Stone Butch Disco

I declare a thumb war. (^^Rachel's description) Now for the entirely AI-generated description of this show (thanks Podbean; this is weird): [Suggested title:] Navigating Identity Confusion in the LGBTQ+ Space [NOPE, I hope more like freeing us from it] Step into the classroom of Rachel, an education professional, as she takes you on a compelling journey into the complexities of identity discourse in today's society. In this podcast episode, we delve into the world of the LGBTQ community both in educational spaces and the broader digital sphere. Rachel's candid exploration of viewpoints on sex, gender, and self-identification aims to enlighten and empower listeners. We analyze the different dilemmas facing the younger generation and how societal norms and the digital age greatly influence them. Rachel offers her critique on how digital platforms inadvertently misrepresent gender nonconformity and silence the class condition of 'female’ within LGBTQ circles. She also underscores the implications of readily available medical transition resources, arguing it may lead to unnecessary confusion among teenagers. Join us as we dissect topics around the binary female experience and the expansion of the term 'woman.’ We question the imposition of tags such as 'queer' or 'trans' and their underlying discriminatory connotations. Importantly, we examine society's marked shift towards gender fluidity, and how this blurs the line between 'sex' and 'gender', challenging individuals as they navigate their identities. We also engage with the capitalist influence on gender identity as we contemplate the diverse realities of personhood. The episode is not just a call to action for clear, honest, and respectful conversations around these topics, it is also a stark reminder of the need to ensure every identity is validly seen, including the underrepresented experiences of female, masculine individuals. Exposed in this powerful dialogue are the layers of internal struggles within the LGBTQ community, notably the females with masculine characteristics and presentations. Our speaker provides significant insight into their experiences, battling societal pressures, stereotyping, and sexism. We argue the importance of acknowledging and respecting these varying gender experiences, exploring the belief that no one way defines womanhood or femaleness. Calling for an end to erasure and misconstruction of 'female-ness', this episode is a rallying cry for authenticity and understanding. It is a raw and informative guide into the struggle faced by the younger generation in their search for identity amidst conflicting information. Hear Rachel's impassioned plea for a more inclusive, nourishing conversation on sex, gender and personal identity. [That was strangely validating, Podbean ... Thanks?]

I got into the academic world because asking questions helped my life make sense. I found out in short order that the contemporary university system is not about asking questions -- not when it counts, and especially not when the inquirers are female. In this episode, I "talk about" (with cursing) the AAA/CASCA's late-stage cancellation of a panel titled "Let's Talk About Sex, Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology," and address the wild accusations (practically slanderous) against the six female would-be panelists (based on nothing but Kathleen Lowrey's super-reasoned, zero-percent-transphobic panel proposal). Here are the Michel Foucault quotes I mention, because questioning the origins of categories (as Foucault did) is the exact opposite of contemporary scholars' approach to what AAA and CASCA confusingly term "sex/gender" (what on earth is that slash mark doing??):

Rachel talks podcast-making adventures. Rachel and Mac take turns expressing incredulity about the queer-industrial complex. It's a...fun?...one. Welcome to the new Stone Butch Disco/The Butch Feminist, where stream-of-consciousness talking meets feminist theory writing to create, hopefully, something worth losing jobs over. Sources mentioned in Rachel and Mac's conversation: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/04/gender-affirming-care-debate-europe-dutch-protocol/673890/https://genspect.org/finland-takes-another-look-at-youth-gender-medicine/https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/the-long-goodbye-andrea-long-chuhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24138381/https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/03/390481847/fda-mandates-tougher-warnings-on-testosteronehttps://lgbtcouragecoalition.substack.com/https://genevievegluck.substack.com/ Music, via Epidemic Sound:

"I am giving you permission, I am giving me permission, to tell the truth." An impassioned preamble sets the scene for the second half of Rachel's conversation with Carol, about transition and detransition from a butch lesbian perspective. Together, they wax incredulous on the male-centeredness of the 2020s and, in so many words: the return of femaleness as history's purest sign of insignificance. Carol shares moments in her transition and detransition that impacted her marriage and her mental health. They address many of the elephants in the room for butch lesbians straddling lesbian and queer cultures: misogyny, self-censorship, dogma, guilt. Rachel describes alligator mode. Everyone fights the good fight and gets back on the horse. There are plenty of animal metaphors to go around, à la Carol's wife's line from last episode: "It's because we're animals, Carol." A disclaimer (of sorts): SBD will continue to advocate for reason to prevail amid continuing, although lessening, accusations that anyone who gives any effs about female specificity is a "terf." (Thank god for recent Associated Press and United Nations guidance on that. Finally.) We at SBD believe transitioning secondary sex characteristics to traits of the opposite sex does make life easier for some people, and that medical transition should remain a protected option for adults. We also know that detransition rates for lesbians and butch women are particularly high. Being pressured to transition when it is not the right choice for you is harm. Not being allowed to talk about that pressure, or being told that the pressure you experienced for years was an illusion of your own mind, is gaslighting and directly harmful. It is the kind of discursive dismissal from matters of social concern that non-women have been perpetrating against womanhood and the feminine for millennia. Our community is suffering. Butches are suffering. Young lesbians are suffering. Young women are suffering. If you are someone who still feels cared for in queer spaces that dismiss and disparage female specificity and female homosexuality, you may not feel what we're feeling. But you don't have to feel it to listen to others who do feel it, and to hold sacred space for our experiences, our hurt, and our conclusions about how to respond to what is genuinely a crisis for us. We're entitled to those conclusions. We're entitled because throughout recorded history, women deemed sexually masculine have remained under sustained, systemic pressure to view ourselves as inferior imitations of a male other. Our vitality has been denied its own sacred space. We've been encouraged to see exile from our own embodied difference -- women don't do that -- as the solution to our problems under literally every scientific, social, religious, and medical paradigm on offer for the last several centuries. That fundamental devaluation (Indeed, can we possibly exist without striving to become elseways?) will never be resolved by pretending all queers are the same. Music, via Epidemic Sound:

This week, Rachel welcomes to the pod an extremely brave butch lesbian who's an outspoken advocate for other butch lesbians despite the mountains of sh*t she catches for telling her story. Why is Carol's story taboo? Because it involves the word "detransition." In Carol's words: "My transition and detransition is firmly based around being butch and the hardship that comes from that. I know you [Rachel, having felt similar things] know what those hardships are. It's why I'm still f**king talking about it. Because I want to let other butches know their feelings are okay and even normal, and for those who transitioned, there is a way back if they want to do that." TRIGGER WARNING: If you've ever felt pathologized for your sexuality, what we talk about in this episode may hit home. Carol discusses transitioning in terms of expectations versus reality related to sexuality and self-image. HAPPINESS WARNING: We talk radical self-acceptance and how it helps us show up for women in general, girls looking to us for role models, each other, and ourselves. In addition to tuning in for Part 2 next week, listeners can learn more about the intersections of sexuality and detransition on the r/detrans subreddit: IN THEIR WORDS: "Why so many butch lesbians go trans": https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/doawfq/why_so_many_butch_lesbians_go_trans/ “I don’t feel like a woman, but I definitely feel like a lesbian”: https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/uve4on/i_dont_feel_like_a_woman_but_i_definitely_feel/ “I thought I was nonbinary when actually I’m just a lesbian”: https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/snnb7a/i_thought_i_was_non_binary_when_actually_im_just/ “It was easier for me to accept being a trans man than being lesbian”: https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/dq0rd8/it_was_easier_for_me_to_accept_being_a_trans_man/ "Porn and transition": https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/ys6oq8/porn_and_transition/ The r/detrans 2023 screened demographic survey (contains qualitative responses/stories of transition and detransition): https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/11sfyvu/the_rdetrans_2023_screened_demographic_summary/ Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music, via Epidemic Sound:

SBD is back from its New Orleans hiatus and ready to rock, riot grrrl style. Riotous grrrls/butch-femme legends MB (@bmorebutch on Instagram) and Jenny (@bmorefemme) return to the pod and invite listeners on a time machine to the lesbian 90s, where punk feminist anger is not only permitted but idolized. We talk femme and butch communicative powers, what butch elders can teach butch women, what it was like being actual riot grrrls, and how womanhood and masculinity would (theoretically, just saying) go together quite nicely in a movie like West Side Story. Self-harm and other tough experiences are touched upon. Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music, via Epidemic Sound:

It's Lesbian Visibility Week... Who is she, and why does she have a visibility problem? Monique Wittig warned us: "Beware of dispersal." Funny how much content has landed this week from lesbians saying they're "not like other" lesbians. Lily Cooney (@lilycooneywriter on Instagram) returns to the pod to tackle the age-old question: what's so invisible about lesbians? And, the rather newer question: why are we finding ever-more-creative excuses to disperse? Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music, via Epidemic Sound:

Disembodied lesbianism, Ray Davies' masculinity, the word "butch".... What does it all MEAN??? Mac and Rachel offer some half-baked suggestions on how not to over-worry about one's own gender identity. Theory in the front, poetry in the back. Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music, via Epidemic Sound:

The girls are not alright. And they might be, if childhood wasn't more gendered now than it's ever been in the U.S. Trust butch lesbians. We know. Speaking of which: The word "lesbian" used to refer to a group of sexed people doing a thing they weren't supposed to, not a vibe to be replaced with a different vibe. Rachel posits that a world without lesbians would be a non-natural act of patriarchy, not a byproduct of time's passage. At 1:11, the episode becomes a close read on what the Washington Post recently claimed to know about girls and GNC (gender non-conforming) people -- and why it failed the burden of proof on both counts. Stuff we talk about: Washington Post article "Most trans adults say transitioning made them more satisfied with their lives" This Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll Washington Post article "The crisis in American girlhood" r/detrans 2023 screened demographic survey, desister qualitative responses r/detrans 2023 screened demographic survey, detransitioner qualitative responses Jack Turban study that "jumped the shark" according to Michael Biggs, who explains here Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco Music, via Epidemic Sound:

Catch the full bonus episode with Lily by joining us at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco -- we'd massively appreciate your support of the Stone Butch Disco pod, website, writing, and archives project. Rachel promises to keep it going despite recent unplanned hiatuses (hiatus-i?) due to characteristically "2023" lesbian mental health re-consolidation moments.

Lisa Selin Davis, author of Tomboy: The Surprising History and Future of Girls Who Dare To Be Different, drops in to the pod to explore why it's unideal to be "conflating gender stereotypes with sex, and sex with gender...and making 'gender' mean 'gender identity' and not stereotypes, expectations, and norms.” Rachel picks Lisa's brain about how the gender language wars, seemingly always to the detriment of female diversity and complexity, might relate to masculine women's ongoing absence from media. Tomboy: The Surprising History and Future of Girls Who Dare to Be Different Lisa's conversation-starting 2017 op-ed for The New York Times, which inspired the book: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/opinion/my-daughter-is-not-transgender-shes-a-tomboy.html BROADVIEW with Lisa Selin Davis on Substack: https://lisaselindavis.substack.com/ Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music, via Epidemic Sound:

Mac and Rachel's imagining of The Future We Wish To See morphs, rather quickly, into a paean to butch-femme culture. We also discover where our "butch kid" feelings line up: this includes sports-injury and mosh-pit-injury pride, idolizing self-sacrificing masculine characters, and decorating our RPG characters with plenty of scars. Lo, therapists! Analyze us. [CONTENT WARNING LITE: There's some mental health talk within.] >>Watch for our upcoming Patreon bonus episode "Girl Data," which examines the iffy (mis)categorization and, often, the outright oversight of lesbian youth in *particular* marriages of corporate journalism with privately-funded social science. We're not affiliated, but we love their work: https://www.thelesbianproject.co.uk/ Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music, via Epidemic Sound:

Rachel talks to femme lesbian writer and theorist Lily Cooney about femme lesbian specificity, female masculinity as a nameable category, and holding firm against intellectual sexism that silences diversity of thought around gender. Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music, via Epidemic Sound:

This one's for the lesbian feminists left wanting by their gender studies class. We punch up. Structuralism: Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music, via Epidemic Sound:

