Butch visibility

[Ascot]

Originally Posted by Bard

It took me a while to be comfortable in my skin and be the butch I am and proud of it I to get the looks and even on our vacation I got security called on me because I used the ladies room hell I have been using the damn ladies room all my life. IDK I am happy to just be me to get my hair cut where I want and how I want to have a partner who loves and respects me just as I am to be respected and valued at work. Even when someone refers to me as sir or by a male pronoun the officers I work with get very protective when that happens but it is all good with me. I think it is because now I am happy to be butch and damn proud of it but it was a long winding journey to find me

I'm glad you feel the way you do, Bard. I think it's much easier to go through life when you can accept, embrace and celebrate who you are.

I hear many butches talk about their journey, whether to a place of recognition, acknowledgement, for some it might even be resignation. I'm not cognizant of a journey of my own, per se, I think because I've known for so very long, I mean pretty much from the time I was a really little kid, that I am both butch and queer. I don't think that I ever experienced a growing into it because I was never not in it. Does that make sense? I do know, though, that the paths for many have been and still are not unlike mine fields hidden beneath thickets of blackberry vines. The way can be arduous and painful and dangerous. Life threateningly so, even.