Beyond Bow Ties
BUTCH Voices knits a community out of diverse masculine threads

By Erin Rook

http://www.justout.com/news.aspx?id=296

Sometimes, queers of a feather need to flock together. Those with a bit of masculine flair in their plumage will descend on Portland the weekend of October 2 to explore the many facets of masculine-of-center (MOC) identities at the BUTCH Voices Northwest Regional Conference.

The conference seeks to create a space for butches, studs, aggressives, tomboys, machas and transmasculine individuals to create community around the shared aspects of their diverse identities.

I don't understand why we're expected to be part of a community with butches and masculine women specifically. I get that we're all part of a larger gender-variant community, but as a queer guy I don't see why there needs to be a subcommunity of female-assigned-at-birth gender-variant people. What would a butchy lesbian trans woman think of being asked to be part of a gathering to explore "the many aspects of feminine-of-center identities" centred around feminine gay men? Would that make sense? Would it make sense if there were obviously no effort to include her femme cis partner?

Trans men need to get out of women's spaces and women need to stop inviting us in. Subcommunities in the queer community need to be based on shared identity, not shared natal genitalia.