#that only butches and studs know

[trickinabucket]

I was so happy abt gender and sex stuff earlier but then i found a femme lesbian being a femme lesbian and it’s given me indigestion

[cowbutchranch]

.

[kaijugroupy]

Lolololol not my stud coworker saying I have feminine energy because I know how to say please and thank you to customers 💀💀💀💀💀 just because I'm butch doesn't mean I have to grunt like an animal so people don't forget I'm masc

[elliesbelle]

THE WAY I WAS LISTENING TO TAYLOR SWIFT WHEN I READ THIS LMAO

bae doesnt at least respect her as a fellow songwriter? breaking my heart. shame cause My Tears Ricochet is so her coded.

(chap 13 is so good tysm tysm 🩷🩷)

sorry babes sldkfjsdlk i just know ellie would hate taylor swift, sorry sldkfjsdklfs

[cowboy-heart]

'BUTCH MANIFESTO'

inspired by 'FEMME SHARK MANIFESTO' by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

(ID under cut)

Ko-Fi (Commissions Open!)

[ID: an original poem titled 'BUTCH MANIFESTO'. the stanzas are all on the left side of the page and lineated, except for the first line, and last stanza. Poem begins:

Listen up! Butches hold it down! We don’t spend hundreds of pounds on designer clothes and black and white tuxes – we shop off the charity shop rack, hand-me-downs from our bois, our men, our women. Butch is not a glamour word - Butch is not for the white collars in their 9-5 and their office parties, Butch is not for the woman in a police uniform with short cropped hair, Butch is not for the masc who looks down on our femmes, Butch is not for the dumbass white people who call themselves stud, like our people haven’t taken enough from black lesbians, Butch is not for the politician or the soldier, it’s for those of us who get shit done and don’t throw anyone under the bus; who stand between our loved ones and the white-knuckled fist; it’s for the people who take a breath of relief when they get home and get to lay their head on the shoulder of their baby and say, it’s hard, and I need you right now; it’s for those of us with hard-soled feet, worn by hours of standing, just so people can buy some useless shit on a Sunday. Butch is for the primary school teachers, the neighbour keeping your package safe, the hairstylist, the barber, the youth worker, the locked up, the sectioned, the evicted, the boy on the dole. Butches hold each other up, Butches stand up for communities, no matter how different we might be.

Butches stand up for Butches, because only we know the shit we face, we don’t argue over what butch looks like for someone - their struggle doesn’t counteract ours. We’re brothers, sisters, siblings, lovers, mentors, we don’t fight over femmes or fight each other. We help up our siblings who can’t hold themselves up and shouldn’t have to.

Butch is recognising our hurt, our pain, and making sure nobody has to go through that, in the very least not alone. Butch is not reproducing that hurt, butch isn’t the transfem exclusion, the toxicity, it’s driving our girls and boys to the abortion clinic, it’s holding your femme’s hair back over the toilet bowl, it’s telling your darlin’ to take a deep breath, before you poke the needle into her thigh, it’s holding back on punching the catcaller because you know it’ll put your lover in more danger, it’s fishing in your closet for an old, dusty dress for your questioning girl, it’s never calling the cops, it’s carrying the Narcan, it’s gathering the funds for bail, it’s tipping the waiter, it’s kissing the bruised chin of a fellow butch who’s built like a brick shithouse.

Butch is not all muscle, able-bodied, white Butch is not all skinny and androgynous Butch is care Butch is NURTURE. Butch is a cane and an unsteady step Butch is putting down the ramp Butch is wheeling up it Butch is addict Butch is straight-edge Butch is diaspora Butch is desi Butch is antiracist Butch is socialist Butch is punk Butch is black Butch is brown Butch is fat Butch is fat-loving Butch is mental illness Butch is antipsych Butch is autism Butch is trans Butch is anger Butch is tears Butch is grief Butch is the old bull Butch is the closeted kid in a dress Butch is the baby dyke wearing a rainbow flag cape Butch is smile lines Butch is crinkled eyes Butch is crying in your friend’s beat-up car Butch is foetal position Butch is pink Butch is motherhood Butch is fatherhood Butch is cat-dad Butch is fucking Butch is getting fucked Butch is stone Butch is bashful Butch is humble Butch is cocky Butch is proud Butch is single Butch is uneducated Butch is poet Butch is poetry Butch is council estate Butch is gentleness Butch is bones and spit and the soft curve of our lower backs the clenched jaw under a double chin the hard-eyes that any femme can see right through the estradiol the testosterone the carabiner clink the thick hands the cellulite the bloody pads the tampon string the mood swings the sagging tits the top surgery scars the swinging cock the hairy pussy the protruding t-dick the leather harness.

