Butch, Please: Female Masculinity & Its Significance to Lesbian Culture
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong><em>“Nattie, are you going to become butch?”</em></strong></p>
<p>My mother <a href="https://medium.com/prismnpen/does-this-mean-youre-gonna-become-butch-funniest-coming-out-questions-339f1eee0ec9" rel="noopener">asked me this question</a> when I came out as a lesbian <a href="https://medium.com/real-stories/hes-a-good-man-savannah-what-happens-when-a-lesbian-meets-the-perfect-guy-adb5120388de" rel="noopener">in my twenties</a>.</p>
<p>It was the very first thing she had to say about the matter, followed by a sigh of relief and a <em>thank God because it wouldn’t suit</em> <em>you</em> once I reassured her that I would not be trading my long hair for a mohawk or starting a collection of carabiners.</p>
<p>Nowadays, that would sound like a droll and outdated assumption, but given that she was born to Irish Catholic parents in the 1950s, it’s understandable.</p>
<p>Like her, I also grew up with next to no awareness of the nuances of queer female identity.</p>
<p><strong>Stud, Boi, Bollera, Dyke, Daddy, Marimacha, Bulldagger…</strong> none of it meant anything to me.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/prismnpen/butch-please-female-masculinity-its-significance-to-lesbian-culture-f702e3006786"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>