What makes a Butch "Butch"

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

I don’t think either male or female is necessarily synonymous with the identity of butch. For some butch is a gender unto itself. Others see a male or female identity as something to add to butch. To me the definition of butch and butch energy is fairly encompassed in the term female masculinity but I get that’s not for everyone.

I agree with bulldog’s assessment that woman tends to get subsumed under this umbrella concept and male/masculine always seems to come to the forefront, as per usual.

The hierarchy I think is more a natural extension of a misogynistic society that places more value on anything male than it is a consciously held belief in the superiority of male id’d butches or any other masculine identity over female id’d butches. Whether this is better or not is debatable. At least a consciously held belief is owned and therefore can be challenged. The sneaky ways misogyny can control some of our thought processes is difficult to break through.

Yes I agree with this. I don't believe people go around thinking oh well male id butches are superior. It is that butch gets defined on male terms because male is valued over female- and we get that from being in a misogynistic society.

Also despite all the talk about how horrible "the binary" is people still seem to have a hard time separating masculinity from male or femininity from female . I think it is abundantly clear that there are men with feminine energy and women with masculine energy and plenty of people with a mixture and who don't clear identify with being strictly male or female. Yet we tend to fall back to what we have been raised with. Again, I believe one of the major points of identifying as butch, femme or other gender identities is that we are forging our own paths.

Butch has everything to do with being a lesbian/queer masculine female for me- that is what butch is to me. It isn't for everyone. Butch is obviously not synonymous with female- not all females identify as butch and not all butches identify as female.