Early Post: Butch Voices/Butch Intellectuals

I know we're not officially launched until next week, but I saw a post on Jezebel about butch intellectuals that linked to an NPR story about the Butch Voices conference (which I will try to check out next year--I was out of town on another engagement during this year's conference last week), and I had to write about it.

When asked for his reasons behind founding the Butch Voices conference, Joe LeBlanc responded that "there are just so many stereotypes about us that we have to be these silent cool types that don't talk or only are about how we look." Later, he expands on this idea by saying "butch is thought to be this very visual identity, a very flat - you know, the woman that you would see who you believe wants to be a man, you know, very hard, gruff, mechanically inclined, the man of the relationship. ... I mean, there's butches who enjoy cooking, who enjoy sewing. I mean… You know, they wear make-up. I mean, it's not just about, you know, the clothing or the hair styles. It goes deeper than that."

Those quotes resonate deeply with me. In the past, I have struggled with claiming a "butch" identity because I have many traditionally "feminine" inclinations as well. I love studying maths and sciences, and I'm really passionate about cars. I'm a mechanical engineering major who only shaves above the neck. At the same time, I'll read Victorian literature for days . I will happily create scrapbook pages for important events in my life. My laptop is pink. I just finished making my first quilt. I will sleep with men when it suits me (but only if we fuck like gay boys--what does that mean anyway?).*

I must apologize for sharing half my personal history in the above paragraph. I have not, for the last ten years, been able to claim the label of "butch" without having to follow up with a bunch of qualifiers like those above. It is a privilege to be able to say "I am a man" or "I am a woman" and have no one second-guess your identity.

Once, I thought it would be easier to say, "I am a man." I bound my chest. I injected hormones. That stopped a year ago. Today, my voice cracks when I laugh, and I am slowly training myself into a refined contralto. My chest hangs low and heavy from years of binding, but I stand confident for the first time in too long. I make people trip over pronouns.

I am a butch, a gentleman, and a scholar. I am not a stereotype or an ideal. Butch is an entity that has been shifting since its creation, the way cars today aren't still Model Ts, but they are still cars. There are Ford F-150s and there are Lamborghini Gallardos. I prefer to think of myself as somewhere in between, a Porsche 911. Powerful, technically brilliant, and curvy without being cute.

Let's see where this road goes.


* While writing this post, I had a difficult time coming up with examples of my "feminine side" that did not involve how I looked/dressed or what I bought. I feel a follow-up post coming on.