Butches and Body Image - Let's Talk About It

[AlexHunter]

The media puts so much pressure on women to look a certain way: to be rail thin, but not with a flat chest; to always be perfectly put together; to have completely symmetrical facial features; to conform to society's idea of femininity; and the list continues.

I have been with plenty of femmes who struggled with body image issues...

But what about the butches?

I decided to start this thread because I've observed body image issues are a largely taboo subject among the butches I've known. So many people associate self consciousness and eating disordered behavior with those who are much more feminine.

I starved myself in middle school when I noticed I was growing breasts. I wanted to be less of a girl and consequently more of a guy. I binge ate in high school and experimented with steroids so I would gain weight and, again, appear to be more of a guy. I tried to alter my body composition to an unhealthy state.

Apart from wanting to appear more male in general (I am genderqueer/transgendered/largely male ID'd), I've felt pressure to be "man enough"/"butch enough" for any femme I liked. I like to be physically strong for myself, but I also want to make sure I am strong enough to impress the femmes.

I want to look good. I want to be appealing. My fear of shallow women has definitely driven me to work a little harder, too.

It's not the toughest, most butch-like act to admit to this sort of thing, but I know I am not the only one of our kind to have gone through this struggle.

What pressure or expectations have you felt from society or yourself with regards to your body, being a butch?

Do these expectations still plague you? How do you handle them?

Let's share our stories.

[Toughy]

It's not the toughest, most butch-like act to admit to this sort of thing, but I know I am not the only one of our kind to have gone through this struggle.

remember this: Every single thing you do/act/look is butch, no matter what it is. That is true because you are butch and if you are doing it....then it's a butch thing.

In my experience what femmes want from us is that we be real....to be who we are without shame or guilt. Muscle strength is way down on the list. Having a generous heart and acting from that heart are way up on the list.

[Scuba]

Good topic and one that I really want to respond to but need to be a bit more together in thought than I am at this moment.

Be back later

[PaPa]

I agree 100% with Toughy.

For me, butch is who I am at the core of my being. I am not trying to fulfill stereotypes or impress anyone with that identity. The women I have encountered were seeking a butch who knew how to treat women right and were not looking at superficial aspects (mannerisms or physique).

I live by the adage I am who I am. Of course each day I strive to be the best that I can be, but the basis is still the same. Take me as I am or not. Others opinions of me do not alter who I am. I do not need validation for that role.

That is just my view on this topic.

[AlexHunter]

Originally Posted by Toughy

remember this: Every single thing you do/act/look is butch, no matter what it is. That is true because you are butch and if you are doing it....then it's a butch thing.

In my experience what femmes want from us is that we be real....to be who we are without shame or guilt. Muscle strength is way down on the list. Having a generous heart and acting from that heart are way up on the list.

Well, I agree...

However, I have personally encountered some rather superficial femmes who had quite a list of demands they wanted a butch to meet, ie the attitude of: "I'm hot shit and you better be hot shit, too! You have to be everything I want or I can go find someone who is -- because, once again, I'm hot shit!" I do realize people evolve with time and that the superficial ones I came across when I was, say, 20, have probably grown up quite a bit.

I know I project a tough guy sort of image without necessarily intending to do it. I do occasionally fear disappointing people when they find out I'm not completely the tough guy they thought I was, though I acknowledge that is an assumption they chose to have. Humans are not one dimensional.

[kannon]

Hey good thread. I hope to post when I have more time. I look forward to reading the post.

[musicman]

If a femme came to me and voiced that she is all that and a bag of chips and pepsi is what the hell you talking about, fuck off.

Once I settled down, my thoughts are this, you can never be good enough, you can never please someone like that. You're going to spend all your time trying to be what she wants you to be.In the end when you fail to meet her standards she is going to walk away and try and find someone that can.

It's my experience when a potential partner (either Butch or femme) yes there are butches out there that think they are all that and more as well. Think they can find anyone at a drop of a hat isn't going to take the time to work out issues in a relationship. I think we all know that it takes some work to keep a relationship going. There has to be some give and take, some understanding that we are not perfect and a work in progress.

There is nothing wrong with having self confidence in who or what you are. You just need to know we all are a work in progress.

In my opinion, when someone thinks they are hot shit,think they have lines of people lined up to bed them wake up one morning, looks in the mirror and realizes their still single.

[TimilDeeps]

There was a time when I was concerned with how my "butchness" was perceived by others (albeit that time was over twenty years ago) I've learned a lot since then.

When one decides that they will no longer conform to the societal expectations of how they are to act, dress, perform, eat, sleep, or fuck–then one becomes who they truly are.

So, I say to you, Alex; live up to your own expectations. Strive to meet your own standards and once you have, set the bar higher.