Butch is eternity Butch is sewn into the fabric of atoms Butch is love and solidarity Butch is never leaving anyone behind and never selling anyone out.

End poem. In the bottom right corner, the poet is signed as 'Ren H.' End ID].

[genderqueerdykes]

i just wanted to say if you're a bi/multigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, intersex, two spirit, non binary, gnc, butch, stud, or other trans woman who isn't a 100% binary trans woman, society owes you so fucking much. there's no wiggle room in transfemininity under our cisheteronormative patriarchal panopticon. people freely and openly misgender you for their comfort and then act like you were the problem to begin with. people love to silence and invalidate your identities every day for the sake of their own mental "wellbeing". and it's not your fault and you don't fucking deserve it.

here's to every non binary trans woman who gets told they're not feminine enough. here's to every trans lesbian who gets told they're "invading" lesbian spaces. here's to every gnc trans woman who gets told they "dress too masc to be a trans woman". here's to every genderfluid trans woman who gets told being a man sometimes makes them not a woman. here's to every genderqueer trans woman who gets told they can't be masc or it invalidates their womanhood. here's to every butch trans woman who gets misgendered and told they're "just a man". here's to every bigender trans woman who gets told identifying as a man as well as a women isn't a thing, and that being a man cancels out being a woman.

here's to every trans woman who gets told how to be their own gender.

you are the arbiter of your own lived experience. you don't deserve constant unsolicited advice on your gender. you know what transfemininity looks like for you. you know who you are and you don't deserve a constant barrage of invalidation. society does you so dirty, you deserve so much better. your experience with gender is beautiful and deserve to be talked about, not silenced and spoken over. hang in there. you know who you are. you don't have to listen to anyone else tell you how you identify or who you "Really" are- you're the only one who knows that.

[makiquas]

Its Butchtober. Bear with me for a second as I rant about children's cartoon ships, butchphobia, the conditional acceptance of butches in sapphic spaces on the basis of desirability, and feeling erased as a butch kid.

It's so funny that I realised early on as a 2000-2010s teen/kid how a lot of so called "sapphics" of social media are really, really anti butch4butch, only by interacting with certain subsets of Catradora and Appledash haters. It may be flippant to connect butchphobia with children's cartoons, but you cannot deny it is there. We finally had two canon butch4butch and masc4masc lesbian animated ships. And the fandoms decided that the best possible reaction to this is to violently hate on the ships for bullshit reasons and write up masterdocs about how the butch character actually looks better with a femme character instead (in both cases–Rarity and Glimmer, who is arguably feminine but not femme, but that's a conversation for another day, how the SPOP fandom waters down gender identities for aesthetics).

This is not just about two cartoon ships; this mindset of seeing two masc lesbians and immediately going "actually they act like bros; but this BUTCHFEMME couple has real chemistry" comes off sounding really, really bad in 2024 when you have no idea how butch identity operates, outside of depicting us as pants-wearing sexually aggressive muscular women. Butches ARE bros, even the ones who kiss each other. Camaraderie and tomboyish swagger *is* a part of their life. It's not our fault you are too fanfic trope-pilled to read these interactions are sexless friendship bantering.

It's also quite concerning, given how there are only a handful of butch4butch books in the market, and almost all of them talk about the stigmatizing of relationships between two butches/studs/masc lesbians. There are many butch lesbians who themselves face internalized butchphobia because of societal standards and expectations of being turned into the "gallant" provider of femmes. Butch and femme are not always inherently complementary, butches can be attracted to other butches, there is no "natural order" model of lesbian/sapphic attraction and your thinly veiled butchphobia is really off-putting, given you guys don't seem to extend that same rhetoric to mascfemme ships like Korrasami or Caitvi, or femme-femme ships like Harlivy.

Here, I must mention relationships like Rei and Kaoru from Oniisama E, or Jess and Lupe from A League of Their Own, who have bucket loads of chemistry but still have some vehement antis only because both the lesbians are masculine. (What's funny is the new wave of lesbian Oniisama E fans are almost all Rei/Kaoru shippers despite the show putting them into two butchfemme pairings.) Something something to be butch4butch is to be failing the tests of palatability and desirability according to conventional models of societal norms. Forever.

