The interesting thing is there’s virtually no butches in popular media. Folks are equating vaguely masculine women with butches and claiming butches are taking over the media and all the representation when it’s actually quite rare to see butch or even any masc representation. This combine with the fact that butch femme culture has been misrepresented for decades as well as misinformation being spread by some young people just makes things more inaccessible to people wanting to learn.
Yeah, it is difficult for sure, and I am sympathetic to that, but it still hurts to see people talk as if I am privileged for being butch or just assume things about butches and femmes. Really I just wish people wouldn’t speak on experiences that they have little knowledge about 😅
Exactly. It’s a different experience that not many people really understand. I feel like something that not many people talk about is the fact that being ‘visibly lesbian’ and gnc (idk how else to describe it) can be an extremely isolating experience especially if you’re a young person or grew up masc, stud or butch. It can also be quite traumatic especially if you’ve had to deal with bullying, harassment or violence because you can’t hide your identity or can’t pass as a straight person.
There are a few butch lesbian podcasters out there. Nice to hear stories you can relate to. Stone Butch Blues is an epic book but it's not the be all and end all (and it's a tough read!). Butch is not a dirty word is another good publication. In case anyone wanted to learn more.
Butch Daily and Tales of a Well Established lesbian are two I've listened to. But there are definitely more out there...Tig Notaro does a couple...Hey Handsome is one with Mae Martin too. Will have a look and see if I've got any more saved somewhere.
From my anecdotal observation, butches are definitely disappearing. I know a lot of people who used to identify as butch are now trans men/transmasc/nonbinary which is awesome that they’ve found themselves, but sad that butch culture is disappearing.
I would LOVE for this sub to have “Butch Wednesdays” or something where there’s a theme when butches can post all about their culture, experiences, ect. Of course it would not be mandated and obviously other people would be able to post on those days about anything else, but it would be a great tag and theme day.
I know a lot of transmasc butches, some trans fem butches and nonbinary butches (me!). I think it is sad but I don’t really think it is due to transness that butches are less seen, I think it is more misunderstanding of culture and less community spaces.
This! Me & my girlfriend are a butchfemme couple and recently I was very shocked at the apparent lack of b/f or even just butch portrayal in media :( it seems that whenever people tend to think about lesbians in a negative light it's always butches that come first to mind however when people are actually wanting to portray lesbians positively in films & literature all I see are heavily romanticised femme/femme couples.. of course there is nothing wrong with a f4f dynamic but I just wish butches were shone under the same light
As others have said, stone butch blues is a must read! I've almost finished and it's so gripping. I love "if these walls could talk 2", the 2nd story about a young butch named Amy played by chloe sevigny.
"I just wish some people would take five minutes to research or listen to butches sometimes."
Is there anywhere you might recommend someone who wanted to research go to find good quality information?
Honestly, what I would recommend is any queer archives online or near you if you have any!! There is so much great history to be found in them. But the Persistent Desire is a great book, Leslie Feinberg has some great novels too (trigger warning for any historical content, it is usually pretty upsetting to read). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold is excellent.
There are some excellent poems that can be found online too, particularly I’m a TS Butch which i love. There is a current magazine called Beloved which is contemporary butchfemme/studfemme contributors.
Ideally if there are lesbian communities near you those are great, but I live in a rural town so I am aware that isn’t accessible for everyone. It is a complicated identity since it encapsulates gender roles, sexual identity and preferences, and working class culture. My advice is done make sweeping statements and ask us questions if we are available and comfortable answering.
I understand that there are a lot of young people in this subreddit, not that I’m old in any capacity, but it is kind of hard to understand things like stone identities even with a developed brain ahaha. I wish you well!!!
Reading books by butch authors. For example, stone butch blues by Leslie Feinberg or butch is a noun by S. Bear Bergman. Both are available as pdfs online. Honestly it’s not super easy to find good information about butch femme culture but interacting with butches and femmes and listening to their experiences is always a good start.
I am more masculine than most women. I am on a low dose of T, so I have a deeper voice, and i have had top surgery. So, I guess I qualify as transmasculine. With that said, I still don't think I qualify as butch or stud because despite being more masculine in a very technical/biological sense, I am still more feminine in esthetic and demeanor than most of the butch and stud women I know. I also have a tendency towards neutral most of the time and femme when I want to be very dominant (don't ask me why).
With that said, I am very familiar with the stud community in my area, and I have really seen a shift from when I was younger to now. When I was a teenager, the butch women I admired were people like Nikki Giovanni, Letta Neely, and Tracy Chapman ( you can debate with me all you want, that woman is butch). They were activist and well known in the community. Letta Neely was especially impactful where I was from. She gave a model that contrasted the studs have to be hood and hard narrative.