[boobookitty]

Originally Posted by musicman

If a femme came to me and voiced that she is all that and a bag of chips and pepsi...

LOL... My instant reaction to the idea of a femme saying such to me ... was "Yes, baby what can I do for you?" --I can play that game--

but seriously, I understand what you meant musicman.

I face the stereotype of 'what is Butch' almost every day.
I don't...(I hit an emotionalblock on this train of thought) so I'll rephrase it...
if I see a reflection of myself looking male... as I percive myself... it almost instantly triggers a reaction of "you don't measure up" ... I feel some shame that I don't have the upper body strength.. That I think I should have...

looking butch enought for a woman, is a particular issue I get passed, because I date/play with women who like a female presentation. so I am in drag anyway.

I get quite a bit of headshaking from other Butches. but so far the ones who have talked with me understand where I am coming from. but, I think it stills makes them uncomfortable. (that I am in drag)

came back to add: so far most of the responces have been, along the lines of "just accept who you are, and how you are and get on with it" ... I was thinking that the discussion was intended to be more on HOW to get over it. (with some details) and what does it feel like "in the process" ... very valid points for discussion.

[Okiebug61]

Originally Posted by AlexHunter

My fear of shallow women has definitely driven me to work a little harder, too.

First I would say love yourself, take pride in being who you are and stay away from shallow women. If a women is after you only because you look the way she wants you to look she is not ready for the many paths and forks your life will take along the way.

[Parker]

Originally Posted by AlexHunter

The media puts so much pressure on women to look a certain way: to be rail thin, but not with a flat chest; to always be perfectly put together; to have completely symmetrical facial features; to conform to society's idea of femininity; and the list continues.

I have been with plenty of femmes who struggled with body image issues...

But what about the butches?

My body issues never stemmed from not looking feminine enough - I've never been feminine. Even when I was trying to be feminine with the dresses and makeup in college because that's what my mom wanted me to do - I still wasnt all that feminine and that was ok with me.

Conversely, my body issues never stemmed from not looking male, masculine, or man enough - because I am not, never was, and never will be a man.

Man or male and butch are not the same thing - it took me a few years to figure that out when I was first coming out because the fallacy that all butches are like men, or want to emulate men, or want to and eventually will become men was and still is out there.

But I love my female body - and I love being the butch that I am - so I had no issues with not looking *anything* enough. No one's opinion of my butchness (or the lack thereof, in their eyes) has ever really mattered to me.

My body issues come from my size, my weight. When I was in high school, college (the first time), and the Navy, I was thin - some said too thin at 135lbs and 5'10". After I got out of the Navy in my mid-20s, I gained about 65lbs in one year, averaging about 200lbs. It took me a few years to be ok with that weight. But now I am even bigger - about 265lbs and what I see on the outside is nothing like how I perceive myself on the inside. It sometimes makes me feel unattractive, unlovable, and undesirable.

I know that, along with men's and society's expectations of what I should look like, the birth of my issue probably also comes from when I was young and my mom - who wasnt really "fat" at all - would continually diet and complain about how fat she was. That thinking stuck with me as a kid and into my adult life and it has now become my own issue.

It is something I rarely talk about, but struggle with all the same.

[RNguy]

