#butch is a noun

[macbxth-pdf]

“ I don’t want to be any work to you, just shade and shelter and fruit and fuel without any watering or pruning or feeding required. You tell me that’s ridiculous, and you tell me so; you remind me that you have never denied me anything I have asked for. You remind me that I have encouraged you a thousand times to tell me the same things, to let me offer you what you need if you’ll only tell me what it is. You’re right, I have, but that seems like my job, not yours. ”

Author, Poet, Queer Activist and Playwright S. Bear Bergman

Butch is a Noun by S Bear Bergman

[puppybot]

butch is a noun, s. bear bergman 2006

[androgynealienfemme]

"I know what butch is. Butches are not beginner FTMs, except that sometimes they are, but it's not a continuum except when it is. Butch is not a trans identity unless the butch in question says it is, in which case it is, unless the tranny in question says it isn't, in which case it's not. There is no such thing as butch flight, no matter what the femmes or elders say, unless saying that invalidates the opinions of femmes in a sexist fashion or the opinions of elders in an ageist fashion. Or if they're right. But they are not, because butch and transgender are the same thing with different names, except that butch is not a trans identity, unless it is; see above."

-"I KNOW WHAT BUTCH IS", Butch is a Noun, Essays by S. Bear Bergman (2006)

[martyr0l0gy]

i need all my butch babes out there to know that you bring so much joy and delight into my life, and the world is a better place for having your handsome, diligent, charming, and warm selves in it. (and i'm giving you all a kiss on the cheek, mwah !)

[thatgarden]

please ignore if i’m asking too much

i’m curious if you could give me more information on what it feels like to be butch? i have a hard time understanding gender but butch/femme identities are even further from my comprehension. i know what it feels like to want to be treated as strong, capable, and intelligent (things that unfortunately are lacking when i’m read as a woman). i’ve also had chronic pain and fatigue fuck those things up. how would you define your butch identity? especially in visual presentation, actions, and your internal world. are there any resources you’d recommend?

thank you so much and i hope you have a good day

I'm absolutely delighted to answer your questions, don't worry!

The thing with butchhood, like most queer identities but butchhood in particular, is that it's VERY difficult to define. I step outside what is typically defined as butch, not only because I'm not a woman but because my butch presentation and overall masculinity is very... flamboyant, shall we say.

Overall, what defines a butch is that they see the word butch, hear it, and think "Yes, that's me." The word is home to them. It brings about a sense of comfort, joy, and especially pride. And when we see other butches, we feel a sense of kinship, because that's what community is. That's what we all share.

But this sense of "Wow, this word is me," isn't unique to butchhood. That's just how every queer identity works. That works with bisexuals, aromantics, transgender people, everyone! It's usually the first sign we get of figuring out we are that identity. There's no secret rulebook on what defines what. We simply are.

This is gonna get kinda long, so I'm going to link resources down bellow the cut. Hope you like reading, because I sure do love typing!

Butch is a Noun is an excellent read into what butchhood means to most butches. Unfortunately, it's riddled with toxic masculinity (as in the "I must be strong to be masculine" toxic masculinity) and just a taaaad of fatphobia in the chapter on treating femmes, and it doesn't speak too well on the singular they/them. It's an old book! But these flaws are very small for what the book does in sharing butch experiences, and showing love to butches of all genders, especially the transgender/non-binary ones.

Stone Butch Blues is a classic in butch and transmasculine literature, and it's well loved and received for a reason. Leslie Feinberg is an incredible communist transgender butch whose ideals are well- and beautifully- defined in this work. Would highly recommend.

Female Masculinity is something on my to-read, but from what I'm aware of it's a series of essays by Jack Halberstam on transmasculinity and butchhood alike. (I believe "female" is being used like we would AFAB.) I've read one essay from the work, Transgender Butch, which is about how the FTM and butch community are at odds with eachother and how trans butches often have to toe the line between this "border war". Good stuff, would recommend at least the one essay, but I'm sure the whole book is fantastic too.

My fingers are getting tired, so I'll reblog this later with my own experiences with butchhood. Sorry if it's a long wait! I'm kind of busy with college these days. I'll try to get it out in at least 24 hours though.

[masalasludge]

"What the Stone is Made of" from Butch is a Noun

[thegenderlesscarnie]

Is this man bothering you?: On Visibility

It happens every night after a show.

