What is your fondest memory in relation to your butchness?
Finding community with my other butch and trans masc friends who have given me so much love and support. Being able to dress masculine in a variety of settings whether that is at work or social events. Although we have now split a part, when my then girlfriend would call me her handsome butch was always very heartwarming and beautiful. Protecting my friends from being bumped into by random people at college parties has a lot of importance to me. Being able to make art about and to process my identity has been particularly healing. And one of my new favorite memories has honest to god been completing this project, interviewing folks and reading questionnaire responses. It has undoubtedly brought me closer to my community and to my identity, which means the world to me. I don't know if I can give you just one. There's so many and most of them are like what they described as those little micro moments you know: I was getting groceries one day and this woman came up to me and she's like 85 and she just grabs my arm she goes, honey you are the handsomest lady I’ve ever seen and that to me was just like it was so cute. I just felt like I was completely honored and I gave her a hug and she made my day, but more so than that what was her life like? Here’s somebody two generations before me, did she have the ability to love who she wanted to love? That was the thing for me that I was like OK like it matters being who you are, whoever you are matters because somebody else can see and be like oh OK and so for that that was just this little micro instance in a grocery. I got Cheerios and apples like I'm not doing anything earth shattering right and here she is and to me that was something I was like OK you know that's pretty cool. That's probably one of one of the best ones I would think and that's not somebody who knows me right like you know. Then whenever kids come up to me like that matters to you know and that's the humanity that lives in all of us right that like OK I see you and that most people need you know regardless of how they identify and be present with another human and be seen for who they are. When kids come up to me, I'm like OK yeah you do you kid, like that and that's what we're here for right. All of this everything we do is just to help someone else I think that’s my philosophy. OK this was actually really funny recently so I was at Disneyland getting day drunk with one of my best friends because we had nothing to do that day so that's what we decided to do because if you have a pass what else would you do with that. And we ran into—so I do the Rocky horror bullshit—and we ran into one of our cast members while she was on a date, her mom set her up with a nice Jewish boy, and me and my friend Marley who is my punk lesbian friend we were both like all black, boots looks that day and we just like sat next to them and we were all eating together we just sat next to them like telling her what to send this guy that her mom was trying to set her up all the way on the East Coast and just like after a certain point she's like thanks for being those angry lesbians today and we’re just like anytime absolutely, I will come in and be that angry lesbian. That was always really fun. And then I've also gotten quite “bro’d” by a couple guys in bars recently, like I’ve gotten someone who was like bro, which is weirdly reaffirming. While I didn’t want a ma’am or a honey, I prefer a bro. And I think that was a for someone reason in the workplace like you're taken less seriously, but socially I’ve notice I’m taken more seriously which very nice. I’ll take it. The first like a little one that comes to mind like it may not be the grandest one but I have a friend today who I grew up with and there’s so many similarities when we finally came out to each other over Skype and I was like, hey by the way I have some news I have a girlfriend, and she was like oh I have some news too and it was so great. So we came out to each other. She’s the only person from where I grew up that I stay in touch with there’s so many similarities with us. Our butchness is one of the best similarities we have because we were up struggling in high school playing the fem part and now we’re totally ourselves and its great. I went to go visit her recently. She lives in San Francisco and we went to this gay bar with some friends and she was showing up with her friends and unlike here where I don’t have a lot of butch women friends she has like a whole small community of butch women and I’m like this is so beautiful. So I got to be a part of that for a little bit. They show up and its her and two other of her friends and were on the dance floor and she comes in and we start dancing and immediately all we here are our keys on our carabineer and were all like oh my gosh, we all fucking had them on our jeans. How great was this scene. And so spending that whole week together with a bunch of butch women was amazing and that kind of stuff just kept happening. I think its little stuff like that. I bought this shirt from I think target’ little boys section because that’s my exact size. I’m child size. And that’s the side of the department I always shop in, the dudes. Men’s clothes are way to big for me. I had a picture of one of the shirts and she texts me and said I own that shirt. And I was like of course you do. Little stuff like that. Having my wife say she loves me just the way I am. The freedom I had as a child to play in the way I most enjoyed. And recently attending a family wedding, dressed in a tux and tie. Feeling free, and comfortable. I have a butch friend and the feeling of acceptance around people in the community is amazing. Every day when I see myself in the mirror and realize that by just being me is the best way to impact the world around me. My femme says that when I feel confidently butch, I walk with a stride in my step and my head high. I really like that. The satisfaction of being chivalrous and looking damn dapper while doing it. |
