Making Masculine Memories

Finding Butchness in Lesbian Prescence

In living in lesbian circles, and consuming Sapphic creative endeavors and parties, I have contemplating butch and femme identities. Finding my butchness would not have been possible if not for the exposure I have been introduced too. Reading cartoons, novels; watching movies and TV, has allowed me to contemplate my identity and what that entails.

As a 30 year-old Butch Lesbian, I look back on my jagged path to realization. I wasn’t broken. I was just living a life that wasn’t mine. As for my butchness, I feel that it organically transpired. Femininity was something I was attracted to, and not exactly something to aspire to. I think Leslie Feinberg sums it up perfectly within STONE BUTCH BLUES:

“Then she finally said how she hates this society for what it’s done for “women like me” who hate themselves so much they have to look and act like men. I felt myself getting flushed and my face twitched a little and I started telling her, all cool and calm, about how women like me existed since the dawn of time, before there was oppression, and how those societies respected them” (p. 1).

This assumption that lesbians are somehow attempting to be men is rooted in fear of what you may not understand. Although, interestingly enough, Feinberg began to realize they may have some connection to Trans identity. This is fascinating in comparison with Alison Bechdel’s comment on masculinity:

“[T]he men were having fun and doing the interesting things but also, I don’t know, I’m just thinking more about gender and how maybe in some way I am more of a boy than a girl.”

This questioning of identity is one that I have experienced. Feeling fine in my flat top has made me feel like me. Bechdel is a cis woman. This is something to keep in mind regarding her statement. And, I think a lot of lesbians have had this realization — realizing that heterosexism is a powerful force, I have wondered too what my role is. Am I a man because I like women? Societal forces would lead me to believe that I was defective in some way, and that if I began to dress and develop I would be ridiculed, and assumed to be a wannabe man. As Jack Halberstam says in FEMALE MASCULINITY:

“Precisely because white male masculinity has obscured all over masculinities we have to turn away from its construction to bring other more mobile forms of masculinity to light. (p. 16)”

Along the gender lines, it is interesting to note that Halberstam is perhaps more inclined to err on masculinity and transness. This existence can be seen as a spectrum, but I think that is erroneous. Just because there is growth, doesn’t mean it is linear, or better. We exist in multiplicity and plotting identities out from butch to trans is short-sighted and troublesome.

While I have struggled to find and accept my identity, many people knew who they were sooner, or “easier,” whatever that means. I am a butch lesbian. I am someone who took steps to analyze gendered perspectives on life. On the LGBTQ+ Spectrum, no one is free from scrutiny, hatred, or worse, but learning to be yourself, and being brave enough to explore it is one of the perks of existing inside the initialism.

“I’m not trying to be a man

I’m just being who I am

and that’s a very very very butch lesbian.”

— Phranc (The Jewish Lesbian Folksinger), “Bulldagger Swagger”

Thanks Phranc, for the best conclusion I could come to.