Since the lesbian subculture of 1940s America, "butch" has been present as a way for lesbians to circumvent traditionalgender roles of women in society and distinguish their masculine attributes and characteristics from feminine women.[a]Butch is often understood as the counterpart tofemme, with the two formingbutch–femme dynamics.
Starting in the 1940s and 1950s, butch became a central identity in the lesbian community.[6] It was often understood in conjunction withfemme identity, andbutch–femme relations have been studied at great length.[7] As a result, butch identity on its own remains somewhat ill-defined.[7] Butch people are often described as sexuallydominant lesbians who are interested in having sex with femmes.[7]The Queen's Vernacular claimed a butch was "a lesbian withmasculine characteristics."[8] InOf Catamites and Kings,Gayle Rubin describes a butch as those lesbians who use masculine mannerisms, and/or who wear traditionally male clothing, and/or who experiencegender dysphoria.[9] The defining characteristic that most scholars agree on is that butch people are lesbians who are to some degree aligned with masculine traits.
In theUS during the mid 20th century, butch people were usually limited to a few jobs, such as factory work and cab driving, that had no dress codes for women.[10] During the 1950s, with the anti-gay politics of theMcCarthy era and theLavender Scare, homophobic violence was common, especially through raids ongay and lesbian bars. Althoughfemmes also fought back, it became primarily the role of butches to defend against attacks and hold the bars as gay women's space.[11] The prevailing butch image was severe but gentle, while it became increasingly tough and aggressive as violent confrontation became a fact of life.[12]Black lesbians, especially vulnerable topolice brutality andracial segregation, often socialised in private parties instead of bars,[13] and often dressed formally, compared to the typicalworking-class attire ofT-shirts andjeans that white butches adopted.[13]Leslie Feinberg's novelStone Butch Blues is a predominant piece of butch literature, and offers a window into butch bar culture,police brutality towardstransvestites (both drag queens and butch people), and butcheroticism in the 1970s.[14]
One of the subcategories of the butch identity was and is people who experience gender dysphoria.[9] In the mid 20th century, butch was a group that included most lesbians who identified with masculine characteristics; unsurprisingly, this was a space that included manytransmasculine identities.[15] In the words of butch, transgender man S. Bear Bergman, "butch and transgender are the same thing with different names, except that butch is not a trans identity, unless it is."[16] However, there is something of a "border war" between butch andFTM identities, as renowned butch scholarJack Halberstam put it inTransgender Butch.[15] Some butch people identify as women and undergo some amount ofmedical transition, and some FTM individuals identify as butch men.[17] The difference between the two groups is nuanced and has as many interpretations as there are butch people.[9] Halberstam argues that in "making concrete distinctions between butch women and transsexual males, all too often such distinctions serve the cause of heteronormativity."[17]
^According to Heidi M. Levitt and Sara K. Bridges: "The termsfemme andbutch began infiltrating bisexual communities, and women began writing about their experiences as bisexual femmes...Although essayists have begun to explore this identity, very little empirical research has been conducted looking at the expression and experience of gender expression and gender identity within bisexual women."[4] According to some academic studies about the butch/femme subculture, "Femmes were sometimes bisexual."[5]
^abDavis, Chloe O. (2024).The Queens' English: The Young Readers' LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases (1st ed.). New York:Simon & Schuster. p. 69.ISBN978-1-6659-2686-7.
.jpg)