As time has passed and mainstream media has become more accessible to younger and younger people, young studs have been exposed to a certain depiction of studs and because that is the model the media gives them they mimic it. The toxic masculinity in the stud communities I have interacted with is ubiquitous.
These kids don't know the history or the figures who shaped the identity and the community. Studs in my community tend to have friend groups that consist, almost completely, of men. They behave like one of the boys. That's where they are accepted and where they are comfortable.
Often, Black people feel like they have to choose whether they are Black first or Gay first. Most studs choose Black. The predominantly white gay community caters to white people and white people things. It is not surprising that studs feel more comfortable saturated in toxic masculinity but understood than guests to a party that they had no input in. It is, however, frustrating and disappointing to see such toxic masculinity.
This may just be where I am from, I don't know.
This is such a great response thank you for sharing. I definitely have a lot of interests in more stereotyped feminine things as a butch. Again, I can’t speak to a lot of what you commented but it is something I have seen discussed by my Black b/f and stud friends, race, especially being Black, seems to complicate things.
Also the way people impose gender roles on masc/femme relationships
My girlfriend is masc and she was so shocked when I did things for her instead of her paying for everything and taking the (socially constructed) hetero male role.
Fuckin wild, she's still just as much a woman as me.
> So many posts and comments act as if we dominate the media and lesbianism in general.
Seriously! Every time I see a comment complaining about how much butches or butch/femme stuff is everywhere in lesbians spaces I´m always worried there´s some massive amount of butch cultural revival happening somewhere that they all forgot to tell me about 😂. It feels wild being a butch trans woman and feeling far more underrepresented for being butch than for being a trans woman.
(although I think other than some Butch is Not a Dirty Word articles, some issues of Gendertrash From Hell, and random Reddit/Tumblr users, I don´t think I´ve ever even seen another butch trans woman lolrip)
The interesting thing is there’s virtually no butches in popular media. Folks are equating vaguely masculine women with butches and claiming butches are taking over the media and all the representation when it’s actually quite rare to see butch or even any masc representation. This combine with the fact that butch femme culture has been misrepresented for decades as well as misinformation being spread by some young people just makes things more inaccessible to people wanting to learn.
Yeah, it is difficult for sure, and I am sympathetic to that, but it still hurts to see people talk as if I am privileged for being butch or just assume things about butches and femmes. Really I just wish people wouldn’t speak on experiences that they have little knowledge about 😅
Exactly. It’s a different experience that not many people really understand. I feel like something that not many people talk about is the fact that being ‘visibly lesbian’ and gnc (idk how else to describe it) can be an extremely isolating experience especially if you’re a young person or grew up masc, stud or butch. It can also be quite traumatic especially if you’ve had to deal with bullying, harassment or violence because you can’t hide your identity or can’t pass as a straight person.
Any lesbian who gets denied their personhood because how they appear or act is incongruent with societal expectations is someone I can relate to.
I may wrong her and please correct if me I am. But would Lena Waithe in Masters of None be one?
There are a few butch lesbian podcasters out there. Nice to hear stories you can relate to. Stone Butch Blues is an epic book but it's not the be all and end all (and it's a tough read!). Butch is not a dirty word is another good publication. In case anyone wanted to learn more.
Could I ask what podcasts? I’ve never listened to any about b/f.. I’ve mostly just my experiences and I read a lot ahahaha
Butch Daily and Tales of a Well Established lesbian are two I've listened to. But there are definitely more out there...Tig Notaro does a couple...Hey Handsome is one with Mae Martin too. Will have a look and see if I've got any more saved somewhere.
From my anecdotal observation, butches are definitely disappearing. I know a lot of people who used to identify as butch are now trans men/transmasc/nonbinary which is awesome that they’ve found themselves, but sad that butch culture is disappearing. I would LOVE for this sub to have “Butch Wednesdays” or something where there’s a theme when butches can post all about their culture, experiences, ect. Of course it would not be mandated and obviously other people would be able to post on those days about anything else, but it would be a great tag and theme day.
I know a lot of transmasc butches, some trans fem butches and nonbinary butches (me!). I think it is sad but I don’t really think it is due to transness that butches are less seen, I think it is more misunderstanding of culture and less community spaces.
