Additional Comments
We are beautiful. I think this project and others like it are so important. It’s only through things like this that marginalized voices can be heard and understood. I'm so glad you're doing this. ❤️ Another story I'm fond of. I was in the military, and my unit (a very small unit) was forced to attend a ball and females were required to wear skirts and heels with their dress uniform. It was absolutely horrific, but there was one other butch in my unit and—even though we never talked—when she spotted me waiting for the busses, she threw her hand up and shouted an "aaaayeeee" at me, which I of course returned. It was a great moment of solidarity in what was sure to be a traumatizing night. People say "It's not just about female masculinity" and I guess there is something more, but I don't know what it is. We are still women. Butch is not a bad word. Butches are the kindest people I know. You are not alone. There's this attitude that butches are loud/aggressive/exclusionary. But most butches I've met are brave and very gentle, and very accepting of trans people because they understand that gender is fucking hard to navigate. I love my wife, who is trans. She has made me a better person, and helped me confront how I was making myself conform to other people's standards. Embracing and developing my butch identity has been a major part of my healing process and I would not be here today if I had continued to reject that part of myself. It feels like home. |
Growing up with 4 brothers, my butch was always normal and embraced by my family. My brothers have been my biggest supporters—men can be amazing. Butchness to me is a kind of renunciation of the superficial rewards of femininity, in favor of deeper feelings of self-sufficiency. When I was a teenager a lot of butch "examples" online were thin young androgynous women; I’m seeing more diversity now days but the more the better! I really really really love being Butch. Thank you for this, and I hope your capstone goes well. I love being butch. It’s core identity to who I am. I wouldn't say that being butch just has to do with clothes, but I would say that for me personally it's tied really closely to my appearance and how I want to look, and that I take much closer care of my appearance than I did back when I thought I was a straight girl or even when I thought I was bi. Butches are FANTASTIC. Just because I dress like a man and look like a woman doesn't mean I'm transgender and or wanting to be questioned by some family in the bathroom and I darn sure don’t want anyone assuming because I do these things that I am only in that bathroom to harm someone. I am merely dealing with a call of nature as they are as well. Break the chains and allow us to be individuals. I am proud to be a radical lesbian feminist, an elegant dapper dyke. The word lesbian isn't comfortable for all queer identified women, some see it as indicating a particular form of queer women's sexuality that hasn't always been accepting of butch/femme, and that doesn't include bi and pansexual women. |