsexual woman today say “I am not a woman” because she has been so brainwashed into completely rejecting her identity. I truly believe it is possible to reconcile both of those ideas: the modern connection to chosen gender and the older connection to given sex. One can be both a man, having been raised a man or having a physiologically male body, and be a woman, having chosen the life of a woman and living it fully, and having a female psychology or soul. These, “man” and “woman,” need not be mutually exclusive. Of course every transgender or transsexual person experiences gender differently, some people truly feel as if they are their chosen sex through and through. And this is true for them. It is disingenuous, however, to maintain that this is true for everybody, and there ought to be room for people who don’t fit any mainstream narratives of transsexuality. 

Manhood and womanhood, despite what we have been taught through both conventional cisgender and new transgender ideological structures, are not mutually exclusive. 

It is undeniable that countless strides have been made for queer and trans folk, both outside of and within our communities. In the same vein as above, however, I also think that we have lost ourselves. In trying to frame our existence in a way that others can understand, in involving ourselves in identity politics, and in, by trying to understand people and the world, shoehorning everyone into little clearly defined boxes and framing the world in terms of binaries, we have lost ourselves. While we have rejected the male-female and gay-straight binaries, we have created the cis-trans and queer-not queer binaries, which may prove to be just as damaging. The original ideology of our movements - rejecting binaries and systems of oppression altogether - have been completely lost. In rejecting traditional binaries we have created new ones, as by rejecting traditional gender ideology we have created new gender ideology. 

I believe we must find a middle ground by making these categories available to people without demanding people consign themselves to one or a few categories, or demanding that someone’s labels follow the rules of this new ideology. The idea of meticulously compartmentalizing every part of your being into labels seems antithetical to queer experience. This movement within queer community has certainly given me much needed language - transmasculine lesbian, queer, transgender, etc. I have found, however, that there may have been a simpler way to sum up my whole: butch. Butch can encompass all of these things i describe myself as: semi-transitioning, social transitioning, non transitioning, lesbian, dyke, queer, gender-bending, masculine, trans masculine, female, female-ish, male-ish, and more - all within a single word. 

I came to identify as a lesbian by examining who I was attracted to and how I was attracted to them. It is not that I have never found a man handsome or been attracted to a man, but rather that I could never see myself truly being with a man - cis or trans. The very thought felt wrong and at times repulsed me. I find beauty in all people, but I only want to be with women. This has remained consistent throughout my life, even the times in which I tried dating other transmasculine people. There was always something holding me back, something not quite right. And so, I knew I liked women exclusively. But what did that “make” me? One can argue that we should not bother with what our attraction “makes” us in the first place, but in our label-driven society and for my own peace of mind I sought a label. “Lesbian” made sense to me - I love like a lesbian, fuck like a lesbian, live my life as a lesbian, and have spent almost my entire life being perceived and treated as a lesbian. But what about my transness, what about my manhood? 

I have significantly less connection to the idea of manhood than I once did, but that connection is still there. So what do I do with this identity which seemingly makes sense except for one thing: the way I see my gender? The truth is, however, that for myself my gender does make sense with my attraction. This heritage of butchness speaks deeply to the way I see myself and my gender. Expectedly, reading Stone Butch Blues and investigating the concurrence of trans and lesbian history allowed me to reconcile these identities. I am not the only person who has felt this way, nor are these feelings new. My trans butch family predates the 21st century, and in this way I found justification for my self-identification. I function, I live my life as a lesbian. And I have found no better label to describe myself. What else did I need, aside from societal approval, to prove this was who I am?

Labels are ever-important in our queer world. And so I find myself telling people different things about my identity based on what I think they will understand, as I straddle seemingly contradictory categories. I tend to consider myself more transmasculine than trans man, but I also no longer subscribe to this idea that I must be male to be a man; that maleness and manhood are the same, that manhood and womanhood are mutually exclusive; and that body and mind should be “aligned” or need to be “misaligned” in order to deviate from gender expectations. I find myself experiencing both manhood and womanhood at once, and while I feel more comfortable being treated as a man, I have found that my identity has evolved enough that I can claim my womanhood in certain spaces, even if only by myself. 

Lesbian identity, however restrictive it may seem to some, has been anything but restrictive for me. It has given me freedom in how I see and present myself. To be a lesbian gives me a heritage of complicated relationships with womanhood, gender roles, transition, and gender itself. And this is a heritage I am more than proud to claim as my own.