A positivity blog for bisexual butches and bisexual femmes
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sexuality: bisexual
gender: bisexual
presentation: bisexual
relationship dynamic: bisexual
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actually here’s some nifty links discussing butch/femme history and how it’s not lesbian exclusive and never has been
this one includes quotes about butch mlm, who have been using the term butch since at least the 1960s
this one discusses bi women using femme, even when they’re with men
this discusses the history of femme and butch in wlw spaces
this discusses how claiming butch/femme is lesbian exclusive is antiblack and racist
this one talks about femme as a term for all lgbt people (includes the d slur and f slur)
some more discussion of bi femmes
here’s a long article about femme bisexuality
some more quotes about bi femmes and bi butches, including a quote from leslie feinberg about butch bis
this talks about femme as a community wide term
this one is about butch bisexuality (d slur)
this is about femme bis and butch bis
read about polari
this is about butch/fem(me) history
here’s this about ball room culture, and this, and this
aaand here’s butch is a noun
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(This used to be a part of this post, but I figured it wasn’t especially relevant to the topic at hand, so now it’s here.)
Many books discussing butch/fem(me) history point out that a number of women in the scene, particularly fems, were behaviorally bisexual. Due to this—as well as their femininity—fems and fish (a black fem identity) struggled in lesbian communities to be considered “true” lesbians as they were often stereotyped as bisexual. Many butches/studs assumed they were more likely to leave the “lesbian life” because they could “pass” for straight, which, y’know, totally doesn’t sound like how people talk about bi women today whatsoever.
While I’m not necessarily equipped to provide a full MLA-cited deep-dive analysis on butch/femme identity, here are a few quotes (and a very long paper about femme bisexuality if you’re especially curious).
From Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community (1994):
Fems, who never ceased to act on their own initiative, in some contexts were defined as other, as not really lesbian, because of their traditional feminine looks or their active heterosexual pasts.
In keeping with narrators’ varied experiences in finding their identities, the community did not have—nor does it now have—a hegemonic view about how to draw the line between the homosexual and the heterosexual. Many narrators see the butch lesbian as the true lesbian. Other narrators consider anyone who stays with women and is part of the community a lesbian.
The boundaries between heterosexual and homosexual have always been difficult to draw… The gay liberation model made the boundary clear by categorically including every woman who is attracted to a woman. But throughout the twentieth century there have been women who have spent some time in the heterosexual world and some in the homosexual world… Most narrators were aware of these ambiguities and took them into account by speaking in terms of bisexuality, or the pure versus the less-pure lesbian.
It may be important to note that even up until—and during—the 90s, “lesbian” was sometimes defined as “any woman who has at some time in her life loved another woman” (see pg. 11).
Bi butches have been around for a while, too.
From the 1995 essay “Too Butch to Be Bi”:
But being a butch woman who is also bisexual can be difficult. It feels sometimes that the the idea is so challenging—since the assumptions in our communities are that all butch women are lesbian women and all femme women are bisexual women—that often a butch woman trying to come to terms with being bisexual is stuck.
[…] But once we find a community that is accepting of our same-sex interests, we run into an entirely different series of messages. A number of these are about appearances and what they are supposed to say about who we are. The ideas about femmes (femme women aren’t really interested in other women, and femme men aren’t really interested in women at all) and butches (butches are always the aggressors in sex, whether they are men or women) permeate our queer culture. These ideas make it difficult for us to explore who we are and who we want to be. Many people feel too threatened to challenge the status quo of an already fringe community, for fear of being outcast from the one place where they have struggled to belong.
From a 1996 interview with Leslie Feinberg:
And I would say that people who were referred to as drag queens, [sh*m*les], female impersonators, drag kings, diesel [d-slur]s, butches, et cetera, uh… Nowadays we think of them sometimes as just being synonymous with a certain kind of sexuality, but in fact there’s a lot of butch women who sleep with other butches, or who are bisexual, and the same thing is true with feminine men.
From the 1997 book Femme: Feminists, Lesbians and Bad Girls:
[Heather Findlay]: Negative Message number three: ‘Don’t date a femme, because she’ll leave you for a man.’ […] I know tons of butches who have slept with guys, and for some reason there’s not some big stigma attached to that. That doesn’t threaten their membership in the lesbian community, but with us [femmes] it does.
From a 2000 issue of Bi Women: The Newsletter of the Boston Bisexual Women’s Network:
But I also think bi women like to experiment with the wide range of possibilities along the butch/femme continuum without feeling confined by them. And that’s fun to watch! And I think many people assume that because bi women are also interested in men that they all would be femmes. Oh, how wrong they are—hallelujah for butch bi women!
Femme/butch identities are not static and they are not necessarily constricting, but they can be. Femme/butch arose out of a historical context where woman to woman love was not safely or openly acknowledged… As queer people have established a safer, more visible place in the world, femme/butch have become much more fluid (and perhaps diluted) identities or presentations.
