#younger butches

[cowboyjen68]

Dear Jen--

I'm writing to ask you if you ever felt pressure to be a "good butch" or a "good masc". If there was a ever a time when you felt there was one specific way to present yourself, how did you go against that? I'm a stone butch, I'm sensitive and kind and I know that all of these things have to exist within me at the same time so I can be myself, but sometimes I feel like I'm not being a butch the "right way". I know there isn't one way to be anything, especially queer, but I never got any advice when I was young, any consolation when I realized I was a lesbian and was too scared to accept it. I never had an "elder" to guide me. At least no one like you. I hope you've been enjoying your spring.

When I first heard the word “butch” I was intrigued because so many of the traits fit me. Being mistaken for “not a woman”, being told “you should have been a boy” and how I related to women was a shared thread from the bits and pieces of stories I heard from older butches.

I was handed a copy of Stone Butch Blues while camping at a  women’s festival and it made me sad rather than comforted. I thought perhaps I could not be butch because I just did not relate to Leslie, (the book is NOT an exact autobiography but is often mistaken as such).   I had not experienced much of the trauma nor the harshness in life Leslie dealt with, both in real life and the character in the book. 

It was another year before someone, besides my girlfriend, referred to me as butch. Having a stranger call me that truly changed how I saw myself. All my friends were like “yeah.. Duh”.    I was told by one elder butch 20 years my senior that SBB is the story of ONE butch, not the story of ALL butches. That helped me understand we are not all the same in all ways. We share certain experiences and those differ based on location, upbringing and, most importantly, our personalities. We are as varied as any part of the lesbian (and human) population. At that point I really started to embrace being butch and using that part of my lesbian story to inform my life, to do what made me happy and not what I was “supposed to do” as directed by my culture or even by other lesbians who were not butch. 

I am so glad you reached out. It makes me sad that so many young butches do not benefit from the real life community of lesbians and butches who have live through and been where you are right now. I want you to know, you are not alone and we understand. I understand. What you are feeling is not unusual for butches. You are not bound to reach some “standard” of butchness.  There is no scale, except for fun and to sort of bond over the humor of our shared stories. 

You can be masculine and mistaken for a man, and called “unapproachable:” or perceived as rough or scary or told you are not “like other women” but the fact is you are like many other women and you are allowed to have your own personality. YOU are allowed to be  Quiet, soft, gentle, vulnerable or outgoing, loud and funny or any mix of these and you can still be butch. 

I have been told I am too short and happy to be butch. Neither of those things informs my butchness but I had to learn that through the guidance of butches. 

You are great just the way you are. 

[adogmetaphor]

reactive pet. snarls and growls at anyone who isn't it's owner. dni.

[spartalabouche]

sometimes its really obvious how much people dont actually believe presentation=/=gender when they see their nonbinary friend go from extremely masculine to relaxing back into femininity once theyre comfortable with their gender and every time they call it detransitioning with zero indication thats what their friend is calling it. i dont know how to tell you this but sometimes you present a certain way for social reasons and not because thats how you actually feel. sometimes you experience dysphoria about your body that is actually related to how people view you and not how you feel about your body. i really dont think its that uncommon for trans people to swing really hard in one direction for the affirmation and then relax back into a different presentation once they are more comfortable in their gender

[summerjames-blog]

Lover girl 🥰😍

[evenmyhivemindisempty]

The way I get so feral when I remember that this guy

is the same guy as this guy

[civetcider]

love your art. do you have any strong opinions on Donkey Kong or any of the Kongs? if you butchified funky kong i would be indebted to you forever

so just normal funky kong? teehee

[sunshades]

that new meme that's going around....

[pussyluvr2000]

I still remember the first time i met a butch woman. My mom and i were picking up a ham at the Convenient Food Mart. We took the hog up to the register. I, in a bored trance, watched it slowly, comically roll down the conveyor belt until a strong hand suddenly stopped it. My eyes traced up the tattoo-sleeved arm until they rested on a face entirely unframed by hair. She must've been super tall, though everyone seems giant when you're a kid. Her earlobes were modestly stretched and her eyebrow donned a spiky barbell. Her reptilian neck tattoo kissed her buzzed hairline. Under her uniform polo, I could only see a faint suggestion of her breasts. She smiled down at me, asked us how our day was. My mother smiled and said fine, tiring, cash, thank you. When we got in the car, I was still starstruck. "Mama, was that a boy or a girl?" I asked quietly, feeling embarrassed by my need to know.