Again, one may have valid reasons for disliking these fictional ships (what, I genuinely don't know). But it *is* weird that you guys can watch fifty white fem4fem sapphic shows in a year and read 100+ GL with the same feminine girlish blonde and brunette/pink haired archetype and not bat an eyelid, but conjure a world of made-up "platonic" dynamics just because you read every butch4butch interaction as fundamentally platonic.

A lot of you love to throw around Stone Butch Blues as a catchphrase to educate strangers on the internet about 1950s-70s blue-collar bar culture and USA butch femme history, but how many of you actually know that within the book itself, the lead character acts prejudiced and hates on another butch for being butch4butch? How many of you know that she apologizes to her friend at the end for her hateful remarks? Fun fact: when you ostracize a butch for not fitting into your butch-femme subculture aesthetic, you're no better than lesbiphobic bigots actually.

Anyway, here are some butch4butch resources if you are a baby butch4butch and feel alienated by these kinds of weird rhetoric in online and fandom queer spaces too:

Butch4Butch romance books

My Butch4Butch books masterdoc (**being updated regularly**)

Leo Wilder's Butch4Butch writing (18+)

Butch4Butch photography archive (insta)

Boyish² Butch4Butch yuri anthology (insta)

@milsae Butch4Butch artist (tumblr/insta)

This post is made by a trans masc butch of color. Terfs, racists, biphobes and radfems kindly do not derail or interact.

[alphajocklover]

I’ll cut right to the point. I want to be huge.

I have always dreamed of being a huge bodybuilder since before I can even remember. I remember watching hulk cartoons and wishing that could happen to me. The older I get, the bigger my desires seem to grow. I want to become the ultimate brute. Completely massive, completely covered in body hair, and with the brain of your average henchman.

Can you work your magic on me? I’ll do anything to live that big dumb brute life.

As cliche as an opening as this is, based on what you’ve told me I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you’ll soon be transformed just like how you’ve dreamed. Your muscles will grow humongous, your mind will dim, and you’ll get to live your dream of being a big, dumb, bodybuilding brute. I won’t even have to do a thing! See, you’re experiencing a Big Dick Energy overdose. If you haven’t read my past post on BDE, it is essentially a nickname for a type of Masculine Energy humans naturally produce. When someone who produces this energy does not dispel it by doing manly things, it builds up inside of them as an urge, until bursting out and transforming them temporarily into a straight stud full of toxic masculinity. It sounds to me as though this energy has been building up inside you for quite some time, so your transformation will definitely be impressive and may even be permanent from the start.

The bad news is that from what you’ve told me, you might have built up too much masculine energy. I know that sounds obvious, since it’s literally an overdose of masculine energy, but this is when you have even more energy built up. Sometimes instead of building up the energy and expelling it by transforming, like in a usual BDE overdose, the energy is blocked and keeps building up until the dam bursts and the transformation gets… really intense. This might not sound that bad at first, but the details are what might trip you up.

The first problem is actually your lack of control over details. While you’ll most likely become like the dumb brute you’ve been imagining, as desire does change what kind of jock a person becomes when they overdose on BDE, you won’t have total control over the details. I’m not what's transforming you this time afterall, you’re basically transforming yourself. It’ll probably work out, since usually those transformed by BDE are changed into their ideal manly self, but… we can’t be sure. Transformation is always a lottery, especially with more powerful transformations.

The second issue is that due to the unique way you’re transforming, you’re going to be… well, contagious. Literally. You’ve built up such a large amount of masculine energy that for a couple ays after your initial transformation, those around you will be transformed as well. Most woman and nonbinary people will just act a little more butch and masculine for a while, and some men will simply have an urge to do more manly stuff for a couple days, but for some of the people around you the energy you give off will be a spark that starts their own transformation. Some will only be transformed for a bit, but a lucky few will be transformed permanently, just like you. This might be a good thing, since now not only will you be transformed, you’ll get a small group of manly brutes to bro out with. The bad part is that you won’t be able to control who you infect. Here's hoping you just infect your friends and not your grandpa or something. Not that buff grandpas don’t have their own charm.

Despite the possible complications, you’ll definitely get your wish. To be a big and dumb brute. I hope you enjoy it, because there's no turning back.

