[BullDog]

Blade, no offense about "just butch," but I understand what Dude is saying. Also, I just watched an interview with Chazz Bono where he and the interviewer at one point talked about how he thought he was a lesbian. They talked about how that was easy and obvious, then went on to to discuss trans. I understand that it took him sometime to put the pieces together for himself, but there is nothing obvious or easy about being a lesbian. I am putting Chazz and his story aside for now.

When I was kid I thought of myself as a boy most of the time. I rode an imaginary horse and had an imaginary girlfriend named Jenny. I had crushes on little girls from as early on as I can remember and always wanted to walk girls home from school and carry their books for them. When I was a teenager I wished I was a boy so I could marry my best friend whom I was madly in love with. Then I had a very sexually explicit dream of two women together. I grew up very sexually naive- very religious family with little sex education. I was excited. Being the nerd that I am, I went to the library. The first book I found was Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. So that's what a lesbian is, I said to myself. I've happily been a lesbian ever since and not thought about being a boy or male.

Butch in and of itself of course can be a complete identity. I am butch, lesbian, female, woman and much more. They all intersect for me and lesbian, female and woman are part of being butch for me. I don't mind woman, she and her- in fact I insist on them.

I am also a butch woman who is a stone butch and consider getting top surgery- that would be a butch chest for me, not a male one. We had a discussion about this at the Dash site. Many butches who consider themselves to be woman and/or female also discussed this. I have a butch cock that is an extension of my body and my ideal chest would not have breasts- that is part of my butch body, my female body, but not a male one. There are also many butches who are quite fine having breasts. I know of many and they are indeed butch to the core.

I claim woman and female as my birthright. I claim butch for myself.


I think we all have complicated lives and complicated relationships to our gender.