I don't hate many things.
When I was a baby gay as a teenager, my 2010 queer elders tried to get me into the Indigo Girls (no), t.A.t.u (not actually lesbians) and K.D. Lang (great singer, not my scene)
Teagan And Sara bangs were all the rage and for some reason Tracy Chapman was the great equalizer.
At 28 I really couldn't care about the ‘Queer Taylor Swift’ group psychosis and Renee Rapp fan girls.
I truly hate most white lesbian music.
Watching the new Lucy Dacus video was not originally on my radar: She had posted a contest of sorts for ‘Hot Mascs’ to potentially join in her new video.
I really wanted to see who wasn’t picked.
I watched the video with a gaggle of tall, slender, conventionally attractive, mostly white or light skinned slightly masculine queer people in suits: and Cara Delevingne for some reason.
I saw this coming from miles away, all over my face and down neck with absolutely no shock or surpise whatsoever. Intuitively, I knew this was the outcome as a fat, butch, Caribbean Agender bitch living in NYC:
I've never fully seen myself in media or anyone I've dated except maybe almost Abby from Work In Progress which is mortifying as someone who dated problematic much older white butches as a 19 year old.
These days I’m usually dating other bipoc butches, studs, transmascs who are fat, disabled, immigrants; and all hot as shit! There is no ‘masc shortage’ or scarcity mindset in my life.
White lesbians only looking for other white, thin, slightly less feminine lesbians has reeked of racism and fatphobia masked as “preference” and unwillingness to try harder than a swipe to the right to look for what you need.
In my life, when using the word “Masc” and no other language for the community you're looking for, it's a red flag!
Call for the gorgeous gap toothed studs, the beefy cologne wearing butches, the deep voiced, scruffy transmascs, the mysterious and handsome non binary dyke-aligned seepeople. Would it have killed you to use some more adjectives, Lucy?
Masc feels apolitical and limp in a lifeless way instead of gayly limp-wristed queer free for all it could've been!
Being LGBT hasn’t means you are politically engaged and working class in years. Even fascists can have homosexual leanings—I mean, take a look at what happened at the RNC!
Butch and Femme have been suddenly viewed as archaic words in the eyes of baby lesbians. I blame the baby lesbian’s coveted Lesbian Master Doc, written by a then teenaged bisexual white woman, which I feel ignores the self imposed discovery phase my 2010 teenager self had to come up with.
It feels to me that following status quo outside of your own ideals and never questioning it sounds pretty conservative [and fascist.]
It looks like in the white ‘masc’ world, Masculinity is in, but not queer history.
Being Culturally Queer is a hot topic these days, but don't let that stop you, Lucy Dacus!
You too can be a bigot, but you're not queer or inclusive when you get three brown skin queers, no fat people, and a bunch of 101 Dalmatian-esque, suit wearing White ‘Mascs’ after asking so many studs, butches, and transmascs to show you their bodies, minds and spirits for this contest knowing you'd pick so few who really emphasize honest to god queer masculinity.
So, why do I think we are so divided as a community right now 15 years into being a butch?
To put it in fewer words:
It's people who change existing definitions within the queer community to create a new status quo within an already marginalized group, othering the already established other, creating a fractured un-cohesive community that has the same structural integrity of a child's sandcastle with none of the substance or joy.
I love being queer and working class.
I love dating studs, butches and transmascs as a genderfucked agender butch.
I love being a working class, queer as fuck Dominican Butch!
So well put! Sooo many white queer people around me keep the white lesbian bands in constant rotation, and I’ve felt like an outsider looking in bc I just don’t get it.
I’ve also been so under a rock, I didn’t realize Lucy put a call out for mascs. I assumed she went through her contact list lolz
You’ve made me realise why I found that music video so annoying!