[Ascot]

I've been thinking a bit about this since I saw this topic on the front page the other day. Rare is it that I actually consider what makes me butch because like anything other aspect, it is inextricably woven into my very fiber. Butchness is simply another thread in my tapestry. When a straight female friend was talking about wanting me in her wedding, sans any prompting from me she said, "And of course you can wear a tux." So a part of who I am is my butchness that it seems my being anything but doesn't even occur to anyone else. A couple of friends' kids who are certainly old enough to know I am female refer to me as Uncle Lise on their own accord and it just makes sense to everyone even though I am not male identified. Perhaps I'm fortunate in that I've known I was butch since I was really young and my parents were open minded enough to let me be who I was. My mother knew enough to buy me the jeans with the reinforced knees and the Converse chucks with no pink on them. She did clamp a bit on the sound that I made while playing shooting games with my buddies, but that was only because I was running around the neighborhood shouting "douche douche!" (you must admit, with enough emphasis, it makes a pretty good gun noise) Everything I do is imbued with female masculinity because I am. The way I smoke a cigar, the way I arrange flowers, that I love to cook, the way I fuck. Do those things make me butch? I don't know. I just know they make me, me.