So I'll give you a truly proud awesome moment, this is such an amazing experience and then I'll give you kind of a more vain one. I’ll start with the vain one, when first I really started expressing myself and playing around with what clothes am I going to wear, how I’m gonna wear my hair, how much do I want to do it up. I remember one night we were going to a bar to see a paper view USC event and I was feeling pretty comfortable and I felt like I looked really good and that was also from a confidence perspective—I’ve dealt with a lot of confidence issues over the years and its all tied together—and I was feeling really confident and attractive and I was wearing what I wanted to wear. We were in this bar and I walk up to order a drink and the bartender gives me a sup chief kind of line and there’s something about that, wow that’s awesome because there’s something about the way he interacted and engaged with me and recognized masculine energy in a way that most people tend to feel really uncomfortable with it. I’ve had awkward situations too. That was one of those awesome, I feel like I’m on the right track here. That was the vain one. The more proud moment is I participated in this performance art piece by an artist and performer that is very butch that has been around for many years, Phranc. She is a folk singer and she’s been around for many years and I knew about her when I was a teenager and I saw her perform at a concert with Morrissey in the mid 90s and she opened up for Morrissey. And I was like 16 and it was one of the first times I saw a butch lesbian on stage singing very butch lesbian songs and she’s very funny and she works humor into a lot of her songs. I’ve loved her for years and then I find out when were living in southern California now that she does visual art as well and she was having an art exhibit in Santa Monica so I had been looking forward to finding some events and I saw she was having an art exhibit and not only that but part of the whole exhibit was about butch identity and she asked people to sign up and participate in what she was calling a butch parade. She wanted people to come in and be this little organized thing. What the hell why not, so I signed up and we went up to Santa Monica and I met her face to face and I got to tell her exactly what I just told you which is like I saw you when I was 16 years old. It left such an impression on me and I still just can’t tell how amazing that is and how much I love you. And she’s like oh how sweet. It was a little gallery space and she had a lot of friends and family there. She had a group of women there who had signed up to do her butch parade. Before she really opened up the gallery, she gave everyone little flags because she’s super quirky and we just went outside and we paraded into the exhibit and did this little round huddle and then she chatted with everyone. And she was like thank you so much I’m really glad that you’re all here because I’m always the only butch and it’s so nice to have other butch women here. It was an amazing experience and I’m so glad jumped on it and did it. Also Catherine Opie, she actually teaches at UCLA and she was down here maybe two years ago and gave a lecture and it was just so amazing. I remember seeing her photography back in the day. She’s a contemporary of Mapplethorpe. And I remember Mapplethorpe who had a big impression on me and some of the images she did around the same time were strongly remind of his work. Meg Allen, I’ve seen her images. I follow her on Instagram. Building things, working with wood, that’s great. I think that’s a form of feeling that I have power that feels real. Power tools, using power tools, or being so skilled that I don’t need the power tool, I’ll do with my little screw drive on my pocket tool. I love having what women need. I was on a trip recently where someone was cold and I was like I got you, I have the best fleece lined flannel to keep you warm. And then there’s another one that needed light, but the phone light was too harsh and upsetting and I have a lighter, I’ll keep it on for you and I have another so I can switch it out. I got it. I got it. You can have light forever. But I just love being the I will be here for you. I’m on it. And then the first time I wore a tie was really good. My roommate lent me his tie that says fuck you on it and its really cute. It’s this nice elegant pattern, but then you look closer and it says words, it says fuck you. Amazing. That and a leather jacket was like YEAH that’s what it’s about. When I got my bike, when I got my moped. Riding that around town. Then I took my friend around on it and was like I’ll drive us to dinner and it was terrifying and I was like I’m going to fuck up. I think I ran a red light because I was so nervous about stopping because stopping is the hard part. But it was so good to take this girl to the vegan restaurant. I got my cool coat on my bike and she’s wearing a skirt on this moped, which is not practical, but its such a look. Really just feeling power in a real way. Feeling like it’s a power, it’s powerful in a literal sense in the feeling empowered sense and feeling like drawing strength from roots sort of situation, where situating myself in a tradition gives me a lot of strength. Well about two years ago I entered into a very stereotypical butch-femme relationship and it was so cute. It was so good. That’s a pretty fond memory. Am I allowed to talk about my girlfriend? Well I love to talk about my girlfriend. I feel like that is something that has been really powerful for me and like coming into a more butch identity has been dating someone who is also butch. And I feel like very seen and understood all the time and being with someone who knows what you’re going through and being able to talk about stuff like dysphoria, or this is hard, talking about whatever butch feeling is happening it’s just been such a empowering thing for me to have that relationship in my life and know that I am still desirable and not just like some weird gender freak. And that knowing that I love her masculinity and her butchness and she feels the same about me, I just feel like that connection has been really important for me for a lot of reasons and I also feel in general connecting to other people who are like me. Meeting other people who maybe or butch or maybe trans men or somewhere in that area. And just being like hey we’re the same and finding more community in that way, like knowing that butch lesbians have always been and we’re gonna keep being here and just connecting with other people has been good. My friend calling me butch for the first time, before I even connected myself with the term, and everything suddenly feeling right and good and whole and meant to be. Meeting a young girl who gasped when she realized I was also a girl, even though I have short hair and hairy legs and wear masculine clothing. She stared at me with so much wonder and said, “I didn't know girls were allowed to look like that!” |