First off , thank you for this thread . It's very interesting and thank you for all of the butches/bois/FTM/he/hy/she for stepping out and sharing your feelings ... I just want to NOT offend anyone and before you read this , please comprehend that this is about ME ONLY . How I feel only about ME . ok I think that opening paragraph clears me wow , I don't talk about really who I am as a person really , I'm pretty closed down unless you know me very well in real time . This is a big deal that I'm sharing something personal . I have one brother , who I am very close to . It's just he and I as siblings . We are 3 years apart and a few months . He should have been a girl and I should have been a boy no doubt . With that said my brother is not gay , he is a heterosexual married male . We grew up in a very small area and there were about 20 boys all close in age and only one girl my age in our neighborhood. At 3 to 4 years of age is when I can remember things of toys , what I played with and how I was . I can remember being extremely upset that my mom put a dress on me and I told her boys don't wear these and I stripped naked . She said to me " you're not a boy , Blake " ( well she shouldn't have named me Blake right that's my real name by the way , I'm lucky ) anyways , when she said that , I flat out didn't believe her in the least . I only was around the boys , played with boys toys etc... I was too young at that point to know the anatomical differences . My mom said that she couldn't put any dresses on me because of the scene I made as a young child. All that changed later but that's a story that ill never go into here . Anyways , as I grew older into elementary years I looked like a little boy . I played football , strong as an ox , the little girls chased me and treated me like all the other boys and the other boys treated me as alike because appearance wise that's what I looked like . Well junior high hits and my facial structure changes and my body starts the big change . Except my face which still was the boy face really . My gosh I hated the body change . I knew at this point the anatomical difference between boys and girls were and I was not happy at all. I lucked out in the sence that I have a masculine body structure naturally with how my shoulders , arms , legs , thighs are. I never had prominent curves like the female body structures tend to have so that's good . Where I am from , being so small , we all grew up from K-12th grade . Nobody really viewed me as being a girl nor did I view myself as one even though I was aware that I was born a female . At 12 I was diagnosed with having a gender identity disorder . This was my mothers way of coping with a butch child , to make herself have the clarity that it was nothing she did wrong , and to make it known to me that I had a serious mental problem that needed corrected . At 27 , I paid a visit to the same doctor to diagnose him as uneducated , unsympathetic, and a quack . I took t shots for some time , had a top surgery alteration as well trying to correct what is flawed with me . I'm now 36 and feel I'm not flawed at all . I'm perfect . I'm me , I dress how I want which is how your typical male dresses , I smell how I do , which is how your typical guy smells , my hair is how it is which is well short , brown with some silver coming in here and there , I soft pack sometimes when I feel like it , I never bind my chest , bc I don't care for one and for a second there isn't much there to bind . Was a born in the wrong body ? YEP NO DOUBT ... Am I upset about it ? NOPE , GOD WANTED ME LIKE THIS FOR HIS REASONS. Do I like my body ? LOVE IT ALL 5 FT 1 IN OF IT . Do others like my body ? I DO NOT CARE. Have I been called a freak from people on the streets ? YEP OFTEN IN APPALACHIA ,. does that offend me ? I LOVE FREAKS NO !!!!! its taken me a ling time to be in this mindset but this is something personal about me. Thanks for reading .....RNguy ( Blake )

[dykeumentary]

Regarding body image and self-care:
I'd just like to take a moment to pour a cyber-libation for my butch sisters ive known who have died. I knew many butches who wouldnt/couldn't go to the ob/gyn, and died of preventable and treatable cervical and breast cancers. Also, I've known many butch women who struggled with addictions. When I think of my years of being a young butch, i remember the older butches at the bars, and in the softball leagues always hed a beer and a cigarette.

I imagine the butches I knew who have died would be happy that so many young people go to the doctor. One of the reasons I support Planned Parenthood is because for many of us butches, it was the only health care clinic where we felt comfortable.
I'm glad this thread is pointing out how proud butches are of their bodies now.
Because for a very long time our butch bodies were a battlefield, and many good friends lost the battle.

[TimilDeeps]

Originally Posted by dykeumentary

Regarding body image and self-care:
I'd just like to take a moment to pour a cyber-libation for my butch sisters ive known who have died. I knew many butches who wouldnt/couldn't go to the ob/gyn, and died of preventable and treatable cervical and breast cancers. Also, I've known many butch women who struggled with addictions. When I think of my years of being a young butch, i remember the older butches at the bars, and in the softball leagues always hed a beer and a cigarette.

I imagine the butches I knew who have died would be happy that so many young people go to the doctor. One of the reasons I support Planned Parenthood is because for many of us butches, it was the only health care clinic where we felt comfortable.
I'm glad this thread is pointing out how proud butches are of their bodies now.
Because for a very long time our butch bodies were a battlefield, and many good friends lost the battle.

salut

[clay]

Thanks for that post dykeumentary (hope I spelled your nic right.......)
I have always have my yearly screenings done..labs/pelvic with pap/mammos. As far as that , my being butch has nothing to do with the choice of getting or not..it is MY choice to remain as healthy as I possibly can...as a womyn! . I was in health care field for 21 years..and I KNOW to get those screenings done!
Last year, I had female issues that led me to a uterine biopsy, that netted me being sent to a Gynecological Oncologist at a nearby major teaching hospital. Before I saw trhat doc, she ordered a colonoscopy! I hadn' t had one of those in "years" but went on and had it. Luckily for me, a mass was found, biopsied, and WAS malignant. So I had TWO major abdominal surgeries Dec. 9th back to back..with an abd hystero done then a colon resection..I lost 16 inches of colon...BUT am alive and "unofficially" cancer free. I am having scans and labs done May 8th to check for anything new...the surgeons said I had dodged a major bullet, having that colon malignancy found as early as it was...and I didn't have to have nay chemo or radiation. So, my point? I urge everyone of us to get those yearly screenings done. Mine literally saved my life...
I, too, have lost friends to the dreaded C...which may have been prevented with screenings done regularly! So I am with you on that one....thanks for the reminder!!!

