tonight I went to this queer night at this trendy bar with a few mates, we were just chatting but a song we all wanted to dance to came on so we ran up but the music suddenly stoped. Throught the commotion we came to realise that these to girls were fighting and in the process of getting kicked out. Miind you I don't know what generated the fight but I still had this been question why are you doing this to yourselves. I can't help wondering if their butch image and possible identity was part of the reason the arguement escalated to the stage that it did. I wondering why are we fighting ourselves, yet know that anger and passion are not often acted on objectivily.

Yet I still wonder about the butch persona factoring in this equation. Violence is not a gendered trait, there is violence in women only spaces and in lesbian relationships, there is fighting between women and women act violently towards men. And butchness is also not a gendered trait, there is such a fluidity of ways of performing gender. BUT it is all performed, and this is why I wonder if the butch image had a part to with the fight. Those who do identify as butch often have this indentity as a central part of themselves. There is much time and energy dedicated in keeping this image and indentiy. Even in an age of more fluid gender roles and expression in the queer community, those on either end of the continuum tend to have mcuh invested in their role.

In the same why that some men act in ways that are asserting their masculinity many butches do the same. I am just wondering if two women who were fighting tonight were fighting more out of saving face as a butch, playing a role and attempting to use there power to dominate another person.

It is interesting although I am still often attracted to butch women, my tastes are starting to change. I realise that I was attracted to the confidence, the assertiveness and the presence that came with a butch. I had a hard time finding a butch that I had tons in common with or I was attracted to beyond the physical level, adn I wondered if that had to do with the time and energy that was invested into being a butch and possibly not putting the same amount of energy into other aspects of their lives. Especially in Toronto where you can live a ghettoized existance with only things like family christmas to pull you out one can forget there are other things of importance and interesting in this city and world.

I have met more and more women who are strong, confident, assertive who are more femme and I have found them extremely interesting. Not to mention that my friends seem to all but super cute but deffinalty in that strong soft femme kinda way.

This women from this documentary I say at ladyfest was talking about her love of boy-girls, the androgenous girls, the butch etc. She said that ot her this made sense due to her socialisation as a straight women, she was socialised to like boys. And even though she is attracted to women the boy image was something that stuck with her as an object of desire. Just as marike's taste in boys which is only hardcore boys has been influenced from her time spent in the scene since she was twelve, and have only dated boys from the scene. I was socialized to like boys and before coming out dated a certain style of boy, so it is no surprise that the women I have found attractive have a similar style.

Yet my experience with butch women over the past four or five years has not really been that positive and my expereince with soft butches or soft femmes has deffinalty been better. It seems that the girls that make me get that feeling in my stomach and lose my breath are not the same women who get me thinking and keep me smiling when I think of them. So where do I go from here . . . well well well