What does butch mean to you?
Being daring, being brave, being emotionally strong, being bold, being dependable, being reliable. Butch means a way to embody womanhood unconventionally—to challenge typical, limiting heteronormative understandings of what it means to be a woman. A butch is a masculine lesbian. Nothing more or less. Presenting masculine to strangers and acquaintances in appearance, attitude, and interests. A masculine of center woman, pragmatic and neat, ready to defend those weaker or endangered, or simply lean back and watch the world go by. Not femme. In the simplest terms, it means a lesbian who embraces her natural masculinity. That can look different for different people, I think, and it's not purely a question of aesthetics, though I do think that that's part of it. But there are aspects of my butchness, things like how I sit, how I walk—things that I've never thought about and never even considered particularly "butch," but that other people pointed out to me that I'm not sure I could change if I tried. Butchness is something intrinsic. A rejection of femininity, but not by default absorbing masculinity. It’s nonconformity at its most basic level. Butch. An awakening, a realization, a community I belong to. Butch is like coming home to a well-lit, heated house. Comforting and comfortable. The word is armor to protect me from the people who do not understand. The word is tenderness to present myself to the people who do. Butch means interacting with other women and specifically lesbians in a unique way. It means finding myself attractive inasmuch as I attract women and repel men. |
Butch to me is the way I can truly connect to womanhood (through lesbianism) without feeling out of place. To me butch means going against society's standards of how a girl is suppose to dress. Growing up I was told I had to wear a dress or skirt. It’s not my thing. Pants and a suit make me feel 100% more confident then a dress. Butch is embracing female masculinity. Butch means wanting to protect women, but not connecting with womanhood or being the right type of woman for cis-het society. Never understanding what exactly I'm supposed to do in order to be a woman correctly. Strength (emotional and/or physical), resilience, self-reliance, tenderness. Masculine. Female masculinity. I'm a masculine woman. It means being comfortable with who I am, with presenting in a masculine way, with being confident in my identity and rejecting the male gaze. Strong, confident, capable. To me, butchness is about a certain and specific type of masculinity, which is specifically designed for other women to be attracted to. In my case, this means I wear almost entirely men's clothing and have very short hair, but don't identify at all as a man. Butch is a characteristically lesbian way of negotiating gender, as a partial or entire refusal to participate in the aesthetic and labor-division appeasement of men under patriarchy, while still understanding ourselves as women in that system. |