I’m a butch transbian. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my butch identity, and how my experiences with butchness overlaps and maybe differs in some areas to my non-transfemme butch siblings. For example:
- We’ve likely grown up with very different bodies and genitals, and that has impacted our relationship to our butchness
- Our struggle with presenting butch in a way that doesn’t get us misgendered or give us dysphoria
- Dealing with the pressure from outside transfemme circles and inside to present more feminine
- Feeling like a fraud in lesbian spaces, because I feel like I’m dressing like a “man”, despite knowing that butch identity is a whole separate thing.
- Fearing exclusion from cis lesbians, what if they think im a cis dude creeping around?
- The lack of representation for butchness in transfemmininty
- How do other butch transfemmes feel about femminine clothing?
- How do we feel about compliments? Beautiful vs handsome?
- Feeling tension between wanting to present more feminine in some ways to “escape” the masculinity I was imprisoned by growing up.
I would love to hear about any thoughts and experiences you’ve got.
It kinda feels lonely as a butch transbian. Most transfemmes go cute/floral/alternative. I love wearing my cargo shorts and pants. Tank tops that show of my impressive delts and biceps muscles. But I switch it up with dresses and skirts sometimes. Half half or full femme because I still got that need for it.
I am so grateful for the boob job that health insurance paid for. It gave me the confidence to do most of that.
I am rarely in spaces where cis lesbians are, never really interact with them. I feel a bit alien around them. I grew up very differently than them. Noone forced feminity onto me as a child.
I don’t know whether I’m butch or not, because I don’t really try for a butch look. What I do know is that I don’t really “get” femininity and masculinity. I can perform either or both, but they both feel like I’m acting, rather than expressing something from within myself.
I don’t have pierced ears, I don’t wear makeup, I don’t do my nails, I don’t do skin care etc, and I’m just as likely to be found in jeans and a tshirt as I am in a dress. With clothes, my goals are as few layers as I can get away with, and as easy and comfortable as possible.
I know I’ve sometimes felt like the odd one out, because I don’t really connect with femininity, but on the other hand, I’ve been in the community long enough to realise that every one of us has an something that doesn’t fit the narrative, and we nearly all struggled with feel disconnected because of it. These days, I still scratch my head and wonder what I’m missing, but I don’t feel disconnected or othered because of it. I’ve been in the community long enough to know that it’s my community, and to feel it in my bones.
I love skirts, and camisoles, and anything and everything pink. But, I also love looking androgynous/masc-ish.
External factors like passing* do suck, but I think that’ll get better with time, and so will my dysphoria (grow faster, breasts!)
I really love femme clothing, and I greatly enjoy wearing it. If that excludes me from being a butch, so be it: I don’t really care that much.
As for compliments, I like being called a pretty girl :3 I’ve also experimented with being called handsome, or being referred to as a boy. It doesn’t feel bad like it did earlier on. Maybe I’ll be a butch someday.
* I know, I know, it’s stupid. Please inform me of an alternative to the term, if you have one.
After rereading this: huh, maybe I’m enby or something.
I dunno, I’m looking at my friend who tries to look like a dominant femboy (expressing some kind of male gender while wearing a skirt, thigh-high boots, chains, and a crop top) and I don’t think he qualifies as butch but does succeed in maintaining that masculine gender while looking like a femboy. Being butch is a totally different vibe from expressing the right amount of masculinity to pass as a femboy and probably not a trans woman.
Gender is so confusing?!!!
I‘m not shure, if i‘m fitting in your question or how good i‘m fitting.
I‘m a bit irritated about your wording „butch transfemmes“ but it can also be a thing with my not nativ semi-good english.
I understand „Butch“ as mostly lesbian but always AFAB who feels good in male-cloth and „transfemme“ as AMAB with opposite preferences.
….
1/2That sounds pretty trans exclusionary to say trans women cannot be butch.
There was a irritation and wrong connection in my brain.
Never was ment that way. Pls read all, i excused.
What about the word “butch” in your view is exclusive to people with uterus’s? Because doesn’t that mean that trans women (by this definition) can only feel good in certain clothing? Is butchness defined entirely by people with uterus’s enjoying men’s clothing?
This. Butches are basically the reverse of femboys, who can be cis guys or trans guys: it doesn’t matter which, they just need to be guys who like feminine clothing.
(There are also trans men who consider themselves butches, and trans women who consider themselves femboys, but that seems out-of-scope).
@strawberry_enjoyer42 @PurpleFanatic ok, yes, got it.
There was still a wrong connection in my head.
Hope I dod not triggered you. Sorry.No worries, your fine. I just can’t help but put in my two cents when it comest to anything semantics-related.
2/2
…I‘m AFAB born in a very binary world & was a long time interpreted as butch. With 50(!) i realized that there are other options & found out, that I’m nonbinary trans, still like wearing boys cloth, but I‘m also okay with feminine ones. The prob was always the female body & what in ppls heads happends because of it.
My sexuality?
I‘ll find outOr are you a trans woman wearing man‘s cloth - so it would be opposite. :)
Being transfemme isn’t about presentation, but about one’s body and/or identity. Personally, I’m a t-girl who likes to wear androgynous/masc-leaning clothes sometimes.
Regardless of my current attire, I’m a woman. A butch is a lesbian who presents very in a very masculine way, and a trans woman who likes other women is a lesbian.
If a transgender lesbian presents masc, then they can be a butch.
Of course, all of this is entirely made up, and it doesn’t really matter :3
@strawberry_enjoyer42 and thanks for this quiet explain 💜
Okay. Thanks - i understand now, where the mistake comes probably from.
As I said before- I‘m not native english-speaking.
In my area „femme“ seems to be used mor as opposite of „butch“. So i don‘t know „transfemme“ this way - it was always „transwoman“, sometimes „transgirl“, never „transfemme“.
Sorry for this.
