#also hope i made the text in this response dynamic enough. there's like sooo many words and i don't want it to be difficult

[yrbutchgf]

I’d really like to call myself butch but I’ve been told by so many people it’s a lesbian only term so I’m not sure who to believe

hi anon! sorry this took so long, i wanted to get some links together for you. short answer is: yes, you can call yourself butch. this is a misconception that's very popular on this site, but butch and femme are variably used terms; they originated in ballroom culture, where they are used to refer to people of all genders and sexualities, partially in conjunction with drag and partially independently.

in terms of lesbian bar culture with butch and femme, the term "bi" took a while to enter the lexicon, and a lot of the women involved in lesbian bar culture were actually bisexual, if largely closeted about as much. in fact, stereotypes of the time held that femmes were bisexual. obviously there's complexity to this and the term lesbian today refers to women who only love other women, but for a long time, lesbian as a term essentially meant what we would call today women-loving women. in this way, bisexual women have been involved in butch/femme bar culture since its inception.

the long answer is, you should definitely, definitely read the following links,

because other people have explained everything much better than i ever could. ik there's a lot of them and some of them are pretty long, but they're extremely informative, so i can't stress enough how much i recommend giving them a click.

this link in particular is the most comprehensive of the bunch, and also includes links to other posts with even more information on the subject: https://biexboyfriend.tumblr.com/post/624568519114309632/authoratmidnight-smallswingshoes

here's a post with a bunch of historical quotes about butch/femme both for wlw and mlm: https://mediumkravitz.tumblr.com/post/627265503395758080/this-used-to-be-a-part-of-this-post-but-i. in particular, i will highlight leslie feinberg's quote, since ze's my butch idol:

"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."

here's a few shorter ones about bi women and butch/femme:

https://bakerybutch.tumblr.com/post/618787731703775232/hey-i-saw-the-bi-woman-using-butchfemme-post-you

https://bakerybutch.tumblr.com/post/617209719637082112/bihetero-butch-im-tired-of-seeing-posts

https://bakerybutch.tumblr.com/post/617576206001389568/its-interesting-to-me-that-a-lot-of-posts-about

here's one about butch/femme & its links to ballroom culture as well as polari: https://biexboyfriend.tumblr.com/post/623474852739923968/wait-you-mentioned-saying-that-butchfemme-are

https://yrbutchgf.tumblr.com/post/626452044841107456/fluoresensitive-hm-it-aggravates-me-when-white

and here's another one about butch & mlm: https://bakerybutch.tumblr.com/post/633331651325329408/from-motorcycle-leathers-and-the-construction-of

if you would like to join a discord server that is explicitly inclusive of all lgbt people under butch and fem/femme identities, click here for more information. i'm in this server, it's great.

just read the rules first, and then join. we’d love to have you.