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?

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.

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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“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?”

I want to talk about shape-shifting, and clothing, and being a butch who wears things, because so much of butchness is tied up in the things we put on our body.

Is there a space within sex positivity for those of us who feel uncomfortable doing what sex positivism seems to ask of us?

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.

“It’s easy for us to say that we don’t participate in the patriarchy because we are women, or because we have been women, that we have known what it’s like to be objectified, oppressed, fetishized. The thing is that we queers can perpetuate rape culture just as much as the next frat boy…”

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.

It’s that tie-straightening and sunglass removal feeling.

“So what do you do in bed, then?” they always ask, but what they mean is “I think I already know what you do in bed because you’re a butch who likes femmes, so I’ve made assumptions on your behalf.”

Anxiety on a butch is no different than anxiety on anyone else, but somehow I feel an immense shame as a result of the two’s interactions.

12. Do your goddamned laundry.

“I continued to make intense eye contact with my interviewer, concentrating to the point of not blinking. To her credit, she did sometimes look down, but it was usually to take in my tie, skipping my face altogether.”