[softbutchthatlovesyou]

Hey Studs and Butches I am taking you home and tucking you in and feeding you a meal I cooked and rubbing your shoulders and telling you how you are seen and appreciated every day in a million ways more than I know how to express in words.

I want you to have any break you need from hard expectations. You deserve appreciation and to be focused on just as much as you focus on the ones you love and/or care about.

Every version of you is beautiful. You are beautiful when you are strong and you are beautiful when you are weak. You are beautiful when you keep your hair short or when you grow it long or when you don't have a strand on you.

You are beautiful when you are as healthy as a person can be and you are beautiful when your mind and body fight you every day. You are beautiful when you read and write and sing and craft and play.

You are beautiful when you are women and you are beautiful when you are men. You are beautiful when you are neither or both or something that will never have a word in any language.

You are beautiful when you stand your ground and when you find yourself in a spot where something has to give. You are beautiful when you exist right here on this earth that was made for us even when others try and deny it.

You are a beauty like the sun and the planets that revolve around it. You are a beauty like every stunning moon and breathtaking mountain. You are a beauty like waves of the ocreans and the wind in a storm.

I adore you Studs and Butches.

And this is only a small piece of how I know how to say that.

[chainmail-butch]

There's something about being the only transgender person at a drag show that really bothers me.

It's a complex feeling. Drag shows are currently on the front page of the national consciousness. They are deeply intertwined with transgender rights. Specifically, they're tied to the rights of transgender women. So why am I the only tranny in the room?

Statistically, I know why. There simply aren't that many of us. It's a wild and crazy night when there are 5 or 6 transwomen at the bar.

There's a complex venn diagram that outlines the experiences of transwomen, transfems, cross dressers, sissies, queens, gay men, faggots, bisexual men, nonbinary people, genderqueer people, and genderfluid people. And, like a ring species of Californian salamanders, our experiences can travel back and forth across this chain that connects us. All of these people can relate to me in some way or another, and I can relate to them in return. But I'm not really part of it.

When I'm outside smoking with the queens after the show, I feel alone.

My section of the venn diagram is an interesting one. In addition to claiming my femininity, I'm also claiming a very visible sort of masculinity. My link in the chain connects me to lesbians, dykes, bisexual women, mascs, butches, kings, transmen, transmascs, cross dressers, femmes, studs, genderfluid people, genderqueer people, and nonbinary people.

When I'm outside smoking with the dykes, I feel alone.

There's only one other transfem butch in the Seattle area that I know of. Most women who pick up the label use it to reclaim their own masculinity and mature as women before they put it back down and go on with their lives. This is a good thing. There's nothing more butch than being there when someone needs you.

It's also lonely.

[our-queer-experience]

Hello!! So, I recently just realized that I might be a lesbian (my journey is very long so I'll save it), but I've been kinda struggling because I consider myself to be butch, but I really only have interest in other butches. Is this like ... okay? I don't know, i feel like everytime I've seen a butch say they prefer other butches or studs, they get shit on. I know realistically i can like whoever, but i don't know, i feel like it's so looked down upon.

hell yeah butch4butch is cool and awesome and one might even say holy

[cloudbug08]

I just wanted to say, when I use “___!reader” in my fics, like femme! Or fem! They mean different things, femme, is an exclusively lesbian term, as well as butch. Fem and masc, are just sapphic terms, I use femme! In relation to femmexbutch/stud relationship dynamics.

Femme: refers to an identity rather than an aesthetic, it carries cultural, personal and political significance.

Fem: mainly focuses of the aesthetics of being feminine, like traditionally ‘feminine’ traits such as gentleness, nurturing, or appearing feminine. (I’m not saying only women are gentle or nurturing, I don’t adhere to outdated beliefs like that, this is just the general meaning from what I’ve researched)

“Femme” generally is an identity that challenges gender norms, is often political and community specific. With no regard to men or the male gaze. Generally ‘femme’ women, experience and present femininity differently from women who are attracted to men. For a lot, being femme means exercising your femininity (gender confirming privilege) to speak up for butches, studs, stems, mascs or any gnc lesbians/sapphic people who don’t have that privilege/ability.

For me personally, being a femme, doesn’t just mean a ‘feminine lesbian’ it gives me agency to embrace my femininity in a way I never did when I thought I like men or when I was suffering from comphet, I express my femininity in a way that doesn’t appease men.