[Miss Scarlett]

Originally Posted by claybaby

Thanks for that post dykeumentary (hope I spelled your nic right.......)
I have always have my yearly screenings done..labs/pelvic with pap/mammos. As far as that , my being butch has nothing to do with the choice of getting or not..it is MY choice to remain as healthy as I possibly can...as a womyn! . I was in health care field for 21 years..and I KNOW to get those screenings done!
Last year, I had female issues that led me to a uterine biopsy, that netted me being sent to a Gynecological Oncologist at a nearby major teaching hospital. Before I saw trhat doc, she ordered a colonoscopy! I hadn' t had one of those in "years" but went on and had it. Luckily for me, a mass was found, biopsied, and WAS malignant. So I had TWO major abdominal surgeries Dec. 9th back to back..with an abd hystero done then a colon resection..I lost 16 inches of colon...BUT am alive and "unofficially" cancer free. I am having scans and labs done May 8th to check for anything new...the surgeons said I had dodged a major bullet, having that colon malignancy found as early as it was...and I didn't have to have nay chemo or radiation. So, my point? I urge everyone of us to get those yearly screenings done. Mine literally saved my life...
I, too, have lost friends to the dreaded C...which may have been prevented with screenings done regularly! So I am with you on that one....thanks for the reminder!!!

Screenings...i understand that this is not a comfortable subject or experience for a lot of folks...even some femmes.

But please, please, please don't neglect your bodies...i'm grateful that Clay did not.

[Just_G]

One of the biggest things I struggle with is the fact that people keep telling me to love myself, love who I am, I am okay just the way I am, be myself.....etc....blah! I love my personality, humor, integrity, work ethic.....you name it...I love a LOT of things about me, but to be really honest, I do not like the physical me one bit!

I know that some of you will know what I am trying to say when I say that it is so fucking hard to put in to words what a struggle it is internally...(let alone externally; the way the whole world sees you) to have to deal with insides matching outsides. I see myself one way in the mirror...which I try to avoid as much as possible....and when I see myself in pictures, I cringe. I do not like the way I look female...body wise. This has been so fucking hard as I have been out having to buy a whole new wardrobe for my new job in a very conservative company. Finding pants in my size with my inseam has been HORRIBLE! Thank God my mom sews and can hem all of them for me!

This clothes shopping experience has been so fucking disasterous.

Cheech and I were talking the other day about binding and how it all bunches up in the middle, making a bump in the middle of our chest, and how uncomfortable we always feel in our own bodies. I think if the insurance companies would help pay for some of the body modification things we want to have done, they wouldn't have to pay so much for anti-depressants because of people's body issues!

I am not depressed, just really fucking frustrated. I do not like my body one bit, but have learned to adapt and be content.

People can tell me til they are blue in the face how they see me or how to feel because they like the way I look, but it doesn't help. I do not like the way I look. (and this is not even a weight issue...this is just all "female body" stuff....blech!)

Sometimes when I am shopping, I feel like I am a kid shopping in the grown up department because my arms and legs are so short to be fitting in men's clothes...it sucks ass man!

[tara_kerrie]

I totally understand amd relate to what you are saying G. Since i have gained so much weight i see myself as a fat ugly blob that isnt good enough to be with anyone. I absolutely HATE shopping for new clothes.

[Just_G]

Originally Posted by KerrieH

I totally understand amd relate to what you are saying G. Since i have gained so much weight i see myself as a fat ugly blob that isnt good enough to be with anyone. I absolutely HATE shopping for new clothes.

Kerrie, do me a favor, tell me something about yourself that you love.

I came off kind of negative in my post above, and I wish I would have worded some of that differently.

You see, I am one of the most positive people on this earth. (which from my post above, it doesn't sound like it....but I do have a couple of things that get me down...I just don't focus on them) I really try to find the good things when I don't feel so hot about myself. For example: I have 2 arms and 2 legs that function and I am a healthy person over all....I am truly blessed!! I don't take that for granted. I might struggle with body issues and not like certain things, but I am beyond thankful that I am healthy and able bodied to get around and do things that a lot of people would kill to do! I know that some people wouldn't give a shit what they looked like, they would just be happy if they could walk or feed themselves or even just be able to get out of their bed. I am blessed. Period.

I don't focus on what I don't like...I focus on what I have and what I like about myself.

I am always saying to my friends: Find the good. I know I drive them nuts sometimes!

[tara_kerrie]

G...
The only thing that I can say that I love about myself at the moment is this:

I can love unconditionally. When I do love unconditionally, I love with everything that I am.

I am a good listener.

When I am in a relationship, my partner comes first ALWAYS.

Right now I am in too much pain to think about anything else that I love about myself.

I have no self-confidence at all.

There is one thing that I LOVE about my body...I have a GREAT ass.

I wish the boobs were gone and I wish I weighed about 40-50 pounds less than I do.

I wish I was stronger than what I am.

Those are the things that I like and dont like about myself.