My fellow dancers and I at a bar decked out in leather and fishnets, cooling off with drinks as sweat evaporates off our bodies after an hour-long show. My troupe-mates' hair is down, their long lashes barely clinging on after 60 minutes of head-banging, their tits and asses barely - but strategically - covered by layers of bodysuits. Every night after a show is the same: as we cluster around the bar, a guy approaches and pushes between us, yelling something we can barely hear over the band. And I see it immediately on my friend's face: a stiff smile hiding barely restrained rage. She's the baddest bitch I know, more than able to take care of herself. But I see behind her eyes deep exhaustion. So that smile is my signal.

When I insert myself between him and my friend, and make an obvious effort to ignore him, he'll spend a few minutes mumbling and try to reposition himself until he realizes I'm not moving. Then he'll move on. My friend's smile will turn genuine, and we'll finish our drinks in peace.

If cishet men must see me, that is how I want to be seen. In general, I prefer to be invisible to people socially. Much has been said about the invisibility of transmasc people: the erasure of their experiences from political discourse, from media, from medicine; the belittlement of their perspectives in queer spaces where they are perceived as privileged gender traitors. I agree that it is imperative that I be visible to politicians and doctors. I too ache to see people like me on screens and in books.

But if I am not on stage, where I have full control of how I am seen, I am pretty uncaring about whether I am seen or not. Perhaps that is part of the agender experience. If I relate to neither male or female or masc or femme social roles, if I recoil from having such expectations placed upon me, how do I make myself comfortably visible? If the price of social visibility is the obligation to adopt a character that is entirely wrong for me, do I welcome invisibility?

When I don't know how to answer such questions, I read. And I came across S. Bear Bergman's book, "Butch Is A Noun." This book is a gorgeous exploration of butch-ness, which is "a gender all its own, something which cannot always be described within the confines of the bigendered pronoun system we have now." And these words jumped out at me:

"Butches are monosyllabic, until you get to know them, which they will not allow but want, or will allow and want, or will allow but don't want, or won't allow and don't want, so you may or may not get to know them, but you should try, or not."

How well that sentence captures the ambivalence and indifference I feel about being perceived, the indecision and frustration I feel about being seen. And ultimately, the directive that you should try, or not, to know me, that I don't care either way.

When I insert myself between men and my friends, I am casting off invisibility and assuming some gendered role. But what role feels correct? Bergman offers further insight. His book has an entire chapter dedicated to the butch's essential role as a safeguard for femmes:

"When I am walking with a pretty girl, or sometimes a femme boy, things change; my gender changes. The girl, as they say, is mine, and my gender performance has to change in order to meet that expectation. I have seen all manner of men and boys melt away when I appear and rest my hand lightly but familiarly on a waist or neck, looking friendly and interested but present and big in my body. It rises up in me unbidden, every time, the knowledge that keeping this femme safe when I am not present may have something to do with the public perception of who might be in the wings to protect her."

In the book, "Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme," Karleen Pendleton Jimenez writes in her essay, "A Beautiful Creature":

"My definition of butch involves chivalry. I want to be courageous, gallant, to show the highest respect for a woman."

She tells a story of when she was nine years old, when a girl at camp asks her to hold her when she was scared by the counsellors' gruesome stories. She describes the elation and pride she felt protecting her: "Everything, for an instant and for the first time in my life, felt right."

These descriptions of "butch," as an identity onto itself, resonate strongly with me as I consider where my social instincts lead me. I know that I may never be seen as butch... I don't have the stereotypical body or aesthetics. But Bergman and Jimenez's words offer an alternative gendered role that I can fulfill at least in my own mind. A way to be visible, at least to myself.

And it's worth it to protect my friends. As Bergman states:

"I do it to give something back to these femmes who take such good care of me, in so many ways, in whatever small way I can."

Butch Is A Noun, by S. Bear Bergman

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme, edited by Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sharman

[trashshouldnt]

i want to print this out in a small book and keep it in my chest forever

[laylaslibrary]

Sure, I have time. I always have time for you. Sure, whatever you need. Whatever you need.

