Might get jumped but i feel like u lot's concept of butchness (well at least on tumblr and twitter) is contradictory. It's understood butch isn't just being masculine but about the role you play yet there are constant invalidations and nitpicks about fake butches everywhere. I consistently see white femmes dictating who is a real butch dyke vs who is just a poser. The days of "real" butches with big muscles and bigger straps, boots n buzzcuts are taken over by the new wave of weak mascs, not enough sexual desire and topping power, not enough chivalry and not enough masculinity, the great "masc shortage" whatever that means. This is part of the reason I don't claim butch even though I technically fit it by definition (and i could get deep into this). But apparently, I can't claim stem or masc either after failing the online butch test bc some babes like to complain about those labels too!
"Butch isn't a body type" yet you complain skinny 'twink' looking butches who look too weak to serve, overlook fat butches due to fatphobia, mock butches with big boobs and curves and call butches with sharp facial features and no boobs too manly. "Butch isn't being masculine" yet you complain about butches who are just "femmes wearing trousers" and will say butches can't have long hair or wear makeup in any capacity bc you think it's inherently feminine. "Butch isn't being the man" yet you mock butches who can't perform manual labour bc of their disabilities, or because they just don't know how and butches who aren't tops bc they're stone bottoms, asexual or both. "Butch isn't a biological category" but you "cannot become butch" either.
This is why masculine of centre exists. For Black lesbians and other lesbians of colour who never fit into the concept of white lesbian masculinity but also other lesbians who didn't fit into the standards either. And yet, if you're a lesbian who goes by masc and not butch it's erasure bc you're butch. You can't be a stem bc that's also erasure bc you're a stud and stud is just Black butch. Stem is just Black futch and futch isn't real it's butch. Some studs are studs specifically bc they're not butch and you lot call them butch anyway. Stud doesn't have its own history or concept anymore it's just Black butch. It's butch. Social context of masculinity doesn't exist anymore it's butch. Every masculine of centre is butch. It's butch now. We're butches now.
Either you expand your idea of butchness, you accept that the long haired lesbian, the stud with no flannel shirt and boots, the "bundle dykes" with weave under their beanies, the stem in baggy pants, crop tops and lined lips, the disabled lesbian who is too ill to fix your car, the asexual lesbian who'd rather hold you than rip off your dress and the pillow prince who'll never strap you down are just as butch as the ripped 70s white lesbians with quiffs and buzzcuts you hold up as the standard and give thousands of notes, OR you need to be normal about masculine of centre identities and masc lesbians who are not butch, stop complaining about lesbians going by masc who've recognised they're not butch by your own standards, recognise stud as its own identity and stop being antiblack and incorrect about stem and let Black lesbians have our own tomboy identity. Pick a lane.
