8 Times When Strangers Misread My Gender, Ranked
There have been times when I’ve genderf*cked a little too close to the sun.
When Other People Get to Give Away Their Binders
Getting top surgery with my butch identity is no longer some unattainable fantasy. Now the question firmly rests with me: do I want to go ahead with it or not?
How My Badass Butch Skyrim Character Saved My Life
In the mirror, I saw a scrawny, hollow-eyed girl dressed in ill-fitting boys’ clothes, a parody of a parody of masculinity. But in the screen, I saw myself made strong, confident, fearless, perfect.
Butch Slut
In the pool hall, my sweetheart and a close friend tease me one night: “unimpressive,” “pure luck,” “you aren’t that good.” They were trying to get my ire up so that an hour later when I told them to stare into each other’s eyes as I fucked my sweetheart’s body, I would mean it with a snarky competitive vengeance, I would mean it with power and control, I would be pushed to take what I want.
A Love Letter to Butch People (That Is Accidentally About My Dad)
Being able to be soft in this world is important for a lot of folks; but also, I think it’s a privilege. And when you exist in a world saying “women look like this” and you do not look like this (and maybe even aren’t a woman), it takes being hard in order to thrive. There is beauty in being hard that way. There is a reason we tell our lovers their haircuts make them look “sharp.”
Wherever West Is
“Loving women and loving the land are the two things I told myself I would never do, and somehow, they got all tangled up in each other.”
How Endometriosis Helped Me Become a Tenderhearted Butch
“Instead of getting medical care, I had a work colleague help me to my hotel room and pour me a tumbler of whiskey. I downed the whiskey with a handful of aspirin and prayed for the pain to stop.”
How Leslie Feinberg Changed Our Lives: The Autostraddle Roundtable
“I could feel the power that came from being butch, the paradox of growing up a girl and then becoming the suited partner of a beautiful woman, the torture of being such a social outcast, and the deep craving hunger for being accepted.”
Fat-Booty Butch Buys A Suit On A Budget
There are moments when if we can, we want to wear the articles of clothing that bring us close to joy. My suit isn’t that thing, not yet, but it did bring me closer to feeling sane and on top of this thing called adulthood.
Top Five Things I Heard When I Started Presenting As Butch
4. You were so much prettier with long hair.
Big Queer Pimples, or How I Learned to Love (or Tolerate) My Acne
“When the doctor said that such and such a treatment was linked to health problems later in life, I didn’t even blink. I’ll hit 50 and keel over? Fine, I don’t care, get rid of these fucking pimples.”
Fat-Booty Butch Wears Leggings — Confuses World, Confronts Self
“Form-fitting feels different than tailored and my form is something I’m super protective of — so why the fuck did I decide to wear leggings today?”
Butch Glam: Let’s Broaden What “Black” In Relation to “Female” Can Mean
I am not crazy; I am simply black, and queer, and butch, and transcultural, and therefore alone.
Butch Please: Butch is a Hairy Man-Hating Lesbian
I’m a hairy short-haired sonuffabitch in plaid and denim that by that boy’s definition, and so many other definitions I’ve heard, is considered by society to be one of “those ugly lesbians”. And honestly, I ain’t even mad.
Butch Please: Butch Gets Intimate
Is there a space within sex positivity for those of us who feel uncomfortable doing what sex positivism seems to ask of us?
Butch Please: Butch on the Streets
There is something strange about the street harassment I receive as a butch in that it is often terrifying and extremely triggering, but something about it makes me feel justified. I am glad these men see me as a threat.
Butch Please: Butch Goes Camping
Camp is family, after all.
Butch Please: A Letter to Baby Butches
I have every faith in you, baby butch. I know you will be careful with this word and its legacy. It looks like a badge but it feels like a battleaxe, and I need you to know that it’s five times as difficult to earn and ten million times more dangerous.
Butch Please: Butch and Boundaries
Why is it that time and time again, people act like they can’t make me uncomfortable? That as a butch — as well as a queer person, a top, someone who likes to flirt and be sexual just like most human beings — it’s impossible to sexually harass me?
Butch Please: Butch in the Bathroom
She looked me up and down, shook her head like she was clearing her ears, and then turned to check the sign on the door. Ah, I thought.