-Bear Bergman, Butch is a Noun

[tobekind]

"I know what butch is. Butches are not beginner FTMs, except that sometimes they are, but it's not a continuum except when it is. Butch is not a trans identity unless the butch in questions says it is, in which case it is, unless the tranny in question says it isn't, in which case it's not. There is no such thing as butch flight, no matter what the femmes or elders say, unless saying that invalidates the opinions of femmes in a sexist fashion or the opinions of elders in an ageist fashion. Or if they're right. But they are not, because butch and transgender are the same thing with different names, except that butch is not a trans identity, unless it is; see above. Butches are always tops. They always fuck the girls, and, for that matter, their partners are always girls; there is no such thing as a butch who is attracted to men. Well, transmen, but that's just butch-on-butch repackaged as faggotry. But no non-trans-men. Unless the butch in question is a non-trans-man, then it's okay. Except that non-trans-men cannot be butches, because butch is a queering of gender that assigned-male people cannot embody, unless they occasionally can, in which case they have to be gay men. Or the partners of femmes. Or not. But no one with an assigned-female body can be a butch and do it with assigned-male men. Unless they're femmes. Or butches. I'm really putting my foot down on this one."

-- Butch is a Noun, S. Bear Bergman

[mo0nc4lf]

I just read all of "Butch is a Noun" in one sitting completely by accident

[gendererror404nswf]

[androgynealienfemme]

"We go from store to store, trying to things on and inspecting them. I give my opinions on dresses and shoes, blouses and lipstick colors. Sometimes I say things that make the other women look at me, agape, as though my mouth has been possessed by that flighty queen from Queer Eye even while the rest of my body still looks like any other big dumb boy's. I say that I like a skirt but I wish it were bias-cut instead of A-line, or that I am not fond of the fashion for surplice tops, or that the post-WWII idiom in shoes this season is amusing but rarely looks good on actual feet, or that I like the look of a bolero jacket. I know the names of colors, heliotrope and coral and Nile blue, and I can say without hesitation whether a lipstick might look better matte with a bit of powder.

These other women look at me with wonder, their boyfriends and husbands having made a fetish out of refusing to learn such words under any circumstances, as though merely pronouncing the word "periwinkle" or "princess seam" could easily turn a strong man gay as a box of birds. They say to her, "That's your husband?" in voices that loiter between admiring and disgusted, as though they know that there's no force on earth that could make their men or boys take such interest in their clothing and they think they might really prefer that to the spectacle of me, filling an armchair, legs crossed ankle over knee, looking just right until I say "tea length."

The point is that she wants other girls to see what it looks like to have a boy so cracy in love with you, as I am, that he will spend an afternoon talking about capri pants to have a boy so delighted by you that he never calls you by your name, but addresses you always as "beautiful girl," or "my love" or occasionally and with great fondness, "boss." To have a boy who will happily fetch your next-size-down and carry your bags and charm the salesclerks at the register without flirting overmuch and just generally try to make himself as useful as possible, all for the dizzy and undying pleasure of making you happy. And even though I am not a boy, I look like one, and so I can be complicit with her in this kind of wonderful afternoon, part indulgence of her great beauty and style, part guerilla feminist activism.

Later, when we walk through the mall or down the sidewalk, me laden with packages that are clearly hers, I watch the eyes of the people we pass: the women who look at me with a certain longing, wishing they had their own boys to carry the bags. The men who look at her with an unmistakable hunger, wishing that they had the honor of schlepping for a girl like her, and then look at me with a certain edge of disbelief, not quite clear about why I get to squire this marvelous example of femininity around when they are clearly wealthier, more handsome, better hung. I have learned to meet all of these gazes with a calm kind of sweetness. There's no point in defensiveness or sheepishness or challenge. I'm the one holding her bags."

"Being a Shopping Switch” Butch is a Noun essays by S. Bear Bergman (2006)

[martyr0l0gy]

I'm reading this book, The Inland Sea by Madeline Watts, and it has this quote: 'Men like Clarke believed that the effort of taming the natural world chiselled out 'the whole man' from the poor marble of his birthright. Like women, the bush came wild or tamed, and they knew which one they preferred.'

And because I'm a hopelessly Femme4Butch lesbian, it got me thinking how one of my favourite things about dating butches is knowing that I could decide to never shave again and they would only love me even more for choosing myself. But it's not just about body hair - it's about everything.

It's the freedom to come (and cum) as my entire self without a looming expectation. Its the way I can let my legs shake violently as I orgasm and snort chocolate milk out my nose laughing. It's dancing in the grocery aisle, knowing they will join in.

Femme4Butch is both part of me and is the act of letting myself simply be.

[thatgarden]

FREAKING OUT OVER THIS LINE

[chloelouygo]

Figured since I'm working on my own today I might as well ready some queer literature while I'm on the clock 🤭 I'm so tired I need this break :')