QT: What is the difference between a butch woman and a trans man?

submitted by worried19 from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–]MezozoicGaygay male 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

You may add women affected by PCOS, and not just butch lesbians. As women affected by PCOS may have way too many testosterone (even have beards and stronger muscle built), be sterile and have no visible breasts. Majority of them are still saying they are woman and want to be a woman, but having very strong distress around the people's acceptance around. Women with heavy cases have super huge distress with their body and social expectance of womanhood, and almost always require treatment.

What is called "butch lesbian/woman" in Europe is regularly done here (post-USSR) by straight women, especially in age around 30-40 and then after 55+, especially among higher paid jobs or managing jobs. It is normal to woman to look masculine, with more manly cloths and to have very short haircut like such: https://i.imgur.com/mn0m8Pz.png or https://i.imgur.com/M0ppQjs.png

[–]worried19[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That's a good point. I didn't think about women with PCOS.

I think masculinity is more accepted in various cultures and also at various ages. In a society with low pressure to conform to femininity, especially pornified femininity, you'd see far fewer girls and women transitioning to male. Although other factors go into that as well.

By the way, your example pictures were interesting, but neither of those women strike me as particularly GNC, even with the short hair. If a young woman in Russia chooses to wear men's clothing exclusively and have a men's haircut, how is that generally received socially? I know there's a lot of homophobia still.

[–]MezozoicGaygay male 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If a young woman in Russia chooses to wear men's clothing exclusively and have a men's haircut, how is that generally received socially?

I am not from Russia, but there it will be considered fine, in USSR there were women like that. There even popular movie, that "such women can be seen very manly and look manly, but in their heart they are still sensitive women", so many USSR and post-USSR people are perceiving them as feminine women, regardless of their looks. This is decently popular movie about female sailors: https://i.imgur.com/PMUQUW9.png. And this is one of the most popular soviet romantic comedy movie, about romance of those two: https://i.imgur.com/EaNdMmw.png - I would not call it "GNC" by current standarts, but it was decently GNC comparing to USA or Europe at the same time (1970s). She was wearing tuxedo-like cloths or pants in the first part of movie, but then started wearing dresses, when was trying to hit to this man, and they both were trying to make a look like they are not in love in each other, so their awkwardness is main focus of comedy there. And among "director" jobs, most of women were clothing like that - very officially, with very short haircuts. I am not sure why it was like that, and why they were wearing less classical feminine cloths, when were going to high ranks.

Here, in Ukraine, it is even better, as we have almost bald women walking around, because we have a lot of women in our army (and in general many military women), and many of them are completely shaving their heads if they are serving near hot spot.

I think masculinity is more accepted in various cultures and also at various ages.

A bit of repeating, but here, in post-USSR, it is common to women at age 30-40 and after 55+ to have very short "butch lesbian" or "manly" haircut, especially if they are working on a high-profile job. So if woman have short haircut and wearing "manly" costumes, it is seen as something usual, and not assumed she is a lesbian (unless her hair is dyed to pink or something) or trans. In general here gender stereotypes in part of clothing and looks are very blured. So it will be hard to transmen to look "manly", as there many women like that who are perfectly fine being woman and are still viewed as feminine women (so masculinity mainly seen only in how person is acting and what is doing, so if feminine looking woman will be swearing and agressive, she will be called masculine). Majority of transgenders here are HSTS, and recently trans lobby from USA got a bunch of money, and they are promoting trans ideology to parents as way to "fix gayness", so lobbyists are very homophobic here. My transsexual friends are all against that lobby too. Gladly it is not very strong yet, and people are more often more critical towards everything, as we here used to fight against propaganda, as one country nearby is all the time trying to promote their propaganda on people here. For men gender stereotypical closing is still not as much blured as for women, so it is easier for transwomen than to transmen, however, often here transwomen are still being seen just as gay men, as gedner stereotypes in clothing here is not as strict as on the West or in Asia.

Edit: added links and fixed formatting.