"A girl, sweetie," she paused. "But sometimes it can be hard to tell."

Her non-judgmental response excited me. Now this, I thought, is something I want to know more about.

She squeezed my hand, smiled at me, and said nothing more.

6 years later, at age 14, I'm sitting in a waiting chair in the strip mall Great Clips.

"You know, you don't have to cut your hair short to prove you're gay or anything. I mean, you can. And I love you. But you don't have to. You can be however you want." My mother said, cooly.

"I want this." I did. I wanted to feel differently. The bubbly young hairstylist lead us back to the chair. She nodded slowly as I explained what I wanted. "Like my brother's hair," I added, hoping to get the point across.

My mother, though supportive, bristled a bit. "Maybe leave a little on the top longer. So it's a little feminine, you know?"

I glared at her in the mirror and she stepped away.

We drove home with the windows open. I felt the wind on my scalp.

[cowboyjen68]

Anon Ask

Ask  “hello jen! im rowan, he/him, and i just (very) recently realized im a butch lesbian (or baby butch).  i had been struggling with my identity in and out for years , which has been tough since im only 16.  your content is so immensely comforting to me because of how open and accepting you are to everyone in the community, regardless of age or hyperpersonal identity. 

i know being butch is so specific for everyone and can be so different depending on the person, but what advice do you have for a baby butch? something you wish you had been told?

thank you for reading and responding if you do :) best of wishes to you, jen. ❤️”

Response:

Hi. Thank you for trusting me to reach out. I can tell you at 16 I was nowhere near being ok with being same sex attracted or really in any way sexual. I thought I was SUPPOSED to be “sex and boy crazy” because that is what all the movies and TV shows told me and what my Peers led me to believe, even if they were faking it. 

By  5th grade or so I was also  becoming aware that my Tomboy status was growing less acceptable by the day as I got older and I did my very best to shift to sort of “horse girl” or “sporty” but mostly just “generic”. I avoided anything I had to dress up for because what I wanted to wear and thought I would look best in was NOT what I was expected to wear to dances, events etc. I stuck with jeans, sweatshirts and tennis shoes, packing away my favorite horse belt buckle and denim vests as I entered Jr High. (I wear that horse belt buckle almost every day now). 

I was in my 20’s before I came out and 22 or so before I learned about the word Butch And a few more years before I realized it applied to me even though I did not fit the stereotype I had formed in my head.

I wish someone would have told me that I was not being a woman wrong or acting like a man nor was I too happy or outgoing to be a butch. I would have liked to hear that I was like the other girls in more ways than I was different and the way I was different (according to societal standards ) was natural and I was not a weird anomaly with no one to relate to or share common experiences with. I didn’t even need to know the word butch but to see older women who were like me AND who embraced their natural energy and even the perceptions of others as normal and a source of commonality and pride would have been life changing. These women came along eventually and changed my life for the better. 

I certainly saw a few butches like me. Camp counselors, women working in the campgrounds we visited and around in my life but they were sort of forced, by nature of the times, to keep ANY hint of lesbianism out of public view.  Just seeing women whose existence resonated with me helped immensely even if it was years before I connected the dots. 

Seeing myself reflected in older women who were living their lives was good, if they had been accessible as well as visible that would have lessened the time it took me to understand I am okay as I am and there are other women who share my experiences. I got there eventually. 

[adogmetaphor]

woof. little do they know— I'm a nasty dog.

[kookiekult]

Can someone explain how the shit someone can go from this

Monstrosity, right?

To this

He looks like a 70s serial killer in the first Pic but he looks like a Greek god in the 2nd.

[teddysize]

me bc my sister has a hot butch math teacher and i don't </3

[elliesbelle]

yeah i’m never getting over this look

[bat-besties]

Butch/femme Bat ships

[cyellolemon]

Ambrose and Ruby, back then when Ruby was alive

[punkeropercyjackson]

I don't think all these simp writers are going all out like they should because well i always see them talking about loving unhinged as fuck goths who have a mean surface with hidden softness and goofy balls of sunshine that're actually huge badasses and have secret trauma and being horny over them but they never talk about Steph and Cass from Batman despite like 65% of the fan content being x Readers so if you're a self-proclaimed slut then listen to the voice of god and make good on your word.Fuck Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain