The term given to a certain type of lesbian. It evokes images of Lea DeLaria, k. d. lang, Anne Lister, Ellen DeGeneres… of black motorcycle jackets, baseball caps, makeup-free faces, and flat, sensible shoes.
Butches are the visible lesbians, the ones who challenge the narrow definition of what it means to be a woman. They’re the type a lot of people don’t want to see, but find difficult to ignore — a challenge for men to fetishise and, therefore, a viable object of scrutiny and scorn.
“Nattie, are you going to become butch?”
My mother asked me this question when I came out as a lesbian in my twenties.
It was the very first thing she had to say about the matter, followed by a sigh of relief and a thank God because it wouldn’t suit you once I reassured her that I would not be trading my long hair for a mohawk or starting a collection of carabiners.
Nowadays, that would sound like a droll and outdated assumption, but given that she was born to Irish Catholic parents in the 1950s, it’s understandable.
Like her, I also grew up with next to no awareness of the nuances of queer female identity.
Stud, Boi, Bollera, Dyke, Daddy, Marimacha, Bulldagger… none of it meant anything to me.