by ELIXHER
Labels Are For Clothes Or Convenience?
Last weekend, over 75 lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) women gathered at Atlanta’s quaint Kat’s Cafe for a monthly forum called Lez Talk. Organized by Michelle Daniel, the writer/producer of the online series Between Women, Lez Talk serves as a judgement-free zone for conversation around topics that affect the LGBTQ community. Panelists included Julz, a self-described “aggressive stud”; Charisma who identified as “queer”; Kendall, a “trans male”; and Nitra, who didn’t identify with any label. After each panelist gave their own understanding of the importance of labels in the LGBTQ community, audience members weighed in.
“Labels are necessary because they help to identify who you are and what you are supposed to be doing,” one masculine-presenting woman in the room shared. “How do we understand what’s going on in a relationship if there is no label?”
Another masculine-presenting woman who used to wear “feminine” clothing disagreed. “These labels cause unnecessary restrictions because honestly, I’m not less than who I am-a woman-when I am naked,” she explained.
“[A]s much as we don’t want to use labels, we always do,” admitted Nadia Jackson, a woman who didn’t identify any particular way.
When presented with the following scenario, you’re having a conversation with a friend who says she knows someone that is interested in you, most women in the audience agreed that their first response would be, “Is she a femme or stud?”
Many LGBTQ folks are against labels because there are so many rules and roles associated with them. Oftentimes, masculinity is associated with being dominant and being a provider while femininity is equated with submissiveness and childbearing. There are also strict standards such as masculine of center women shouldn’t enjoy penetration or shouldn’t carry a child. These dynamics are at times true to who people are and whom they are attracted to. While those individuals certainly should not be discounted, our relationships shouldn’t be limited to the same dichotomies that exist in straight, opposite-sex relationships. This severely hinders us.
“When some lesbians see stud on stud, they judge [them] just like heterosexuals respond negatively when they see two men together,” Nadia added. “When lesbians see anything out of the norm of the ‘traditional’ lesbian relationship, they most often have something to say.”
But what exactly is a “traditional” lesbian relationship? At the end of the day, regardless of how you identify (even if that’s choosing not to identify at all), love is love. Constant judgment only further divides us as a community. So let’s consciously combat our years of social conditioning instead of combating each other.
- Ebony Dickens
Ebony Dickens is an Atlanta-based lesbian and graduate school student with aspirations of becoming an attorney. She loves staying on top of the latest news and enjoys a challenge.
I’m suprised more people don’t comment on these great posts.
Anyways…
the roles - that are primarily used in lesbian relationships for women of color - only serves to further expose the hypocricy and flawed mentaliy in the black lesbian culture.
Im not particularly fem or dom, which has been the cause of a significant number of relationships ceasing when the other women liked me but grew uncomfortalbe when they realized that I was just wearing those jordans or that tie because I liked the colors on that particular day.
Are we further perpetuating the standards we CLAIM we want no parts of? You became a lesbian to dominate or submit, 100 percent of the time, to a woman ..as a woman?
Shouldn’t it be give or take?
black lesbians annoy me.
Sounds a little
I totally concur that labels unnecessarily dominate the black lesbian community. Instead of trying to copy cat the heterosexual world, more lesbians should try just loving women because they’re women. To say that stud on stud is gay or fem on fem is gay is redundant and uncalled for because woman with woman is just that….gay! Im sure I wont see it in my lifetime but I will be overjoyed when the black lesbian community will do one thing in its simplest form….love women period!
I 100% agree that we should just love one another for exactly what we are…WOMEN! Its frustrating and a bit tedious when you are somewhat pressured to take on a label which than automatically assigns you rules and regulations of how to be. I myself, struggle with trying to fit into a proper “label” because I like to dress masculine but my emotions are considered feminine and I’m naturally more submissive than I would be aggressive/assertive. And because of this, I have been labeled by many as either Stem or Soft Stud. And my girlfriend dresses Feminine but she has more of an aggressive behavior than me and is considered a Fem-Aggress.
Because I dress more masculine, I am assumed the role of caretaker, provider, and the dominant one. But I am naturally soft-spoken and again, more submissve and because of the automatic rules I am given by identifiying as “Stud”, in certain situations, I am expected to act as such but I don’t always do. And I have found myself in conflict because of it.
At times, the dynamics in my relationship are even sometimes faulty because my girlfriend was used to really aggressive women in the past. And all this label stuff is for the birds. We should just be able to love with no limit.
