The Butch Mystique

I am fascinated and delighted that my description of Mary Carillo as "butch" has sparked such an interesting conversation (see Comments under the post Mary Carillo's Gems from the US Open.) Here I am, living my entire adult life in lesbian culture, thinking I know everything about who we are. And thinking that Mary Carillo is the tall gallant epitome of butch. But a few of my darling readers have said, whoa, no, not the case. They say she's more accurately described as "androgynous" or "just Mary" because she occasionally wears pastels and because we have no way of knowing if she is butch-identified. These are very good points. But I do not concede the argument.

First, I want to talk about this comment: "Butchness requires a degree of self-identification, meaning I don't think that you can assume a woman is butch based on superficial characteristics." This is interesting and, to me, a little troubling. Maybe because I came out during the Reagan administration my views on such things are outdated. (Example: I still say "transgendered person" rather than what I've noticed everyone else says, "transgender." When did the shift occur? Beats me. But keep in mind the speed-of-light changes occuring in this realm: My 1993 copy of Stone Butch Blues (purchased at Shakespeare & Co. in NYC in 1994!) uses the term "transgendered" on the back cover blurb. Judith Butler's seminal work Gender Trouble, published in 1990, includes neither "transgendered" nor "transgender.") In any case, here is what I understand about the term "butch" in lesbian culture:

It's an unfortunate and uninformed mistake to view "butch/femme" as simply limited to bedroom roles and—good grief—the heterosexual construct. If we say you can't assume a woman is butch based on superficial characteristics, we are suggesting that butch is something we can't see. Or that it's strictly a sexual behavior rather than an aesthetic. A noun rather than an adjective. It also seems to belie that reliable old chestnut: "Butch on the streets, femme in the sheets," which suggests butch presentation is often just bravado concealing an emotional trainwreck. (Come on, you know there's some truth in it.)

In contrast, I think butch is something you can express when you want to. For some of us, it's diurnal. For others, it's as infrequent as chopping wood. To me, it simply describes traditionally masculine characteristics — bold, brave, macho, robust, strong, strapping, virile — displayed by a woman. Yes, there are the anachronistic "butch/femme" pairings described in Leslie Feinberg's groundbreaking novel Stone Butch Blues, but Feinberg is describing a pre-Stonewall era. Lillian Faderman documents this bygone period thoroughly in Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, and she even establishes that butch/femme roles in the 1950s and 1960s were exclusive to working class lesbians who had no other way of identifying their community. Faderman also points out that wealthy and middle class lesbians "generally rejected" the butch/femme roles and dress codes, which they found "aesthetically repulsive."

I have zero interest in igniting class warfare in the lesbian community. It is also my understanding that lesbian culture has evolved since the '50s and '60s. Yes, we still have our special "stone butches," but I don't think anyone would argue that the terms "butch" and "stone butch" are interchangeable. And these days, wouldn't a woman who seeks to pass as a man or who identifies as a man be described as trans rather than butch? Butch in my mind is inherently lesbian; it is implicit that the person is female. Judith Butler herself has spent her career asserting that sexuality is not linked to gender. And I assume that would include sexual roles assigned to the genderqueer, no? Being butch does not come with a required list of sexual behaviors. But it does more often than not seem to have a correlation with a thick neck.

Lesbians Lose Another Butch

Naturally, we are all for transgender rights and the freedom for everyone to express who they truly are. And in keeping with this position, the Sapphist Gazetteer applauds and celebrates Chaz Bono's decision to transition from female to male. A courageous decision which no doubt will help diminish ignorance about trans issues—considering he is inherently likable and is probably the most famous trans person since Renee Richards. But Chaz's transition has also brought to light the sotto voce conversation in the lesbian realm regarding the concern that our best butches are choosing to become male, and, hence, no longer lesbian.

While trans persons are, of course, very much a part of the larger LGBT community, there is some controversy about where female-to-male individuals fit specifically into the lesbian community. Obviously, butch lesbians who become male are no longer lesbians. Yet often their female partners are lesbian. And the community in which they initially express their otherness in gender—or, come out as trans—is almost always the lesbian community. It's a conundrum that was first discussed in the mainstream media in March 2008 in "When Girls Will Be Boys" by Alissa Quart in The New York Times Magazine. This article examined the experience of female-to-male persons—or "transmales"—at women's colleges, and whether they even belong there. The issue was also examined somewhat on the L-Word. Interestingly, the issue primarily discussed on that show was the hostility and discrimination that Max, played by Daniela Sea, faced during transition (especially when he became pregnant.) But the question of Max's membership in the lesbian community was less prominent. Yes, there was the speechifying by Jenny about how, as a lesbian, she didn't want a boyfriend. But Jenny was pretty much universally hated (except by me! How could you not love a character so arch!), and thus this interesting nugget of conversation was dismissed.

Perhaps there is an alternative. In the early 1990s, the Sapphist Gazetteer attended a talk by Leslie Feinberg at the LGBT community center in the West Village in NYC. I recall that Feinberg, author of the seminal trans work, Stone Butch Blues, advocated for a third gender. A third gender, Feinberg argued, would allow individuals who did not identify with either female or male gender roles to express themselves most authentically. It's important to distinguish here that Feinberg (according to my memory) was not asking for a third sex. (Although a third sex arguably already does exist in nature: hermaphrodites.) While I cannot speak for Feinberg today, I do believe the idea of a third gender, the social construct, would allow some among us to avoid the troublesome issue of sex assignment and, therefore, the difficulties presented by anatomy, plastic surgery, and, one could say, self-mutilation.