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Lesbians need linguists! Kari and Rachel talk gender and sex terminology in Spanish and English (from Mexico City and Dallas), and Rachel tries in vain to fit Kari's story about her ceramics teacher into a template of the pottery scene from Ghost. We're experts on neither our own nor each other's cultures, so cross-cultural comparisons are speculative. Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music:

“…on The Barry Gibb Talk Show!” (Full permission/encouragement to watch those SNL skits before you listen to this.) In this episode, which was originally slated to be SBD’s first, Sam and Rachel talk “comfort aliens,” butch lesbian women’s **alleged** cultural marginalization (academics assure us it’s “alleged”), and read from beautiful lesbian texts to set forth our hopes for this here project. A TRIGGER WARNING of sorts, particularly for ~45:00-60:00 but *not exactly* those timestamps, and potentially elsewhere: There’s a lot of body talk in this episode. Bodies are discussed with infinite love for all, and not in a way we ourselves thought prohibitively hard to listen to — but perhaps listen with a spot of caution if you’ve experienced sh*tty sh*t from people’s or society’s treatment of your body. (And/or listen with righteous anger if MFers have made you feel like anything at all is wrong with you.) Sam and I both discuss sexual experiences that were directly or indirectly traumatic (not, however, depressingly so much as analytically), and we talk about boobs, chests, and clits. Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music:

"They were never recognized for the bravery of going out and being proud of who they were." -Kari / In this itty-sode, Rachel and her wife Kari engage in an attempt to shine a light on femme desire for butches. Rachel also explains how SBD plans to put its effort (sorry no money) where its mouth is when it comes to lesbian matchmaking. Tune in next week to hear Kari's origin stories of what she expresses here -- we'll talk about what it was like growing up with the feeling of being femme-for-butch in Mexico City (but having none of those words and wondering what the hell's going on with you, just like Rachel was at the same time in Dallas about being butch). Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music:

Sam and Rachel co-chair an adventure through the hills and valleys of our recent and longstanding butch feels (including, yes, this episode's title), talk about the words that scare us away from social media, and engage in a rousing game of F*ck F*ck Goose. Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music:

Cowboy Jen (TikTok @cowboyjen, Instagram @cowboyjippy, Tumblr @cowboyjen68, YouTube @cowboyjen1) and Rachel pick up where our last episode left off, this time covering the range of human experiences that exist somewhere between teenage volleyball feelings and Bigfoot encounters. But indeed, this episode is about stories. Cowboy Jen shows us the beauty we can achieve when we dare to communicate. Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco. Music:

By request of several listeners and of my own heart, I made a longer-form introduction to Episode 4 that I ended up (duh, should have done this in the first place) pulling out as its own clip. I've edited, reedited, fleshed it out, and here it is. This minisode was prompted by some "fun" stuff on the Stone Butch Disco Instagram this week. [TL;DR: on the IG, some folks took our site's female lesbian namesake, Leslie Feinberg, whose website prominently displays her femaleness and she/her pronouns, and told us she was *actually* male -- then weaponized that fabrication to explain to us how the central aims of our project, 1) fighting for butch lesbians like us to reclaim our female bodies from the patriarchy and 2) fighting for femme lesbians to be allowed to say they exclusively desire female butch women, are both immoral and unenlightened to the obvious fact that sex is made up.] I recorded this as a "toolkit" for anyone listening anywhere who has experienced similar hostilities, online or IRL, for talking about the specific ways they experience being a butch lesbian or a femme lesbian. (If you know, you know.) If this hasn't happened to you, great! I'm glad the queer community respects somebody. But if it has, here's something I hope helps. I'm learning more and more how many people share with me, but are as terrified as I have been of talking about, the routine experience of being told their language for their own political analysis of their own identity is not just difficult, or even unpalatable, but also makes them a shitty dumb idiot meanie. Again: if that's not you, then ignore this one! It'll probably sound too quasi-academic and too much "blah blah." But if that is you, I hope this gives you a back-pocket resource to remind you (and me) there's not any damn thing wrong with us, and that Leslie Feinberg was a proud female lesbian who promoted transing gender conventions precisely because she fucked with gender like we do. Like a female-out-of-line does. Support Stone Butch Disco and the StoneButchDisco.com lesbian writing and archives project at https://www.patreon.com/stonebutchdisco.