WATCH: These butch lesbians are helping to break down stereotypes
A group of butch lesbians have banded together to help break down the stereotypes that surround them.
Appearing on YouTuber Arielle Scarcella’s channel, a group of four different “butch” lesbians spoke about relationships roles.
As well as relationships, they opened up about what they like in the bedroom – and in doing so they defeated the idea that butch women HAD to be dominant.
“I like to be taken control of in the bedroom,” one explained.
“It seems like I would be more dominant in the bedroom… but I do like it the other way around,” they added.
One of the women revealed that she thinks people view butch lesbians as “the giver and never the receiver” but she does not think that’s “true”.
The group all blame heteronormativity for the stereotypes, which also included the notion that enjoying penetration could “take away from your masculinity”.
“At the end of the day, we’re women still,” one perfectly summed up.
Scarcella told the Huffington Post that pinning masculinity onto butch women was the same as pinning femininity onto some gay men.
“Whenever we see a femme man we assume he’s gay ― the same goes for more masculine women,” she explained.
“But what about in bedroom? Are LGBTQ people guilty of the same bias some straight people show us? Do more masculine women like to be passive? What about when it comes to strap-on sex? Do they want to receive it?”
You can watch the brilliant video here:
It seems like identities are being broken down among younger people, too, according to a poll.
Young people are less likely to know a lesbian or gay person than older generations, as people identify themselves under different banners.
LGBT media charity GLAAD discovered that less than two-thirds of people aged 18 to 34 knew a gay or lesbian person, compared to 78 percent of Baby Boomers.
There’s a simple explanation, though: LGBT youngsters are describing themselves with more variety and specificity, taking advantage of the prevalence of terms to describe their sexualities.
A GLAAD spokesperson said: “LGBTQ peers largely describe themselves in words outside more traditional binaries.”
This could be attributed to “increased cultural acceptance and media visibility that oftentimes allows for an earlier and more sophisticated understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity as spectrums,” they added.