Many of us want and need a more affectionate personal world. I just love PDAs (Personal Displays of Affection) but completely accept that others may have firm boundaries and perspectives that limit what is OK for them. I am a trained volunteer at our women's resource center/shelter, The Harbor. Many people who have experienced rape and intimate partner violence may be reluctant or adverse to what feels like an invasion of personal space. It is your call to own your space.
Feminist perspectives need not be formulaic and I cross lines for some by calling myself a girl. Right, a 64 yo GIRL!? I apply the term to myself and some friends who are OK about it for a reason. The term woman is culturally loaded and reflects part of the binary world to me. Girl, suggests where I am at in terms of less maturity, learning and growing while living as a female. I did live as some kind of a guy for 60 years and that male socialization and years of white male privilege are part of my history that didn't simply vanish when i came out transgender. I raised a daughter and was there when that baby was born, matured as a girl and became a woman. No simple trip.
Regrettably i will never experience being a young girl, going thru a female puberty with the attendant periods and pregnancy risks. i do however hugely respect what that long process entails and recognize what is, in a sense, my short cut. The terms for gender and gender roles are inadequate IMO and one reason trans people are so nicely inventive about it. Zir and Zie understand!
Condescension like beauty may reflect what is in the eyes of the beholders. I like an attitude with latitude and rarely feel the need to get politically correct. Terms of endearment for me are expressions of warm regard for friends and family.
