this isn’t abt uwu feminine women can be butch or me as a bi woman trying to undermine lesbians in any way. it’s abt the lack of consideration for women who subvert or reject femininity without cutting their hair. i have seen here n on like twitter (gag) convos about how you can’t “really” be butch unless you cut your hair.
the idea that you HAVE to cut your hair to be butch is an extremely white one. butches of color don’t have to divorce themselves from their culture or the importance of their hair to their personhood in order to b validly butch.
the idea that long hair = womanly/feminine is very white. there are so many cultures of color where long hair is not gendered. there are cultural and religious traditions where cutting hair is not common, if not outright discouraged. there are hairstyles that are revered or culturally important that wouldn’t be possible with short hair. there’s a litany of meaningfulness in hair. everyone has different relationships with their hair, and that’s an individual, personal relationship that cannot be defined by anyone else.
like the majority of Black lesbians i know, especially those who ID as butch or studs, don’t have short hair. braids, locs, fros, slicked back ponytails, etc. are very common. and i would truly pity the fool who tried to tell them they aren’t being properly butch.
like… ppl rlly need to be mindful of the cultural implications of what they consider to be “universal” or essential attributes to an identity. race and culture are always intertwined with other identities. if you’re only looking at a white perspective, you are leaving so many ppl out.
beep beep sometimes when you have been in survival mode for a long time the parts of you dedicated to Wanting Things atrophy and you forget how to envision a future that feels rewarding because you are busy with the business of staying alive, and it can seem like your life must be pointless because you can’t imagine any long term goals. sometimes even when you leave survival mode you can’t remember how to Want Things. that doesn’t mean you need to give up on having a good and fulfilling life, it just means that Wanting Things is a muscle you need to gradually strengthen. the part of you that has dreams and aspirations is still there, it just fell asleep, but if you wiggle it enough it can and will regain feeling. it’s okay to start small
i’ve been in recovery from this for almost two years now… like, i stopped being super depressed but it didn’t mean i remembered how to feel joy or excitement etc. It’s a process, and sometimes it seems like you’re wiggling as much as you can and you’re not getting any feeling back, but keep at it.
find anything. does warm water feel good? stand in the shower and carefully hold that warm water feeling, feel as much of that feels good feeling as you can, memorize its face, remember it later, look forward to it next time. Anything, the sweetness of a peice of candy, the salty taste of a french fry, the softness of a fleece blanket, the relief from taking off shoes at the end of a long day..
anything that feels even a tiny bit good for even a second; try to cup that feeling in your hands, breathe into it like a tiny flame you are trying to catch back into a proper fire. Keep at it
ALT