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As Femme As We Want to Be
Tracy Schmidt Reports from the 2nd Annual Femme Gender Conference
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The Second Annual Femme Gender Conference, sponsored by the Harvey Milk Institute (HMI) this May, gave more than 400 people a chance to explore that question and more – what femme is, how we work it, struggle with it, display it, honor it. HMI put on a huge event, with film screenings, four different performances, an art display, and two days’ worth of panels and workshops.
Just like the term “femme”, this conference covered a lot of territory. The conference organizers aimed to welcome every kind of person with more than a drop of femme in their souls, and to make plenty of space to talk about how we are, perform, or just love femme. Girls, boys, dykes, bi-femmes, fag-femmes, people from communities of color, young femmes, trans-femmes, lesbians, drag-femmes, working class and rich femmes, parents, fat femmes, and a few garden-variety freaks like me crowded the 33 workshops.
Femmes flocked to sessions like Femme As An Evolving Gender Identity; Bisexual Femmes and Femme Bisexuals; Fag and Drag Femme; I’d Love To Ask You Out But I Don’t Know Who You Are; Trans Femme: Beyond the Bedroom; What We’re Rolling Around In Bed With (femmes of color only); Femmes With FtM Partners; Switch Femme; Fem-man-inity; and How To Fuck In High Heels. We spoke with incredible panelists including Kate Bornstein, Lani Ka'ahumanu, Liz Highleyman, JoAnn Loulan, and Karen Bullock-Jordan.
We examined the challenges and joys of claiming femme identity alongside other identities in our lives. We discussed how different communities hold different experiences of femme. We debated whether we should speak of femmes as somehow transgendered. We ranted about inclusion. We argued about community. We laughed at ourselves. And we celebrated the power and range of our femme styles.
Most important, we met each other in a world where it can be hard to even see one another. It was experimental and emotional and challenging and practical and brilliant and contentious and connected all at once – two amazing days of the best of queer culture
—————
Tracy Schmidt was the Conference Coordinator for this year’s Femme Gender Conference. She identifies as a bi and poly femme dyke top whose areas of obsession include gender, motorcycles, S/M, travel, and cleavage. Her current project (with Liz Highleyman) is an anthology focused on newly emerging gender identities.
Anything That moves, issue 17, summer 1998.
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Me when a bisexual butch tells me to do something
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#femme bi#femme bisexual#bisexual femme#bi femme#femme#bisexual#femme positivity#bisexuality#bi pride#og posts#bi positivity
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#butch bisexual#butch bi#bisexual butch#bi butch#bisexuality#bi pride#og posts#bi positivity#butch#bisexual#butch positivity
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#femme bisexual#femme bi#bisexual femme#bi femme#bisexuality#bi pride#og posts#bi positivity#bi tag#bi#bi bi bi#bisexual#femme#bisexual pride#bisexual positivity
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#bi butch#bisexuality#bi pride#og posts#bi positivity#bi tag#bi#butch#bi bi bi#butch bi#butch bisexual#bisexual butch#bisexual#bisexual positivity#bisexual pride
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A letter to the editor in Anything That Moves, issue 15, 1997.
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Butch bisexual prince x butch bisexual knight <3
#butch#bi butch#bisexual butch#butch bi#butch bisexual#bisexual pride#bisexual#bisexuality#og posts#bi positivity#bi pride#bi tag#butchtober#butch4butch
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Shout-out to butch bisexuals. Thank you for existing. I love yall
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Shout-out to fat bi butches and fat bi femmes <3 you are so cool and so loved <3
#bi butch#bi femme#femme bi#butch bi#butch#femme#bisexual femme#bisexual butch#butch bisexual#bisexual#bisexual pride#bi positivity#og posts#bi pride#bisexuality#bi#bi tag#bi bi bi
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hi there! fellow bi person here! i've seen your post about "butch" and "femme" *not* actually being lesbian-exclusive and i am really interested in learning more about this history. i don't know where to start though, so do you mind sharing links or giving pointers as what to search for? thanks so much in advance!
Hi! Of course! <3
Butch and femme identities come from a time where lesbian meant sapphic. Lesbian was an umbrella term back then as we didn't have the word bisexual used for people like us. If you liked women, you were a lesbian, didn't matter if you *exclusively* liked women or not. So, all sapphics used them and identified with them. Bisexuals were right beside lesbians building the butch and femme culture. Even after the word bisexual began being used, bisexual butches and femmes existed.
Here are some excerpts from historical queer books and videos. 1 2 3 (These books could be a good start)
Those identities are not even limited to only queer women. Even queer men use butch and femme.
From a New York Times article on butch existence by Kerry Manders, a butch writer, editor & photographer.
Selections from queer zines 'femmes unite!' (2007) and 'mutate' (1999)
The Butch Manual
I hope these help!
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