Words, words, words, can't live with them... so let's create some new ones!
It occurred to me the other day that there should be a word that sums up an experience of being (or having been) 'female' while holding a position of masculinity. In said position, one could also id as any number of locations or combinations of gender and sexuality. The difference being, that the word itself recognizes, denotes, and actively subverts traditional notions of masculinity by locating it within a female socialized experience. That is to say, those who have been socialized from birth to see themselves and be seen as 'female,' and yet hold masculine centred identities or traits.
Femasculinity = masculinity located within an experience or history of femaleness. A disruption of the traditional notions of masculinity and femininity by virtue of its residing in constructed female space and imposed norms of femininity.
Femasculinity can be applied to butch women, transgender identified butches, trans men, genderqueers, straight women, or whomever feels it describes them.
Sounds nice, doesn't it? In thinking about limited language to adequately describe the experiences of complex social locations and identities - or expressions of inner self - I feel it is important to delineate and create at least one word that specifically signifies the disruptive experience of occupying non-traditional femininity or masculinity within a socialized female experience.
When I think of myself as trans, I do not specifically root myself in this experience of female socialization. 'Trans,' for me, signifies where I am at, not where I have been. Transmasculinity, as applied to my own experience, expresses a position of non-normative maleness within a spectrum (or better yet, matrix) of masculine identity which resides outside of cis-sexual male experience. It can be applied to those who do not identify with ever having had a female experience. This is where new words become necessary.
A concept of femasculinity refines language once again to expand our ideas of gender and give space for recognition of having been raised with female social norms and expectations, while having experienced a sense of oneself and reality that lies in contravention or outside of those confining parameters.
Whether one ID's as 'female' or not, having had a history of female socialization imposed on one's biological being and systematically shed throughout the lifetime inherently impacts one's self concept, their evolution, the struggles they've been through, their uniqueness, and the person they are today. Everything I am has been rooted in my struggle to move beyond my imposed perception of femaleness and normative femininity. Yet, I am okay with having that history - that struggle.
I choose a word that disrupts my sexualization and genderization and invokes the struggle of that disruption to exemplify me.
Femasculinity.
