Even if I'm with other lesbians who happen to be femme, they might still not be accepting of my butch identity, wishing to see me in makeup and dresses and performing traditional femininity 'just to see what it's like'. Even if I specify that I'm a lesbian, I'll get asked to shave my legs and 'behave more ladylike' so as to not 'flaunt' my lesbianism. If I claim I'm a woman in any context other than me being with other butches, I will get asked why I don't shave my legs, why I don't wear makeup, why do I speak 'like a man', why I don't have a boyfriend, if I plan on having biological children after getting married to a man, etc. However, it should also be acknowledged that gender, in all its facets, is shaped and influenced by society, and does not exist in a vacuum. This is also absolutely NOT to reduce the female gender identity to female gender expectations. I just happen to be nonbinary, and choose to embrace my nonbinary identity, rather than languish pretending to be a binary woman, simple as that. *This is absolutely NOT a cop-out of 'rejecting the struggles women face by refusing to identify as a woman and leaving women behind' as TERFs claim. In Transgender Warriors, Feinberg defines 'transgender' as a very broad umbrella, including all 'people who cross the cultural boundaries of gender'-including butch dykes, passing women (those who passed as men only in order to find work or survive during war), and drag queens. I wonder what they would say about how Leslie Feinberg defined the term 'transgender' in hir book, Transgender warriors (published in 1996): They sound like they would refuse to believe that one of my friends is as Greek as me because he happens to be pale, blond and blue-eyed. The people who deny you your right to self-identification and reject your identity because you don't fit their presuppossed image of a transgender person are deeply wrong, and I'm sorry you have to deal with them.

Personally, I have chosen not to take on the label of transgender, in favour of the labels of genderqueer or of nonbinary (I'm fine with either!) But I acknowledge that as I (generally) don't identify with my birth gender (which is the same as yours) in any capacity beyond being a lesbian, (and don't identify with the social roles imposed on people of my birth gender in any capacity whatsoever, even within the context of my lesbianism*) I could very well use the term transgender as well if I chose to.

Hi long as you don't identify with the gender assigned to you at birth, you can be considered transgender! Whether you choose to take on the transgender label or not is solely up to you.

Transgender warriors feinberg