If oneday I wanna be more aggressive than ok and if the next more submissive, than ok.
Labels should be put to rest. And let love reign.
This was extremely well said. I will be quoting you all here on out. I wish I could have been a part of this discussion and there should definitely be more of these happening.
Black lesbians can be a little tedious because as quickly as they rush to deny ascribing to labels, they are just as quick to tell you what they will and won’t do. Why the restrictions? We already live in a world that seeks to discredit us, our existense and our lives, why not live as freely and unconstricted as possible?
I think the conflict of labeling arises when the way one dresses is in conflict with how themselves and others expect them to feel and act, which is a very simplistic way of judging the books by their sleeves. It’s as if we expect people to perform in costume and character everyday, which can get very tiring.
There are so many labels and different definitions for each label that it’s just tedious to try and define someone for them. People choose a label or choose to be label free and either way is acceptable.
I often label myself as femme. It is my style preference, yes. Many believe that feminine lesbians do not exist or are not truly attracted to women, so I am making a style statement. But even when I am naked, I am still femme, because to me being femme means that I draw my power from femininity. It has nothing to do with who I am attracted to, and I don’t expect others to label themselves accordingly.
I am split down the middle (no pun intended lol). I feel that if labeling yourself works for you than rock with it. If on the other hand you’re lable free, more power 2 you. As long as the choice is yours then I have no issues w/ labeling.
I’m surprised there aren’t more comments either. I feel that our community has spent so many decades trying to gain recognition in being valid that we have inadvertently created a paradigm where a fraction of us mimic hetero relationships and another sect go to extremes NOT to appear in mimicking anything at all. That too, creates a new pool of sub labels within the label-less in my opinion. If we get back to accepting we are women first, there could perhaps be a happy medium for all in the spectrum of feminine to masculine expression within a female; clothed or not. The rules of Butchdomme can be just as oppressing as the unspoken rules of being so-called femme. It creates competition with hetero males (for some studs) and hetero females( for some femmes) and our own LGBT people perpetuate the stigmas and insecurities in one self.
~ Nina
This is a tricky and touchy subject within the community. I feel like labels help. I am a masculine female, and if somebody tells me that they have a friend for me to meet I am going to ask if the friend is a stud or a femme. This is mainly because I prefer femmes. Yes, we are all women, but we do have certain general mannerisms (feminine vs masculine). I know a lot of masculine females prefer feminine females aswell. Now, as far as the strict rules attached to the role, I feel like this: nobody can define you and tell you how to run your life, besides YOU. To me the labels STUD and FEMME only go as far as 1. masculine and 2. feminine. Relationship dynamics are totally up to the two people that are involved.
The comments all have one thing in common. The misconception that labels right away mean that studs are the only people who want labels. That’s not true. Each comment and the article imply that studs either forget they are woman or don’t want to acknowledge that they are woman. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
When you people talk about bringing the Black, gay, female community into the present realm of things, you ask a lot of people to forget our warriors, our representatives, our history of people who took a stand, braved danger, loss of family, to get us here. I refuse to be a part of something so disrespectful.
A lot of times when a movement achieves a modicum of success, its members begin to preen and strut and pair off into cliques. They begin to mock and ridicule people and actions that don’t mirror their “after all, we is all women” position, just like their oppressors who would not leave them to their preference and insisted their way is the right and only way life should be. I gotta go. I have a load of t shirts and boxers in the dryer. I’m a stud looking for a femme.
[...] and experiences of queer women of color with eye-opening and unscripted conversations, examines gender roles. Intelligent (and beautiful!) queer women of color discuss masculinity, femininity, heteronorms, [...]
Opposites attract if one is dominate the other is submissive, they connect on more levels than one. Has nothing to do with copying the heterosexual role, please you sound like this homophobic people who dont understand the LGBTQ Community! get real
everyone here is gay bashing and dont know it..smh shame!
Labels are still going to be there because who isnt define becomes a gossip or people label you anyway, life has a new on everything if we dont understand its forgotten..
I tell ppl all the time i’m a no label. hell i’m for women… But idk bout some folks hell is like high school in the black gay community but instead or the goths Jocks n cheerleaders you have studs, soft studs fems Doms etc.etc… I just don’t get why we just don’t like the women t like with out the fear of being judge on what label i’m supposr to be with it’s just plan silly to me