#my husband tried to tlk to me about other stuff and i just get so mad cause why arent we talking about how stressed i am

[wallyrudolophwest]

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[partialbirthabortion]

I really like the way you answers questions + I don't know many lesbians in my life (currently having 0 lesbian friends lolsadlife) so when it comes to turning to older lesbians for help I end up on tumblr. but thank you that did help tbh!!! so a lot of what you talked about in that post was physical appearance (hands/face shape/appearance etc) but you also said you can recognize pre-butch girls, what do you mean by that? it's funny that u said ur gf is into the family protector role bc 1/?

I am too and I've always felt that way and I know when my mum talks to me about stuff like how ur husband should treat you I have always absorbed those lessons as how I should treat my future wife and I thought that kind of stuff indicated that I'm trans? but I was never really happy with that despite my friends noticing I have "masculine" behaviour (+ my gf telling me thats one of the reasons she was first attracted to me, just in the way I walked and stood and talked to her and stuff) || and then recently I picked up Stone Butch Blues and I read it and it killed me, I could relate to Jess so much and it just made me realize that I dont have to "give up" being a woman (which I am, which I love fiercely, and which I will always be) just bc I'm "masculine". but now I just wanna tlk to other lesbians (especially such sweet people like you, omg Id love to take you out for coffee and just listen to you talk)  and learn more except. like. theres nowhere to go || and anyway sorry for this long spam but yea if you could elaborate more on that prebutch thing and maybe talk about your personal feelings and experiences wrt to lesbian history and butch/femme history in particular I would really appreciate it!!

Well hon first of all: come off anon! I promise I’m maybe 20% as cool as you think I am and I love getting new buddies so seriously! DM me!

Second, I’m sure if you asked your gf she could also tell you a lil about what's immediately recognizable as butch too! At least a small part butch pinging is just "am I attracted to her?” and like, no I’m not attracted to all butches but I am pretty much attracted to just butches (and I am to most butch tops, ahem, tbqh) so it’s not a bad place to start for sure. That’s also a big part of distinguishing andro butches from androgynous women for me personally.

Third, that’s so sweet and good to hear about SBB! Every single one of us is so indebted to Leslie Feinberg for that book alone. I was a terrified little kid just coming out to herself when I tried to read it for the first time (I did not make it all the way through, it was incredibly frightening) but Jess was the reason my desires were knowable to me a few years later. She was the reason my first butch girlfriend expressed surprise when I didn’t push or question her on her boundaries, and why I understood what was happening the first time I had sex. Nothing ever felt unnatural or nonobvious about the butch experience it described, and thinking about it now actually, I think that my non-femme (and obvi non-butch) lbpq friends had a much harder time wrapping their heads around it. I wonder if that’s a thing. Also  I totally recognized myself as Theresa!

To your actual question: in brief, the girls that straight adults actually recognize as definitely gay are almost always the butch ones. I was a pretty gnc little girl (I was loud and muddy and active, played all boys baseball, begged to have my hair cut off, cried when my hips got too big to fit in boys aisle shorts) but I wasn’t gnc the way, say, my bunkmate in girl scout camp was. I didn’t like girls stuff but I understood how to do it. I could be squeezed into a dress and understand how I was expected to sit and move. I could cultivate girly interests when I was pushed out of my tomboy ones. I got why girls don’t pee standing up outside. My bunkmate didn’t. She could never, ever perform in a way that seemed authentic and natural. She looked wrong stuffed into ballet flats, she picked and pulled at jewelry until it broke, she looked like a collared feral cat when you put bows in her hair. It never fit. And people respond to that. Usually when some shitty mom at Target slaps her daughter’s hand away from a For Boys Blue Flaming Monster Truck Explosion branded version of a toy with particular vileness, I assume she’s picking up on something, a way of being that her daughter has expressed, that’s enduring. That she won’t be trained out of. It’s evident.

I think this is even more vague than my first answer but it’s about the best I can do! Maybe think about your girlhood and see if you can recognize it on other kids? I recognize butch friends in little girls passing on the street every once and a while. They’re out there.