butch femme love

DYKES FOR A FREE PALESTINE (x)

if you're feeling powerless right now—and god knows I am—here's a reminder you can donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, the Trans Law Center, Gaza Soup Kitchen, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and hundreds of other charities that will work to mitigate the damage that has been and will continue to be inflicted

life continues. we still have the capacity to do good, important work. that matters

answering a couple questions i got on this post since i realized ppl genuinely wanna know:

tl;dr:

the post linked above has examples of how donating to individual families can help a lot. if you want to help more than one family at a time, there are many gazan-led initiatives focusing on rebuilding their infrastructure and distributing aid fairly that are worth donating to instead of large charities that already get the majority of donations.

as i mentioned in the last post: @/careforgaza on twitter is a nonprofit started by gazans, it's been endorsed by multiple palestinian journalists.

the sameer project is a collective organized by diaspora palestinians offering emergency shelter to gazans.

ele elna elak is a project aiming to bring water, food, shelter, etc. to gazans and has been promoted by bisan owda.

and the municipality of gaza itself is fundraising to rebuild water infrastructure.

all of these organizations are active inside gaza right now and are being run by gazans. if anyone knows of other gazan-led mutual aid projects, nonprofits or charities feel free to link them in the notes! hope this helped!

long answers under the cut!

plugging gaza soup kitchen for those with the means to donate! it's another gazan-led initiative currently providing food, water, classes for children, and medical care across the north and south. you can donate through their website or their gofundme, or follow them on instagram for news about their projects

its like. being butch and growing up gnc and coming into my own identity was such a war between what made me happy and what made society treat me better. like it always felt like a choice between being desirable and attractive or being happy.

and then femmes are like. i see you as you are and im attracted to you because of your gender identity not despite of it. the things that make you euphoric are the traits i seek out. i feel euphoric being who we are together.

happy butchtober & late lesbian visibility day 2 those who celebrate. here’s a me

Happy butchtober! (Any pronouns)

flannel weather 🍂

butch n femme pins <3

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about femmes who let butches take care of them through acts of service, or, butch femme couples who with an OFOS dynamic is that we are lazy, greedy, spoilt, and god knows what else. That we just let butches suffer by making them carry heavy things, be “tough” be “the man” and not allow our counterpart to be soft, or interact with their girlhood and femininity. The immense amount of guilt I feel letting my butch carry two bags of heavy groceries while I only carry our coffee cups, is insane. The amount of guilt I feel for having every door opened for me, to be on the inside of every side walk is ridiculous, when these are such beautiful acts of love and care. From the outside, sure, we look like we do nothing for our butches. But what people don’t see is how my butch lights up when I give in (after reminding her that she will be no less strong, or masculine to me if she lets me carry a bag). And FINALLY hand her the heavy bag. The relief she describes to me after I’ve eaten the meal she’s made for me after a long day. People don’t see the disappointment and confusion when I open my own door. It’s a terrified “why won’t you let me love you? Why won’t you let me care for you?” People don’t see the excitement on her face when I turn around in the shower and she’s waiting for me with a bottle of shampoo. To her, simply grabbing her femme a coffee in the morning and knowing that’s one less thing her femme has to worry about, is care. I wish our dynamic wasn’t so misunderstood, but when a butch looks at you, desperate to show their love and care for you, how could you ever shut them down?

Thinking about how much I adore butches and not just in a horny way but a genuine appreciation for gender nonconforming behaviors and attitudes towards womanhood!! Like I see a butch being comfortable and confident in themselves and it's impossible not to be proud of them for finding solstice in butchness, yaknow? I feel like on tumblr there's a lot of v horny and sexual posts about butches that kinda fetishizes their expression with aggression and violence that doesn't take into account how diverse the butch experience is! So many butches are soft and gentle lovers BECAUSE they are butch, not in spite of it. I just really love butches and I wish that I could express it in a better way.

There was a good post about including disabled and chronically ill butches in your love for butches, and how some butches can't do labor-intensive, physical protection, and I wholeheartedly agree, but I think it's important to also realize protection isn't just physical. This idea that it is, is what made previous butch-love movements fall so flat, I feel.

Butch/femme was never about being a muscular guard-dog butch for a femme waif. It will never be, either. And the femme protects the butch just as much as the butch does the femme. By rejecting femininity and gender as is imposed unto women, you create the space for femmes to subvert gender, and vise versa. You protect each other from the pressure (and pain!) of conforming. It's emotional. It's spiritual. It's intimate. Sometimes sexual, sometimes not. Sometimes leaving a stone on land, sometimes watching it change with the flow of water. It's so much more than what I can describe with words.

Never just physical. Physical ability never makes a butch, nor does it define "protection." You can be a bouncer of a masc, but not a butch because of this.

I really wish butchhood wasn't conflated with being a protector so much, honestly.

I'm a very vulnerable butch. I'm chronically ill, invisibly physically disabled, and have a lot of mental health issues. My masculinity doesn't inherently make me more strong or powerful.

But there's a huge amount of butch culture built on butches being protective of femmes, or just being strong and working in very physically laborious jobs. It feels disheartening to be locked out of a major part of my culture, just because I'm disabled.

So here's to all the disabled butches who want, or are expected to, be strong because toxic masculinity has taught us the mascs are the protectors, but we can't be.

We're the ones who need people to slow down for us. We're the ones who need to sit down and catch our breath after walking a bit. We're the ones who need help. And that doesn't make us any less butch.

my heart is with the rugged butches, who don’t care to try embodying a dapper persona, baggy t-shirts and Hanes sports bras, basketball shorts and overgrown buzz cuts

my heart is with the trashy femmes, who wear the faux fur leopard print coat they scored at the thrift 4 years ago every day that it’s even remotely cool enough to pull off, the passenger seat of their beat up car filled with empty Red Bull cans and empty packs of newports.

my heart is with the butches who aren’t tough as nails, butches who cry at every sad movie, who love romcoms, who are afraid of a fight. The butches who protect their femmes by building them an armor of love and safety, who stand up for their fellow butches by being a calm force in a raging world. Praise be to their softness, their golden hearts so warm.

my heart is with the angry femmes, tired of being stomped on by men’s expectations of who they should want to spend their time and share their body with , femmes who are tired of being infantilized because they are beautiful and often underestimated. Praise be to the surety in their voices when they tell a man to get the fuck out of their way.

Praise be to the dykes, shaved heads, carabiners, bandannas, leather jackets. Praise be to the dykes, winged eyeliner, bright red dresses, bouncing curls, high-heeled boots, purple lipstick, rings on every finger.

my heart belongs to the femmes and the butches.