Butch, femme, lipstick lesbian, soft butch, chapstick lesbian…what do these all mean and how should you identify yourself within the lesbian community? Queer women, lesbians and bisexual women may claim these identifiers or may not. Some women may find these nothing more than a physical description implying dress and appearance, while others integrate them more fully into their personal identities and relationships. Labels among lesbian and queer women are very often related to gender presentation and dating preferences.

Butch is a label claimed by those who wear masculine clothing and cultivate masculine behavior and personality traits. A soft butch typically favors androgynous clothing or masculine styles; however, may present in a somewhat more feminine manner. A stone butch may be sexually unavailable, preferring not to be touched. Many butch lesbians date much more feminine women by preference, although this certainly is not exclusively true. Some individuals who embrace the butch label may not be comfortable with female gender pronouns or gendered references.

Chapstick lesbians, tomboy femmes, and soft butches all fall within a somewhat androgynous gender presentation. Clothing choices are practical and comfortable, cosmetic use may be minimal, and activity is often more important than appearance. Skirts, dresses and high heels may be worn occasionally, but so can an old pair of men’s 501s and a fleece pullover. Lesbians and queer women rarely use these labels as social identifiers, but rather to simply qualify that they are neither butch nor femme.

You can find high heels, full make up and push-up bras in lesbian circles among femmes. A femme may identify as queer or lesbian, but she is consistently feminine. Femmes date butches, playing up the dichotomy between masculinity and femininity in their relationships. Femme is often very much an identity, incorporated into personality, sexuality and daily life. Social groups and websites exist to match up butches and femmes, as well as provide social get togethers within this subset of queer culture.

Lipstick lesbians may appear just as feminine as their femme counterparts; however, they don’t date butches. Lipstick lesbians typically date equally feminine women. The L-word is often cited as an example of lipstick lesbians. While butches and femmes are a distinct social subset, lipstick lesbians are less apt to integrate their sexuality into their personal identity.

Just in case you were wondering what the title means: Gay Mobile (cell) Phone Applications – things that you add to your phone to help your gay lifestyle. ‘What, like listings of Ikea stores and bathhouses you mean?’ No silly, little gadgets, or ad-ons, or call them what you will, that enhance your mobile phone or hand-held device.

For example: Grindr. Here you have a small GPS targeting device that keeps track of you wherever you are. Great for those mornings when you wake up in a stranger’s bed, in a strange town and you can’t remember how you got there. But it will also track other guys who are using the same application, so you can easily find guys who are cruising near you. So you basically have an application that lets you use your phone as a hook-up or matchmaker device, and it will only cost you $2.99 a month to add on.

If you don’t want to pay for your extras, how about GayCities? This is an application that will assist you when looking for gay bars, clubs, beaches and cafes and it comes with a mapping device installed too – so you can follow the routes to your own favourite kind of gay hangout. And it’s a free. The other option for this, that I could find listed, was MyGayGo, which is a similar, but it seems better, application but which costs you $2.99 a month, like Grindr does – but it gets better reviews and that’s probably because of the general rule: the more you pay the better you get.

I checked out a blog post from The Mobile App Company and found one that was about the ‘World’s first iPhone app for the gay community.’ Actually it was all rather vague, the post was made in February 2009, so is fairly out of date and all it told me was that there is an application available from their store and through the iTunes store. I did some further checking and found a little more information about this new app:

Brothersoft.com has the details – run a search for The Gay Community App 1.0.5. It seems that back in February the application was in beta testing and struggling a little, now though it’s available for download and there are specs: It’s Freeware, it’s for iPhones with OS 2.2.1 or higher, and it is there to help you connect with members of the GLBT community. How? Well, it looks like it basically does what the Grindr and MyGayGo applications do – list places, user GPS to find others with the same device etc. But it also contains a profile area where you can put information about yourself, you can add up to four pics there, you can say what/who you are looking for, you can connect with your Facebook and Twitter pages and keep a list of your buddies. And others with the same application can see this information too of course – so it does look like its going a bit further than the other applications mentioned above. And it’s free, don’t forget.

Not having an iPhone myself (shock horror) I have to admit to finding some of the information about these applications a bit bewildering. But that’s good, because most of what I read I understood, even though it didn’t relate to me. The point being that if you want to find good, gay applications for your own iPhone then you simply need to look up those that I’ve mentioned and you will (should) find easy to follow pages, easy to read instructions and clearly set out options for how to get them, and what to do once you have. I mean if I can understand it, will you will have no trouble.

Integrating transgender individuals into the queer community has historically posed a number of challenges, both from within the gay community and within the transgender community. More gay and lesbian resources are working to be trans-inclusive, but many people remain uninformed about labels and identities within the gender continuum. For many people, gender is simply a non-issue, a given based upon anatomy and birth. Other people may feel that they have been born the wrong gender or that gender labels, as they exist today, are overly limiting and inaccurate.

Common labels within the transgender community include cross dresser, transsexual, transgendered, and gender queer. Transman and transwoman are also used within the transgender community as neutral, descriptive terms. Pre-op and post-op describe a state of medical transition, rather than personal identification. Gender queer, gender fuck, and androgynous may all be used by those who prefer to avoid identifying as male or female.

Cross dressers are men who enjoy dressing as women. They may find it emotionally or sexually satisfying. Cross dressers are content and comfortable being male and have no desire to live as women on a full time basis. Cross dressers typically identify as heterosexual males.

Transgender individuals can be born male or female, but identify as the opposite gender. Some people may opt to continue living as their birth gender, even if they are uncomfortable with it. Others transition and live as the gender with which they identify. Medical and surgical steps, including gender reassignment surgery, may be taken to make the body match the gender identification. Pre-op and post-op are terms used to identify the degree of physical alteration to the body. These labels and descriptions commonly apply to both transwomen and transmen.

More and more young people are identifying as gender queer. Other labels embraced by questioning or gender queer individuals include gender fuck, androgynous, and boi. Some gender queer people may feel comfortable with transgender support groups and may identify as transgender, while others simply prefer the umbrella term of queer. Avoid using gendered language if someone identifies outside the standard binary gender system. Some who identify as gender queer prefer alternative pronouns, including ze and hir.