Against the Fascist Dyke
“It should go without saying; the Sapphic and Butch identities are revolutionary identities. They expand upon what we’ve been taught to believe a woman can and should be. I am not Butch because I wish to distance myself from the feminine. I am Butch because I am the feminine, liberated. My triumph over the colonial gender binary looks like a fade with the ends tapered, a shirt from the men’s section with my sports bra peeking out of the collar. It looks like boxer briefs stretching over unmistakably feminine hips. It doesn’t need to look exactly like anyone else’s because it’s a reflection of a life story as unique as my fingerprints. It’s not a threat to the feminine…”
As the United States more openly embraces fascism with each passing day, our queer and feminist spaces are being broken down by reactionary factions, masquerading as warriors in the struggle against sexism. Somewhere in our quest for an inclusive movement, misogynists have carved out a space to not only question the validity of the existence of transgender and gender-nonconforming identities but accuse us of lying about who we are to gain access to a community we are seeking to harm. There is nothing feminist about trans and sex worker exclusion, yet these female chauvinists are using leftist language to further an ideology that harms every woman; cis, trans, gender conforming or not.
Reflecting on the Femmes I’ve gone on dates with, who have openly expressed their disgust of trans people and bisexual women so casually over dinner, who let me know they fetishize me for being a cross-dressing woman as if it’s a compliment, as if I should feel lucky to have been chosen by the hateful exclusionist, I can’t help but be floored by how little shame or self-awareness they’ve possessed. Our Sapphic space should be an anti-sexist space and we need to be just as shameless as the female chauvinist in maintaining that space. The privileged will always demand we teach them how to look at us as human beings. No cultural competency course can accomplish that, it’s on them to muster the will to change.
I write these words only three days after the mass murder at ClubQ, a hate crime against our beautifully diverse LGBTQIA community. When I heard the news I was angry but not surprised. Aside from the history of violence towards our community and the rhetoric and discriminatory legislation of the right, just a few months prior I too experienced violence in a gay bar in West Hollywood. On a night out in boys town, I waited for the ladies’ room at a club and was verbally attacked by a straight woman who was there to, I assume, fetishize the gay men. After accusing me of being a Transman? Transwoman? Did this bigot even know what I was or care? She demanded I leave the line for the ladies room and go into the men’s room. She sucker punched me in the throat and the mostly straight women in the line did nothing but wonder why I wouldn’t just leave the line. The straight male security guard watched the whole thing and refused to remove her from the bar, saying it’s what the girls would do if I stood in their line.
When people stare at me, trying to figure out what’s under my clothes, I know trouble is near. As mainstream society learns about trans identity from a patriarchal lens, the us vs them mentality solidifies. Where the two genders used to be male and female, they are now cis and trans and anything in the grey area is erased or misclassified. The call to abolish the gender binary has been met with a compromise of reforming it instead. Presentation is still identity and gender bending is only tolerated if you are perceived as making an effort to pass. Those of us Butches who are simultaneously masculine and feminine are still punished for defying gender roles.
Trans liberation is key to our collective liberation and so we have been taught by the misogynists that it must come at the cost of Butch erasure. Now there is turmoil in our sacred space; the transphobic sapphics spread lies about our Trans siblings that ironically hurt the Butches they claim to revere. Butchphobia spreads to gender-conforming women of color, who, against the backdrop of the Eurocentric beauty standard will always be deemed masculine and aggressive. The Fascist Dyke and her cishet counterpart are attempting to dismantle sisterhood brick by brick.
This is an incredibly regressive moment in time for those of us in Post-Roe America. Queers are not strangers to living on the margins. We have always thrived in our grassroots space. The direct nature in which we educate and care for one another is how we have maintained our dignity in the absence of justice. As we craft a global movement for liberation it is this grassroots approach that will keep us safe. From the ground up, together, we can stop The Fascist Dyke.
As the United States more openly embraces fascism with each passing day, our queer and feminist spaces are being broken down by reactionary factions, masquerading as warriors in the struggle against sexism. Somewhere in our quest for an inclusive movement, misogynists have carved out a space to not only question the validity of the existence of transgender and gender-nonconforming identities but accuse us of lying about who we are to gain access to a community we are seeking to harm. There is nothing feminist about trans and sex worker exclusion, yet these female chauvinists are using leftist language to further an ideology that harms every woman; cis, trans, gender conforming or not.
Reflecting on the Femmes I’ve gone on dates with, who have openly expressed their disgust of trans people and bisexual women so casually over dinner, who let me know they fetishize me for being a cross-dressing woman as if it’s a compliment, as if I should feel lucky to have been chosen by the hateful exclusionist, I can’t help but be floored by how little shame or self-awareness they’ve possessed. Our Sapphic space should be an anti-sexist space and we need to be just as shameless as the female chauvinist in maintaining that space. The privileged will always demand we teach them how to look at us as human beings. No cultural competency course can accomplish that, it’s on them to muster the will to change.
I write these words only three days after the mass murder at ClubQ, a hate crime against our beautifully diverse LGBTQIA community. When I heard the news I was angry but not surprised. Aside from the history of violence towards our community and the rhetoric and discriminatory legislation of the right, just a few months prior I too experienced violence in a gay bar in West Hollywood. On a night out in boys town, I waited for the ladies’ room at a club and was verbally attacked by a straight woman who was there to, I assume, fetishize the gay men. After accusing me of being a Transman? Transwoman? Did this bigot even know what I was or care? She demanded I leave the line for the ladies room and go into the men’s room. She sucker punched me in the throat and the mostly straight women in the line did nothing but wonder why I wouldn’t just leave the line. The straight male security guard watched the whole thing and refused to remove her from the bar, saying it’s what the girls would do if I stood in their line.
When people stare at me, trying to figure out what’s under my clothes, I know trouble is near. As mainstream society learns about trans identity from a patriarchal lens, the us vs them mentality solidifies. Where the two genders used to be male and female, they are now cis and trans and anything in the grey area is erased or misclassified. The call to abolish the gender binary has been met with a compromise of reforming it instead. Presentation is still identity and gender bending is only tolerated if you are perceived as making an effort to pass. Those of us Butches who are simultaneously masculine and feminine are still punished for defying gender roles.
Trans liberation is key to our collective liberation and so we have been taught by the misogynists that it must come at the cost of Butch erasure. Now there is turmoil in our sacred space; the transphobic sapphics spread lies about our Trans siblings that ironically hurt the Butches they claim to revere. Butchphobia spreads to gender-conforming women of color, who, against the backdrop of the Eurocentric beauty standard will always be deemed masculine and aggressive. The Fascist Dyke and her cishet counterpart are attempting to dismantle sisterhood brick by brick.
This is an incredibly regressive moment in time for those of us in Post-Roe America. Queers are not strangers to living on the margins. We have always thrived in our grassroots space. The direct nature in which we educate and care for one another is how we have maintained our dignity in the absence of justice. As we craft a global movement for liberation it is this grassroots approach that will keep us safe. From the ground up, together, we can stop The Fascist Dyke.
