Embracing a forced label
For the most part I try to embrace the butch label and vibe. I get enthusiasm when playing into butch fashion, mannerisms, and stereotypes. Lately though I'm really struggling with the realization this was a label placed on me by other queer people. And more often than not as a kind of asterisk to their compliment of me. I didnt transition wanting to be butch or aiming for that, it was instead this caveat that other people put on my appearance. It too often feels like a label meant to put me in my place. Hell I even like being butch, sometimes. But it never feels like me entirely. Instead feels like a box other people put me in and I learned how to dress the inside of that box up in a comfortable way to exist in. Its a similar feeling to pre-transition. And fwiw when I try to present more femme I get constant comments about "oh you look like your in drag" or "this doesnt feel like you". Basically trying to unpack lately if this butch identity is originates from the internal or the external and if that origin changes how I feel about it. Wondering if anyone deals with the same.