ashlee-wilson12

[ashlee-wilson12]

"I know what femme is, and it's about honour. femmes are my oxygen. My water. I have fallen for queer masculinity that gets it up for femmes since I was sixteen, but you, you are my daily love letter."

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Sri Lankan Author/Poet, Educator, Disability Advocate & Cultural | "Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme"

[ashlee-wilson12]

an even less exhaustive list of femme literature

since a made of a list of butch lit, I thought it would be nice to make a list of femme writing by (mostly) femme authors as well. books I've read myself in bold; take the rest with a grain of salt. I'd really appreciate additions, especially of fiction!

fiction:

dykette by jenny fran davis

perfume and pain by anna dorn

trash by dorothy allison

all the pretty girls by chandra mayor

femme confidential by nairne holtz

bottle rocket hearts by zoe whittall

nonfiction:

brazen femme: queering feminity ed chloe brushwood rose and anna camilleri

femme: feminists, lesbians, and bad girls ed laura harris and elizabeth crocker

the femme mystique ed leslea newman

out of the closet and nothing to wear by leslea newman

fierce femmes and notorious liars by kai cheng thom

dirty river by leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha

s/he by minnie bruce pratt

naked in the promised land by lillian faderman

a restricted country by joan nestle

rust belt femme by raechel anne jolie

my dangerous desires by amber hollibaugh

odd girls and twilight lovers by lillian faderman

another mother tongue by judy grahn

boots of leather, slippers of gold by elizabeth lapovsky and madeline davis

the persistent desire ed joan nestle

persistence: all way butch and femme ed ivan coyote and zena sharman

articles/essays:

our own words by rosza daniel lang/levitsky in e-flux

high femme camp antics by jenny fran davis in la review of books

with gratitude and struggle by nan alamilla boyd in autostraddle

that time I went on a lesbian cruise and blew up my life by shannon keating in buzzfeed

femme-inism by paula austin in colonize this!

[ashlee-wilson12]

a non-exhaustive list of butch literature

a (very ad-hoc) list of butch reading and writing, (mostly) by butch authors. books I've read myself in bold; take the rest with a grain of salt. additions, addendums, and commentary welcome :)

(you can find my list of femme literature here)

general/literary fiction:

mrs s by k patrick

stone butch blues by leslie feinberg

boulder by eva baltasar

running fiercely towards a thin high sounds by judith katz

tipping the velvet by sarah waters

a crystal diary by frankie hucklenbroich

godspeed by lynn breedlove

cha-ching! by ali liebegott

the ihop papers by ali liebegott

greasepaint by hannah levene

lucy and mickey by red jordan arobateau

the bull-jean stories by sharon bridgforth

development by bryher

notes of a crocodile by qiu miaojin

america is not the heart by elaine castillo

the slow fix by ivan coyote

the swashbuckler by lee lynch

old dyke tales by lee lynch

sci-fi, fantasy, and horror:

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir

the unspoken name by ak larkwood

vermilion by molly tanzer

metal from heaven by august clarke

scapegracers by ha clarke

the unbroken by cl clarke

fire logic by laurie marks

the seep by chana porter

these burning stars by bethany jacobs

feast while you can by mikaella clements and onjuli datta

non-fiction, memoir, and autobiography:

hijab butch blues by lamya h

gender failure by ivan coyote and rae spoon

fun home by allison bechdel

butch is a noun by h bear bergman

female masculinity by jack halberstam

burning butch by rb murtz

when we were outlaws by jeanne cordova

leaving isn't the hardest thing by lauren hough

odd girls and twilight lovers by lillian faderman

another mother tongue by judy grahn

boots of leather, slippers of gold by elizabeth lapovsky and madeline davis

the persistent desire ed joan nestle

persistence: all way butch and femme ed ivan coyote and zena sharman

dagger: on butch women ed lily burana

[ashlee-wilson12]

a non-exhaustive list of butch literature

a (very ad-hoc) list of butch reading and writing, (mostly) by butch authors. books I've read myself in bold; take the rest with a grain of salt. additions, addendums, and commentary welcome :)

(you can find my list of femme literature here)

general/literary fiction:

mrs s by k patrick

stone butch blues by leslie feinberg

boulder by eva baltasar

running fiercely towards a thin high sounds by judith katz

tipping the velvet by sarah waters

a crystal diary by frankie hucklenbroich

godspeed by lynn breedlove

cha-ching! by ali liebegott

the ihop papers by ali liebegott

greasepaint by hannah levene

lucy and mickey by red jordan arobateau

the bull-jean stories by sharon bridgforth

development by bryher

notes of a crocodile by qiu miaojin

america is not the heart by elaine castillo

the slow fix by ivan coyote

the swashbuckler by lee lynch

old dyke tales by lee lynch

sci-fi, fantasy, and horror:

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir

the unspoken name by ak larkwood

vermilion by molly tanzer

metal from heaven by august clarke

scapegracers by ha clarke

the unbroken by cl clarke

fire logic by laurie marks

the seep by chana porter

these burning stars by bethany jacobs

feast while you can by mikaella clements and onjuli datta

non-fiction, memoir, and autobiography:

hijab butch blues by lamya h

gender failure by ivan coyote and rae spoon

fun home by allison bechdel

butch is a noun by h bear bergman

female masculinity by jack halberstam

burning butch by rb murtz

when we were outlaws by jeanne cordova

leaving isn't the hardest thing by lauren hough

odd girls and twilight lovers by lillian faderman

another mother tongue by judy grahn

boots of leather, slippers of gold by elizabeth lapovsky and madeline davis

the persistent desire ed joan nestle

persistence: all way butch and femme ed ivan coyote and zena sharman

dagger: on butch women ed lily burana

[ashlee-wilson12]

[ashlee-wilson12]

from bi any other name: bisexual people speak out, edited by Lorraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu, 1991

[ashlee-wilson12]

[“Butch girls don’t play by the rules either, and I love butch girls. Girls with hair so short you can barely slide it between two fingers to hold on. Girls with slick, shiny, barbershop haircuts and shirts that button the other way. Girls that swagger. Girls who have dicks made of flesh and silicone and latex and magic. Girls who get stared at in the ladies room, girls who shop in the boy’s department, girls who live every moment looking like they weren’t supposed to. Girls with hands that touch me like they have been touching my body their entire lives. Girls who have big cocks, love blow-jobs, and like to fuck girls hard. Every day, it is the girls that get called Sir that make me catch my breath, the girls with strong jaws that buckle my knees, the girls who are a different gender that make me want to lie down for them.”]

tristan taormino, from this girl is different, from a woman like that: lesbian and bisexual writers tell their coming out stories, 2000

[ashlee-wilson12]

ronda slater, what I need is: a contemplation of bisexuality, from bi any other name: bisexual people speak out, edited by Lorraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu, 1991

[ashlee-wilson12]

Some more trans-masc figures!!

[ashlee-wilson12]

bi pride is educating people that we mostly operate outside other sexualities’ codes which means whatever a non-bi assumes about us is usually projecting yet at the same time we have to reiterate that more people are bi than they think

[ashlee-wilson12]

“If the word for you is butch, remember, your history is one of strength and survival, and it is largely silent. Do not hide this word under your tongue. Do not whisper it or sweep it under the basement stairs. Let it fill up your chest and widen your shoulders. Wear it like a sleeve tattoo, like a medal of valour.

Learn to recognize other butches for what they really are: your people. Your brothers or your sisters. Both are just words that mean family. Other butches are not your competition, they are your comrades. Be there when they need you. Go fishing together. Help each other move. Polish your rims or your chrome or your boots together. See these acts for what they really are: solidarity.”

-Ivan Coyote, A Butch Roadmap

[ashlee-wilson12]

Ah yes, the 3 genders. Male, female, and “what the fuck are you, a cop?”

[ashlee-wilson12]

i get that americans love their cultural imperialism, but it really does piss me off that june is “international” pride month just because something happened in the united states.

in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera are their historical figures, not ours. the phrase that “you owe your rights to Black trans women” is true there, but here we owe our rights to (mostly) Māori historical figures. i have the freedoms i do because of the legacy of an entirely different set of people operating in an entirely different context at entirely different times.

But because of american cultural imperialism, most queer people in Aotearoa don’t even know our own queer history. Carmen Rupe, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, the Dorian Society, Gillian Laundon, Georgina Beyer, and the Wolfenden Association are some of our queer history. We should know their names! we should know what they did for us! but because of the power of the american imperial machine, we don’t.

our national pride month should be july, the month that the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in 1989. our two largest cities hold their pride festivals in february and march, respectively. american queer history has very little (or nothing, depending on who you ask) to do with our queer history. anecdotally, from my own queries, queer youth in aotearoa know more about american queer history than our own.

anyway, happy pride, americans. i’m truly sorry that most of you don’t see the negative impact your nation’s culture has on the rest of the world. and to the rest of the world reading this, try searching for your own country and culture’s queer history, don’t accept the american narratives as your own. we deserve our own histories divorced from the cultural hegemony of the USA.

[ashlee-wilson12]

butch vs. butch

credit Annabelle Olendzki

[ashlee-wilson12]

eh why not

[ashlee-wilson12]

choosing to allocate spoons to hanging out and having a good time at the cost of perfectly completing all your work is not a failing it is in fact an act of survival. “too sick to work = too sick to play” is in fact ableist bullshit that you don’t have to buy into. and the fact that leisure time is treated like a privilege is a fucking travesty

[ashlee-wilson12]

i love you tits that sag, i love you bodies that grow hair in places you might not want, i love you bodies that ache 24/7, i love you souls that never received love until well into your 20’s, i love you hearts that give unrequited love for others no matter if you receive the same yourself.

i love you unconditionally even if no one else can see the treasure that you are