The Re-Definition of the Modern Butch

[T4Texas]

In my profile, I describe myself as an old school butch with updated ideas. I came out in the mid 70s, a different time and place compared to now. In those days you were either butch, femme or bi. There weren't a lot of ID's swirling around for you to pick from. Gender change was just beginning in some parts of the world and the gay community as a whole was struggling to find its collective identity. I came out as a butch. For me it was a no brainer as it was my personality and I knew without a doubt it was who I was. I have never regretted the decision and always from the beginning embraced my butch identity, never hiding it or making apologies for it. I am outwardly proud of it and felt comfortable in my skin from the beginning. I know I am one of the fortunate ones. I have seen over the years so many people struggle to find their identity no matter if they came out at 17 like me or at 40. The plethora of choices we have now, I feel, makes that struggle harder for some as everyone searches for that place to fit in. I feel a great deal of pain especially for the younger people who sometimes seem caught up in the label frenzy and make decisions about their lives not knowing what the impact of those decisions might be some years down the road. Sure, its their lives to live and its not for me to say or judge at all. But sometimes I can see the pain they are going to face and already face. You can see it in what they say or write at times. I want so much at times to suggest to them "think about all sides of it first", but I can't because it's their right of passage and they must navigate it on their own.
I have changed myself over the years by being more patient, more considerate of my partners, taking responsibility for everything I say and do, and willing to have an open mind on anything. I always tell people that no subject is taboo with me and I do mean that. My own sexuality has evolved a great deal since I came out as far as interests go. Being butch has been a mainstay of life for me. It gave me self confidence, independence and a sense of self worth that I feel nothing else could have. I feel the modern butch is still going to want to acquire all those characteristics and do their best to be a good person, the only difference now being that there are many different types of butches out there and also they face choices I never had to face. I will confess, there was a time when I would look at someone who ID'd as butch but wore makeup and would shake my head and say to myself that person is not butch. It was old school thinking yes and the person I have become realizes now that being butch is a thing within you that you can't cover up or change about yourself so the outward appearances do not matter, aside from the fact that you have no place judging other peoples choices or how they choose to represent those choices. I agree with Met that there are a lot of stereotypes and misinformation out there about butches and those things should be corrected when we can. I particularly get frustrated at articles stating that the butch/femme lifestyle is outdated and going the way of the wind. For me, butch is a state of being and that fact will not ever change no matter how much our world and community do. I can only hope there are others who feel the same.

[Jett]

T4 I agree and feel the same that butch isn't going anywhere, and I don't believe it's changing all that much either but hopefully some of the things we criticize about each other and hold over each others heads at times will.

And just to be clear, again, this thread isn't about changing what butch is, or saying that a stereotypical type of butch is incorrect... I've identified as butch for longer than some peeps on this forum have been alive and to be honest here one could say I'm fairly stereotypical butch and so is my relationship... I'm also very not stereotypical in many ways... and nothings wrong with either of those things and that's kind of the point.

It's about not perpetuating those myths/stereotypes to point of smothering individuality or and discouraging peeps from doing or being every single damn thing they want in this life without worrying about being thought of as less butch.

I just get tired of seeing people trying to pull other peeps butch cards based on ID differences, gender variances or who they date etc. etc. etc.

That's all I've got

Metropolis

[Dragonfly]

A big THANKS To everyone posting here. Especially hearing it from the mentoring generations who evolved and opened their views to be more accepting of each other's ID's. It really helps to know there are supportive people for those confused by "card pullers" when new terms are included and added all the time. Navigating through my own is hard enough and understanding others is easier without the "card pullers" adding to it. Hearing from those of us who admit to having to rethink our own views will hopefully create more PATIENCE with the "card pullers" and we will love them too until they get on board...

[Dragonfly]

To Met @ the hair thing: Umm both of the husbands I had wore their hair long. Just sayin... perspectives of gender traits are not universally the same. I really feel you on that one. Long hair is not = to feminine.

[Jett]

Right Amelia thanks. Yeah I would have no qualms about growing my hair longer, and actually I'm in the process of growing it to where I like it (3-4 inches but above the shoulder) though it's still short short short right now.

Thanks again and have a great day.

Metro

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by T4Texas

Being butch has been a mainstay of life for me. It gave me self confidence, independence and a sense of self worth that I feel nothing else could have.

This resonated with me powerfully. Embracing my butch identity made me sane. It allowed me to hold my head up high. To become the woman that my wife describes as a 'force of nature' (which is, in my strange mind, one of the highest compliments that can be paid to any human being). What's more, it helped me embrace and become proud of two other core components of my identity *not* related to my orientation--being a black woman and being a geek.

Although it's not commonly acknowledged, there is a standard of beauty in Western society that no black woman can meet. That standard of beauty that every girl who has ever seen Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty (or any other Disney movie for that matter) or played with a Barbie doll knows all to well. Her skin is pale, her hair is blonde or, if brunette, long and flowing. Her eyes are blue and her lips are thin. No black woman can approximate this standard. Being butch gave me a *different* standard of beauty, one that need not hinge upon the aforementioned characteristics and so, in embracing my butchness, I too could feel attractive/handsome/beautiful/sexy/desirable. Being butch allowed me to embrace perhaps the most obvious distinction of my personality--my geekiness--for I am, always have been and will always be a geek. (I just hung up a poster showing the entire electromagnetic frequency spectrum in my home office) Being a butch gave me a context for that to be okay.

