u know what I have a lot more thoughts.
I hear young women who have recently fallen in love with or gotten curious about some form of gender nonconformity ask questions like “how do I dress/act/be more butch” and tbh I approached it that way for a bit and it was a big mistake that cost me a lot of peace of mind! I started off on the right foot, with frequent ring of keys type moments where I would see other gender nonconforming women and feel envy, awe, discovery, resonance. I cut my hair short and it felt good, I looked at images of men’s fashion and was clearly able to see what kinds of clothes that I would enjoy wearing, I gave myself permission to consider all these things I’d never felt allowed before, everything felt new and magical.
somewhere along the line though I got off track. on this site and in groups of people who talk like they spend significant time on this site, to be honest. I put the word “butch” and whether or not I was “allowed” to use it on a higher priority level than the simplicity of “what do I want/like”. instead of asking myself “do I like this article of clothing”, I started asking (although not in sucg self aware words) “does this article of clothing grant me access to this label or does it not make the cut”. in that process I lost a lot of the meaning of “butch” in my own head and heart even as I began to be recognized that way by others. I started trying to check off more and more boxes out of anxiety and impatience around group belonging, and totally disconnected myself from my actual preferences and styles!
here’s what that mistake looked like in practice: I tried to overhaul my entire wardrobe in one fell swoop, purchasing as many cheap men’s clothes as I could in short order. clothes that fit poorly, clothes that didn’t match well, and clothes that, now that I think about it, do not line up with the styles I enjoy if I stop and think about what I like for even half a second. plus women’s tshirts and pants that I deemed innocuous and drab enough to pass as masculine. after the initial rush of remaking myself passed, I looked in the mirror one day and thought “gross, I kinda look ugly”. I mistook this for having misinterpreted my “self” in some way and fell into crisis over whether or not I was really butch. but I kept staring at other butches and gnc women and still thinking “yeah that’s me, I’m just doing it wrong or don’t look effortlessly good in it and that sucks”. I still wasn’t understanding what I’d done wrong.
at this point, I started dating my partner who takes meticulous care of their appearance, and in particular has very nice men’s clothes. this set the tone for my next purchases, and I got a few men’s items that I am really proud of that actually line up with my tastes. I noticed whenever I wore those clothes, I wouldn’t feel any anxiety, doubt, or impulses to distance myself from gender nonconformity. I would feel happy and attractive and wouldn’t spend a lot of time interrogating how “butch” I “looked”. I would just walk out of the house thinking “man I look hot today”. but when I would go back to wearing some of those ill fitting clothes I bought out of hasty obligation, those insecurities and doubts would fly back into my body. I would feel more dysphoric and turn to binding and questioning my entire gender identity, fluctuating between polarized, nasty thoughts like “why don’t I just be a guy even though I feel deeply uncomfortable with that idea, maybe then I could do this right” and “why don’t I just go back to wearing makeup and grow out my hair so I don’t waste my life looking so ugly”.
essentially, whenever I distance myself from my basic desires and focus on identity label first, then rule-following actions, my whole body can feel that artificiality and screams at me to get out, which I mistake as a rejection of gender nonconformity itself. but whenever I dress myself and hold myself in ways I am drawn to, without coming to those decisions through a complex internal process of criteria and scrutiny, I find myself embodying a more effortless, weightless gender nonconformity. and in those moments I find my swagger or whatever. I feel confident, sexy, turns out I probably am literally butch, not just a kid who wants desperately to be butch and is “doing it wrong”. I’m butch, not because I picked a word and am now following all the right rules, but because the things that I do in my life in response to my wants and needs happen to be described well by “butch”.
which isn’t to say that people can’t come into their desired behaviors, styles, and life choices through finding out about a group or word that resonates with them. it’s okay to feel drawn to a concept like butch and start your journey that way, but I don’t think it works to get sucked into a checklist mentality of self-diagnosis and treating one label for one experience like it’s a diet or a prescription. and I just want to say to questioning girls, don’t feel the need to ask a pubescent baby dyke on anonymous if you’re “allowed” to say you’re butch or for tips on “looking butch enough”. I remember when I was 17 and had donated a few skirts only a month prior, I was already getting anons saying things like “baby gay looking for butch tips.” first off you’re asking someone who’s barely any less baby than yourself. second of all it’s not about permission. anyone CAN use any word, it shouldn’t be about that. it should be about if that word describes the life you’re living, and if it doesn’t, that’s really not the end of the entire world.
realizing all of these things has really restructured how I talk to questioning butches and other lgbt people. yes, all the usual reassurances have grains of value: “sometimes you go through many words for yourself in your life”, “you can change identities” “try out butch and if it doesn’t fit you you’re not bad”… but going beyond that, why do we have to put the words first in all these conversations! why does the whole solar system have to spin around that? the solar system of the words spins around material experiences and therefore we have to situate our strongest reassurances to other young people (and people of all ages coming into their own) around material experiences. there are already no shortage of posts saying “it’s okay to call yourself butch if you ____”. what we are in desperate need of is more posts saying “hey girls, it is okay if you want to wear clothes from the men’s section.” “hey girls, it’s okay if you want to [anything here]”.
I’m just saying connect young girls to thinking about what they really like! that sounds simple but it’s really such a woman experience to be filtering everything you do through painful self scrutiny. decenter the language of group membership for a second and recenter wants and needs! because there are probably girls out there who like elements of menswear or want to try a buzzcut, who may be femme or who may be neither butch nor femme, who could still use the “permission” or encouragement to be gender nonconforming if they’ve never heard it before. and then we can avoid people feeling the need to write thinkpieces like “I’m butch even though I wear designer eye shadow” because their idea of “permission” to be gnc wouldn’t be all tied up in a word they put before their lived experiences.
anyway. this post solved most of my identity crises in the time it took me to finish writing it.
