this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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I'm gonna have to disagree on presentation and orientation being unrelated to gender. Not only do those things influence each other, but one's presentation (which includes more than how you dress) and orientation can be one's gender. Think of people who use butch, femme, bear, etc as their genders, or people who are arogender.
This limited view of "gender, presentation and orientation are different" only work to explain cishet people that a gay man isn't less of a man for liking men. But it cannot and should not stop us from seeing how for many queer people not being straight/cishet affects the way they relate (or not) with the binary system, that there are gay men that see their manhood as influenced by their gayness, thus different from binary straight manhood.
I think they were just stating that identity and expression are two separate axes and that someone can present to the world as a woman but internally feel that they are a man. Similarly there are people who appear butch and people who feel butch and those two don't always overlap. In fact, all of the labels you described here (butch, femme, bear) are all distinct gender expressions, although some of these labels largely overlap with sexuality labels as well, none of them invalidate or have to overlap with gender identity. I know a girl (identity) who is almost always read as bear (expression), for example.
This can internally shape their perception of their gender as well as externally shape their presentation. I think it's good to point these out and to celebrate the massive diversity of expression!
Yeah, I wasn't saying that those things cannot be separated, just that they aren't necessarily.
The label a person uses to describe their gender can be influenced by their presentation, orientation, or the gender roles they want to perform. Someone who says they're certain gender because they (want to) perform the gender roles associated to that gender isn't necessarily confusing concepts.
The human gender and attraction experience is so complex that it cannot be put into strict boxes that never mix.
My point was that all these labels, apart from being presentations and queer dynamics/roles, are also genders for many people.
Some people are Butch [gender], where butch refers to their expression; other people are butch, and only butch, where butch itself is their gender.