Perhaps something else could have done that for me, but I cannot for the life of me imagine what that would have been or would look like. It is why I treasure my butch identity and love my butch brothers and sisters.

If any of you reading this are older butches (e.g. came out in the 60's and 70's) thank you. I owe you a debt of gratitude I will never live long enough to repay because you blazed a trail that I found in my twenties and followed into a life of happiness, peace and self-acceptance I could never have imagined in my teens. Twenty years after I came out, I am not just the woman I imagined I could be--because I could not have imagined that I would be this woman, my vision was not that expansive.

Cheers
Aj

[T D]

I've been some form of lesbian, gay, butch, trans, anything but heterosexual, my entire life. I formally came out at the age of 19 in 1971. At that time, as T4Texas pointed out, there weren't a lot of choices when it came to IDing. In around 1973 I can remember one of my butch friends saying to me "what are you anyway?" meaning what was my ID. I told her that I'm whatever I want to be, which was completely unheard of and unacceptable at that time. Well as we all know a LOT has occured over the past 4 decades, but one thing I can tell you for sure is that Butch and Femme were IDs then and they're still IDs today. They will always be IDs.

In my world butch is internal, but can and does manifest in external ways as well. There is NO set way to be butch. Some butches cook and are quite domestic, others aren't. Some like mechanical stuff, others don't. Some have long hair, others don't. The differences are endless, and quite frankly mean little to nothing. It's certainly not about how one appears to the external world. Butch is about who you are INSIDE. How you feel about yourself, who you are to yourself.

I have always believed that people are who they believe they are. It's very simple. If you believe you're something, or perhaps not something, then that is your truth, your reality, your place in the world. NO one, and I mean absolutely NO one, has the right, obligation, responsibility, or place telling anyone else otherwise. And it is my belief that those who do are only projecting their own views of life (perhaps their own life) onto others. In order to know who people are we need to listen to them. I think listening is becoming a lost ability.

I've found the growing chasm between and describing IDs very disturbing of late. It's almost like people want to be "right", when there is NO "right". We are who we are, period. There will never be a "right", only an enormously diverse, and growing, variety of descriptions for the same (or nearly same) things........ over and over and over.

Just my 2 cents worth at the moment.

[Kobi]

Our community has taken the marketing of "be all you can be" to heart. We have done a terrific job of exploring and expanding the definitions of the variability of our collective identities and the neverending labels to describe them.

What we may be lagging in is our acceptance of the differences and respect for each individuals uniqueness.

I agree with TD, you are who you believe yourself to be and listening is truly a lost art.

[Jaques]

There are those who will be rigid in how they id and what they see as "the butch" but I feel that whether butch, femme, straight, bi, andro, sky blue pink with a yellow border, people change and change again, thats the way of everything, so what a person may feel he/she is today, down the line they move into some other way of being/thinking - thats how we, as human beings evolve............

[Kimbo]

Originally Posted by Jaques

There are those who will be rigid in how they id and what they see as "the butch" but I feel that whether butch, femme, straight, bi, andro, sky blue pink with a yellow border, people change and change again, thats the way of everything, so what a person may feel he/she is today, down the line they move into some other way of being/thinking - thats how we, as human beings evolve............

This is so true.

[MainelyButch]

Wow...some really good reading and view points here. I haven't been keeping up on the Planet much, guess I need to get my ass in gear and try to catch up. It's so hard to find "space" nowadays where one can read and relate to others who are perhaps of like mind. I am crashing through my mid-life crisis and find it difficult to connect with others lately.

Ok...back to reading!

[Rope]

For me, my issue with the lesbian as other is from the 70's when I came out--I was not welcome, I was told to tone it down (whatever "it" was) and told to embrace my feminine side because no matter how I tried, I wasn't going to be a man. I remain a male identified butch that has no problem with my butchness and never was trying to be a man.

As a butch leather Top, I still get shit--from the lesbians and from b/f folks, but hey, to each hys/her own. From the lesbians I get, "how are we ever going to get the right to vote when you leather folks show up in the media"...I dunno, how narrow do you want it to be so you can have that brass ring.

As a child of the 60's, weren't we going to tear down the patriarchy, including that need for a piece of paper to define ALL relationships like marriage? Weren't we going to tear down that binary world that said this is what men do and this is what women do? Didn't we radicalize the way we wore our clothes so that men could have long hair and women could wear pants if that's what they wanted to do?

And now oh so many years later, we're still trying to put each other down even within our own ranks for being too butch, not butch enough, the wrong kind of butch, too masculine, too feminine, a butch with long hair, a butch that can't fix a car----puleeese.

