Shoutout to disabled butches and mascs who feel like less of a butch or masc because you can’t perform (or at least can’t regularly perform) the acts often associated with butchness and (queer) masculinity.
Shoutout to butches and mascs who are made to feel useless and like their masculinity or butchness is “less real” or “performative” because they “aren’t productive enough” in the eyes of others or themselves, especially under capitalist society.
Shoutout to butches and mascs who can’t be physically active when they want to be, or work out a lot, or get big and strong and muscular in general.
Shoutout to butches and mascs who can’t help their loved ones by carrying things or performing other acts of physical labor to help others.
Shoutout to butches and mascs who aren’t handy and can’t fix things for themselves or others, due to mental or physical disability.
Shoutout to butches and mascs who wish they were physically capable enough to be ready to stand up and physically defend their queer and otherwise marginalized loved ones and neighbors from in-person physical threats, but know their bodies won’t let them be of much (or any) use in this particular way.
Shoutout to butches and mascs who want to go to political protests and put their bodies and lives on the line for the sake of change, but don’t do it because they feel like they would just get in the way and be a liability to others around them if shit went down.
Shoutout to butches who aren’t tough and put together and relatively stoic or laidback, and are instead seen as “overly sensitive” (physically, sensorily or emotionally) or “hyper emotional” to others due to mental or physical disabilities.
Shoutout to butches who need help with “simple tasks”, who can’t function independently, who need to be taken care of and protected more than they’re able to take care of or protect others.
Shoutout to butches and mascs who feel guilt and shame over any of these things, or feel like it invalidates their identity, or even feel dysphoria over this sort of stuff.
Your butchness and/or masculinity isn’t any less real because you’re disabled. I hope you have or find people who see and value you for who you are now, not who you or they wish you could have been. I hope you can find ways to feel more like your authentic selves, even if it’s not in the ways you feel are more typically expected of people like you. Sending y’all love.
