Lesbian/gender roles question

In My Humble Opinion
1

Ok so bear with me. I’m not sure how to word this.

First, some background. One of my old college roommates met a guy in the same chat room I met MrPanda in waaaaaaay back in the 90s. They got married … then divorced a couple of years later.

Flash forward a few years and my former roomie apparently identifies as a lesbian and is now engaged to a woman.

So anyhow we’re Facebook friends and all and say hi from time to time and I was looking through her pictures one day. They have this adorable puppy (squee!) and in some of the pics the caption will say something like “hanging out with Daddy” … and it’s a pic of her fiance (again, a female) holding the puppy. And then there’s some pics of her (the roomie) with the dog referring to herself as “Mom.”

I am 100% certain her fiance is NOT transgender nor does she identify as a male. She’s very butch, yes, but you can look at her and tell she’s a female.

So I’m confused. I know exactly 2 lesbians in real life and I’m not close enough to either of them to ask them something like this, nor do I feel comfortable asking my former roomie because I’m afraid she’d be offended when I’m simply curious.

So … yeah. What’s up with a lesbian referring to her partner in a masculine form? Is this some kind of cultural thing or is this just way off in left field with no explanation?

2

It’s a stereotype for gay couples. Not every couple does this. But sometimes people define their relationship as (pardon the crudity) the butch and the bitch. It’s not just lesbians, either. In some male-male relationships, twinks are bitches and bears are butches.

As usual, urbandictionary comes through.

3

Sometimes it’s a ‘butch/femme’ kinda roleplay thing, sometimes it’s just a bit of a laugh. In my circles, there actually aren’t many butch/femme couples, and neither myself nor my partner are ‘butch’, but a mutual friend calls me ‘Dad’ and my girlfriend ‘Mum’ because she once caught me doing DIY whilst my partner was cooking dinner. So it’s sort of an in joke, if anything.