I love the fact that I walk through many worlds---I'm a native American, so I hang with my injun pals, I am a leather butch so I hang with leather folks, I am an overeducated liberal arts wonk, so I hang with those folks too, I live in S.F. so it's young vs. older, it's trendy andro vs. queer, it's ftm leaning to bi---it's all good. It's just sad that while we're dicing and slicing and figuring out what we want for ourselves some feel the need to put others down or criticize their way in the world.

When people actually sit down with me, they find that leather butch isn't what they think it is, they find that no, not all native Americans grow up in tepees (seriously, some people think we do), that butch doesn't always mean white collar or blue collar, that some butches prefer hy vs. she and some feel more masculine than feminine and it's all good.

Rope--

[BullDog]

All lesbians are not the same either. Some are butches and femmes.

[MainelyButch]

Originally Posted by Rope

And now oh so many years later, we're still trying to put each other down even within our own ranks for being too butch, not butch enough, the wrong kind of butch, too masculine, too feminine, a butch with long hair, a butch that can't fix a car----puleeese.
Rope--

I am seeing so much of this sort of "in-fighting" or "debating" if you will, within our own community lately. It really bothers me, I wish that the LGBT community could find a way to just live and let live without all of the criticism of each other. So this point you make really struck a chord with me. I see a lot of it on Youtube lately, it's been kind of a hot topic.

I sometimes wonder if there will come a time when we can all just agree to be unified in diversity. Maybe we need to discontinue calling ourselves the "LGBT" community altogether and maybe use something like "Diversity community" Our "issues" aren't really ours exclusively at all, but are issues of equality that cross a broad spectrum of sexuality, identity, race, religion...etc. Now I see in the news recently people asking if "T" should even be included in our alphabetical labeling of our community....perplexing and disturbing to me.

We seem to spend much time debating things that just don't make sense in the big scheme of things, while those against us use these same points for fodder to continue to keep us down. Anyhow, that's my humble opinion and 2 cents today....love this thread, and Metropolis, you are quite the gifted writer! Hope everyone is well and at peace with the world today.

[Jett]

Originally Posted by Rope

..snip...

And now oh so many years later, we're still trying to put each other down even within our own ranks for being too butch, not butch enough, the wrong kind of butch, too masculine, too feminine, a butch with long hair, a butch that can't fix a car----puleeese.

....snip.....

Rope--

Truth and I'll be frank, it really disgusts me every time I see the devaluing of any expression of someones identity.

People try to narrow down definitions to fit what they like-want-are... and peeps doing it somehow always fit right into what they're purporting as "the way"... that says something in itself though... just another case of step on others to raise oneself up in what ever way.

Makes for a lot of misinformation and a vicious circle the stifles freedom of expression rather than promotes it as you'd think we would.

[Jett]

Originally Posted by T4Texas

....*snipped*.....

I particularly get frustrated at articles stating that the butch/femme lifestyle is outdated and going the way of the wind. For me, butch is a state of being and that fact will not ever change no matter how much our world and community do. I can only hope there are others who feel the same.

I want to touch on this a bit more deeply.

Again, I can't see butch or femme becoming completely outdated, but... I can see us perpetuating the stereotypes and policing to the point that butch/femme wouldn't feel like a comfortable fit to many peeps. The subtle (and often blatant) up-holding of unrealistic ideals of butch and femme permeate the spaces around B-F and can make the perimeter appear minuscule and confining.

The vein of "real/more/better/high/true - us/them" that pervades the forums isn't any more welcoming and imo, it steals the true lifes blood of diversity and pushes a narrow standard of B-F that even the vast majority reading this wouldn't come close to living up to.

I've seen many B-F people wander into B-F spaces looking and log out permanently, they don't feel what they read... they don't fit the stereotypes, (or perhaps they just don't get the mind numbing "what's the most un-butch/femme thing you do". - jokes. *insert sarcastic look*).

Again, my thoughts are NOT about changing butch/femme... but changing the way we think and opening our minds to the diverse culture we already are and acknowledging this to become more inclusive.

I think it's more significant then ever that we check ourselves, before the age of the internet we didn't have the ability to leave such cut definitions... what we're writing, allowing and most importantly leaving unchallenged IS becoming our recorded legacy.

*actually a lot more fun in real life*
Metro

[BullDog]

Great thread Metro, I hope to contribute more later. Just wanted to say your latest post hits home for me. I find myself less and less relating to online butch femme circles. However, I don't have that same problem with real time friends and local social gatherings of bf peeps. The two worlds are quite different.

[AtLast]

Going to come in everyday to read posts. I feel this thread can be of great value and not age specific at all. For me, there have been so many varied mixes of butch within. A multi-dimensional core of sorts that goes far beyond so much of traditional definitions of butch and for me, female masculinity.

Sometimes, I am deeply frustrated with what I too, see as limiting, narrow and constraining with butch identity. I have met (or am friends with) several butches (ranging from female-identified through TG and IG, Trans-masuline and those that left butch and our dynamic behind as FtM's) that just can't remain on B-F sites for the reasons Metro brings up. Yet, I cannot stay away even when I also feel limitations and constraints. Odd, actually, as personally, I am pretty much just a butch. Ah, so what does that really mean?

Anyway, I want to simply read what others think and feel for now in the thread.