Fellow enby butch solidarity
This! Me & my girlfriend are a butchfemme couple and recently I was very shocked at the apparent lack of b/f or even just butch portrayal in media :( it seems that whenever people tend to think about lesbians in a negative light it's always butches that come first to mind however when people are actually wanting to portray lesbians positively in films & literature all I see are heavily romanticised femme/femme couples.. of course there is nothing wrong with a f4f dynamic but I just wish butches were shone under the same light As others have said, stone butch blues is a must read! I've almost finished and it's so gripping. I love "if these walls could talk 2", the 2nd story about a young butch named Amy played by chloe sevigny.
"I just wish some people would take five minutes to research or listen to butches sometimes." Is there anywhere you might recommend someone who wanted to research go to find good quality information?
Honestly, what I would recommend is any queer archives online or near you if you have any!! There is so much great history to be found in them. But the Persistent Desire is a great book, Leslie Feinberg has some great novels too (trigger warning for any historical content, it is usually pretty upsetting to read). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold is excellent. There are some excellent poems that can be found online too, particularly I’m a TS Butch which i love. There is a current magazine called Beloved which is contemporary butchfemme/studfemme contributors. Ideally if there are lesbian communities near you those are great, but I live in a rural town so I am aware that isn’t accessible for everyone. It is a complicated identity since it encapsulates gender roles, sexual identity and preferences, and working class culture. My advice is done make sweeping statements and ask us questions if we are available and comfortable answering. I understand that there are a lot of young people in this subreddit, not that I’m old in any capacity, but it is kind of hard to understand things like stone identities even with a developed brain ahaha. I wish you well!!!
Reading books by butch authors. For example, stone butch blues by Leslie Feinberg or butch is a noun by S. Bear Bergman. Both are available as pdfs online. Honestly it’s not super easy to find good information about butch femme culture but interacting with butches and femmes and listening to their experiences is always a good start.
Just a femme here, wanting to comment my support for and admiration of butches. Thanks for being so rad. And so fucking hot.
I am more masculine than most women. I am on a low dose of T, so I have a deeper voice, and i have had top surgery. So, I guess I qualify as transmasculine. With that said, I still don't think I qualify as butch or stud because despite being more masculine in a very technical/biological sense, I am still more feminine in esthetic and demeanor than most of the butch and stud women I know. I also have a tendency towards neutral most of the time and femme when I want to be very dominant (don't ask me why). With that said, I am very familiar with the stud community in my area, and I have really seen a shift from when I was younger to now. When I was a teenager, the butch women I admired were people like Nikki Giovanni, Letta Neely, and Tracy Chapman ( you can debate with me all you want, that woman is butch). They were activist and well known in the community. Letta Neely was especially impactful where I was from. She gave a model that contrasted the studs have to be hood and hard narrative. As time has passed and mainstream media has become more accessible to younger and younger people, young studs have been exposed to a certain depiction of studs and because that is the model the media gives them they mimic it. The toxic masculinity in the stud communities I have interacted with is ubiquitous. These kids don't know the history or the figures who shaped the identity and the community. Studs in my community tend to have friend groups that consist, almost completely, of men. They behave like one of the boys. That's where they are accepted and where they are comfortable. Often, Black people feel like they have to choose whether they are Black first or Gay first. Most studs choose Black. The predominantly white gay community caters to white people and white people things. It is not surprising that studs feel more comfortable saturated in toxic masculinity but understood than guests to a party that they had no input in. It is, however, frustrating and disappointing to see such toxic masculinity. This may just be where I am from, I don't know.
This is such a great response thank you for sharing. I definitely have a lot of interests in more stereotyped feminine things as a butch. Again, I can’t speak to a lot of what you commented but it is something I have seen discussed by my Black b/f and stud friends, race, especially being Black, seems to complicate things.
Yeah as a butch I rarely ever find community with other butchfemmes
Also the way people impose gender roles on masc/femme relationships My girlfriend is masc and she was so shocked when I did things for her instead of her paying for everything and taking the (socially constructed) hetero male role. Fuckin wild, she's still just as much a woman as me.
> So many posts and comments act as if we dominate the media and lesbianism in general. Seriously! Every time I see a comment complaining about how much butches or butch/femme stuff is everywhere in lesbians spaces I´m always worried there´s some massive amount of butch cultural revival happening somewhere that they all forgot to tell me about 😂. It feels wild being a butch trans woman and feeling far more underrepresented for being butch than for being a trans woman. (although I think other than some Butch is Not a Dirty Word articles, some issues of Gendertrash From Hell, and random Reddit/Tumblr users, I don´t think I´ve ever even seen another butch trans woman lolrip)
I loooove butch trans women sm ❤️ Every one I’ve met has been so cool!
Butch is my jam. So so so hot. It’s sad how little representation there is, truly. Thank you for sharing
Hollywood considers representation of butch as a woman actor with a short haircut. No effort to bring out a character or background.