GT – You’re very welcome. Thanks, in turn, for the inspiration.

Motobootboy – Yeah, the pink thing about made me retch. I think all power tools should come in colours other than black, yellow and red, just because I firmly believe that “utilitarian” does not have to mean “boring” and I happen to like using items that are appealing to look at. But it’s not like they designed tools in eggplant and burnt sienna here… we are talking about pink, with all its loaded gender significance. Hardly a coincidence given their company mandate. This isn’t a design thing, it’s a gender thing, and it does buy right into a binary. I’m sure many women must love them, but I really wish they’d make pink one of many varieties rather than one of two. Simmer indeed.

Jacky – Yeah, the question of who’s braver does come up when discussions of butch vs FTM come up. It’s a bit of an artificial opposition in that some butch women pass as men whether they want to or not, and some trans guys don’t no matter how hard they try, and lots of people in both groups (and others, such as genderqueer and intersex folks) experience varying degrees of being read accurately and inaccurately depending on any number of factors. Really the question of bravery comes up based on how society perceives you, and what punishments they mete out or rewards they bestow as a result of that perception, rather than based on what identity label one chooses for oneself and what means one pursues to embody that identity.

Medici – Happy to satisfy. There is definitely an art to saying “piss off” without being mean. Ivan Coyote spoke about that on stage at Toronto Pride this past weekend – s/he laid out a number of the responses s/he’s given to the question “are you a boy or a girl?” over the years, but concluded that the most powerful one was to say, more or less, “I’m a mainly estrogen-based creature. How about you?” no matter what the apparent gender of the person asking the original question. Not mean, but boy did it ever pack a punch, in Ivan’s story at least. Fun idea. So what’s the snowflake conclusion? Weren’t you green last time?

I wonder if my snowflake will remain invariant. Only one way to find out …

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much I admire women in general for that bravery that they need. Having spent 34 years as a woman, I know how hard it is to go through life not being taken seriously, continuously silenced by various subtle and not-so-subtle social processes, “otherised” in everything from daily speech to the films and TV to educational texts.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent but your post reminded me of these thoughts I’ve been having and I thought I’d share. I’ve never ID’s as either butch or femme but I respect all these forms of IDing and presenting, each with it’s own set of challenges, just like IDing as genderqueer or genderneutral.