The Confusing World of Butch and Femme

Wow this is the first time I have bogged about my lifestyle. It is not that I am ashamed or scared it is simply that I have been who I am for so long I stopped thinking about it. My friends are diverse and so is my community so I ceased to think of my self as living a life style. Still the years have left me more to figure out then I know for sure. I wish someone had educated me on the migraine giving nuances of butch and femme in the world of lesbians.
I had never heard of the term 'butch' or 'femme 'growing up. I thought all masculine girls were lesbians and I was not because I was well a"femme" girl. I had the awful teenage crushes on the girl's jock and the James Dean style girls who smoked in the bathroom. I did not understand where it came from. I was a girl and should like boys, not girls that reminded me of boys.
I was confused and married and finally figured some of it out. Still saying I was a lesbian did not make me feel like I belonged anywhere. The androgynous you can't enjoy "penetration sex "crowd did not really float my boat. I just did not understand. I did not understand one bit of it, till I dated my first wonderful chivalrous swaggering butch. I then was hooked and my boat gender understanding was sunk. I was addicted. I knew who I loved and where my passion stood. Intellectually I have never really gotten it, but then I do not need to know every thing about what I liked. I tried to read all the academic books on the subject but it just tended to give me a headache.

There were some many variations about what butch or femme meant and what was ok to say or not say on the matter; I just gave up having some well defined understanding of the whole thing.

Many believe that all forms of butch from tomboy to FTM represent a third sex. Yes, most of my transgender friends will disagree but after having dated the spectrum they are all just wonderful nuisances of the things I love about all butch women. It is not the most well adjusted community for me to pursue a long term relationship. I blame my own lack of understanding on some of the problems I found in the butch femme communities that I encountered. This is a result not of a women being butch but not accepted as butch by a large part of the rest of the world. The problem may be greater in the hinterlands but they seemed somewhat systemic. .

Yes, in the world I have it easier in some ways as a 'femme'. No one knows by looking at me that I am 'gay". I never felt any disassociation between my birth gender and who I was. Still, I wanted a marriage. I wanted a long term partner. I wanted someone who as was not suffering the most basic of identification issues that of gender. I have given on finding a healthy relationship in this community because I am past my prime and maybe just not brave enough to keep looking, but I have loved every minute of the search.

I really hope my femme sisters have the chance to meet butch women in a world that does not scar many so badly. I hope that they have the opportunity I never had to make me life with someone well they were born to love.