[UofMfan]

Originally Posted by Metropolis

I'm me and that's that... stereotypes are stereotypes and I try not to pay much attention to them... masculine or butch.

With that I think there's a big difference between "want to be" and what we just are... what we are is always just that, what we call it may be more in line with just what we see it as.

I call myself a butch because butch I think of as queered masculinity and I believe that's altogether a different thing than stereotypical masculinity. I feel it inside me as an energy that wants to come outward and not as something I'm taking into me from outside cues.

I don't emulate "the masculine stereotype" because butch to me doesn't mean being as "historical/traditionally masculine" as you possibly can, yes I open doors and pull out chairs but you would't catch me dead with a hairy lip or letting my brows go to caterpillar status even know perhaps some would see that as more masculine... but I don't give a crap what anyone thinks... because I'm not a stereotype.

IMO butch masculinity comes more in the heart than the head... it's not something you aspire to or look to anything or anyone else for, it just is what it is the way it is.

Metro

As usual, your words are right on the money, at least in describing how I feel, am.

So to answer the question, what makes me butch? I would have to say that every cell in my body makes me so, in as far as to what Butch means to me.