speak to me words don't give me no fancy meanings

Second fb link of the day: this article on why straight men have sex with each other. Again, repost from there:

A thing I find simultaneously important and useful & questionable here is this: "In no way do I think it’s productive to call this bisexuality, which I understand *as its own significant and important queer identification in its own right* [emphasis mine], and that’s not what I’m describing. I do, in the end of the book, suggest that, if straight people want in on queer life, that’s about something more than homosexual sex. That’s about queer subculture, which is anchored to a long tradition of anti-normative political practices and anti-normative sex practices and appreciation for a much broader array of bodies and kinds of relationships and so forth, and so I think most straight people don’t actually want to be part of it. I think straight people who engage in homosexual sex, what makes them straight is precisely that they have no interest whatsoever in being part of queer subculture, and so in the last chapter I’m making the point that they could if they wanted to, but they don’t, and that’s part of how we know that this is homosexual sex being enacted in the service of heteronormativity."

Now, I have a problem with the use of 'queer' in a wholesale way, and also this article (I don't know about the book) other than in one paragraph treats "white men" and "men" as synonymous, but I think that - that bisexuality is a *significant and important identification in its own right* - is a really important distinction to make, and why all the attempts to claim *anyone* who has sex with/attraction for more than one sex as "bisexual" is ultimately misguided, because it undermines that. With the research recently out showing how many people identify as straight-but-not-exclusively so, I think this - how activity, attraction, identity and orientation culture intersect or don't - is really, really important to examine.

It also *doesn't* apply in the reverse direction, due to the presumption of straightness and the automatic immersion of everyone in hetero culture simply through being born and raised in it. Which is why we *also* have to be wary of identifying orientation with "queer subculture" - the ability to access and participate in "queer subculture(s)" is *not* equally open to everyone, as it's strongly urban and spaces are frequently inaccessible to otherwise-marginalised people in a variety of ways (dis/ability, race, financial status etc). What is "queer life"? Is a man or a woman who is exclusively attracted to their own sex, for eg, but forcibly isolated from "queer subculture(s)" somehow less "queer" than those who are able to actively participate in them? Especially when we bring in "political practices", which excludes an even wider range of people from "real", "valid" non-hetness.

Christ, I feel so tired. Sparkle have pulled this shit after many years of criticism for representing themselves as "for the trans community" while excluding trans men & trans ppl who were assigned female, and people are promoting Buff as the alternative. Just feeling that yet again I fall between two stools and am wrong wherever I go :S

"Q. Why is BUFF called BUFF?
A. BUFF is about trans masculine people feeling positive and proud of their bodies and identities. The word 'buff' traditionally refers to big, strong, muscular men, but we think feeling buff should be for everyone!"

Honestly if anything I find this quote from the Buff FAQ more alienating and dysphoria-inducing than "even the butch boys sparkle" - especially as a disabled man. I don't feel buff, I don't particularly want to feel buff, I *can't be* buff, and at the same time I constantly feel like a failure as a man (including a gay-identified man) for NOT being buff. :S

I'd be fine if it was actually aimed at *masculine trans people* (I have no problem with masculine ppl wanting to celebrate their own masculinity!) but "transmasculine" basically means "trans men and other trans people who were assigned female" and I just... :S This is one of the reasons why I Can't Trans Community any more. The increasing use of "trans(*)masculine people" to mean Trans Men Plus is just making me more and more exhausted, as well as watching my butch trans women friends being excluded (and probably others).

I'm not "transmasculine". I'm sick of the rhetoric that male=masculine being replicated by trans communities, I'm sick of the lumping-together of trans people assigned female (and even butch afab women) into it with the implied assumption that there's something inherently "trans"/crossing/out-of-place about masculinity in people who were assigned female (and in women).

I also get that it started out as a way of trying to include more people who aren't binary, but when "masculine" is ALWAYS used and NEVER "men" or "male" *even in discussions specific to trans men*, it feels like such a way of ungendering trans men and erasing our actual maleness. "Yeah, fine, you can be 'masculine', but you're ~not reaaaally~ male or a man, are you??"

Very often I'll refer to myself as male or a man - including talking about my issues with gender expression - and then someone in the conversation will refer to me as "transmasculine" and I'll feel hit in the face. It feels *every bit* as un/misgendering as calling me a butch woman, and MORE than calling me "butch" (rather than "a butch", don't do that) - because I know lots of cis men who describe themselves as butch! (Including "butch boys"). It erases both my gender and my expression of my gender (and expression of my sexual orientation, as the two aren't un-linked for me personally). It erases my struggles and the shit I deal with every day, including hostility for being a feminine man.

So please, please, *never* refer to me as "transmasculine" or lump me in with "transmasculine people" - especially as in doing so you're also implicitly saying that trans women (and all women!) have to be feminine.

Basically: everything is fucked, I feel like shit :( Please be sensitive and respectful of that feeling in any replies.

Hello hello?