I just wanted to explain my reasoning because I know femme/fem can cause some confusion, I’m still brushing up on my lesbian history, so if anyone is more experienced or more knowledgeable on lesbian history feel completely free to correct me! I’m completely open to learning more. Love yall <3

[papenathys]

**TW for butchphobic rhetoric mention**

I am writing an article for a queer forum in India about butchphobia, particularly among Gen Z heavy online spaces. As my own experiences are limited to my own city and closed circles (trust me, Kolkata isn't a good or safe place for butches and gnc folk), I would like some more voices to chime in. If you identify as butch, stud, masc or gnc, what do you feel about the common and pervasive microaggressions among exclusionary lgbtq spaces that

"butch lesbians are almost always confused closeted trans men because of rejecting femininity"

"sapphics who are singularly attracted to masc/butch/stud lesbians actually do not want to acknowledge their secret attraction to men"

the discourse around the "soft butch" label and what it implies / doesn't imply for other butches, particularly stones

Please rb this with your thoughts in the tags or comments if you feel safe, otherwise, I'm opening my asks (they will not be published publicly), and you are free to dm me if you don't wish to send an ask. Also do let me know if you wish to be credited for your thoughts, or would like to remain anonymous.

Note: Only people identifying as butch/stud/ masc or gnc interact please. Desis are particularly encouraged, but people from all countries and ethnicities are welcome.

EDIT: thank you for all your responses on this post or through DMs and askbox, I have closed submissions for now. Your insights are greatly appreciated and it's truly startling how many butch experiences remain the same across countries and cultures.

[certifiedsexed]

is it allowed for a non-sapphic person to consider themself stone, or is it a lesbian exclusive label like how stud is only for Black folks? /genq

Terms like "stone butch" or "femme butch" are generally sapphic/lesbianic identities but "stone" itself is used by the wider LGBTQ+ community. It's not very commonly seen outside of the lesbian community but its allowed!

Hope this helps! Lemme know. <3

[genderqueerdykes]

happy lesbian visibility week to EVERY lesbian! happy lesbian visibility week to every femme, butch, stud and boi, to lesbians on T, to lesbians on E, to every lesbian who is not a woman, to all transgender and transsexual lesbians, to nonbinary lesbians, to genderfluid lesbians, to lesbians who are men, to every boydyke and lesboy, to intersex lesbians, to lesbians who only identify with the term dyke, to bisexual lesbians, to pansexual lesbians, to polyamorous lesbians who date all kinds of people, to omnisexual lesbians, to polysexual lesbians, to mspec lesbians, to aromantic lesbians, to asexual lesbians, to disabled lesbians, to chronically ill lesbians, poor lesbians, to homeless lesbians, mentally ill lesbians and neurodivergent lesbians!

we all deserve the chance to be visible and have our stories told. have a wonderful week and don't be afraid to let the world know you love being a lesbian!

[olderthannetfic]

I was that AAVE anon and thank you for responding. I was just really confused about these being for ONLY black people because I don't use these AAVEs personally at all, especially in real life because my native language is not English.

And I was also pretty sceptic about that these words are exclusive for black people, because I once stumbled upon a post here that showed a tiktok explaining that you can't use the word stud because that's only for black butch lesbians. Also that one post's tone too was pretty insufferable. Basically it was like "See? This word is for black butch lesbians only!!! Don't use it or you're a racist pig!" While others pointed out that it was also used for horses for a longer time. The original post didn't help me learn anything, it just showed me that the poster is insufferable and that I need to be more sceptical about everithing posted anywhere no matter who posts it.

Next time I'll search better if I stumble upon some words from English slang or something. Sorry for wasting your time! 🙈

--

*giggling*

Yes, anon, I figured you weren't a native speaker. For the record, 'AAVEs' isn't how we use that. AAVE is the name of the dialect: African American Vernacular English. As a term, it works how any name of a language or dialect does. You can say things like "I don't speak AAVE" or "This is grammatical in AAVE". If you want to describe vocabulary, I'd say something like "This word comes from AAVE".

I know what you mean. There's a plague of social media posts about how some word or other is only for black people. (Not surprising given the even bigger plague of appropriation from AAVE.) Half of them are completely accurate and half of them are absolute nonsense, and there's no way to tell which is which from the posts themselves. The only way to distinguish is by already knowing enough that you don't need the damn post in the first place.