A woman stands
washing her hands in a public restroom.
Suddenly, a well dressed man enters and attempts to grab hold of a stall
handle. The woman reacts by
instinct. “Sir, this is the ladies
room.” As the well dressed
gentleman turns, the woman’s face flushes with embarrassment as she notices the
softness of the man’s jaw, and the hairlessness of his face. The well dressed gentleman, she realizes, is a well dressed woman. In
her black, pinstriped dress pants, grey dress shirt and black tie, the woman
turns away, dealing with her own diluted form of embarrassment. She has become familiar with this
situation.
This constant questioning whenever entering a gender specific space is a daily struggle for women who possess natural masculine attributes. However, what about lesbian women who embrace their maleness? Are they then embraced within the lesbian community due to their Sapphic bond with other lesbians? Not so much! Within general society many masculine identified women find themselves shunned from their communities of lesbian identified sisterhood. This is not only a harsh reality of lesbian society but also a cold reminder that tight knit communities such as the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) community, still have aversions to those who live outside the box. Movements such as the feminist movement of the late 1970s, while wonderful for lesbian visibility, was also a train wreck for masculine identified women. Stone butches, gender queers, gender fuckers, transgender and drag kings found themselves alienated from their community, and viewed as a threat to feminism and the female struggle. And present day aversion only perpetuates the fear of what is unknown. Through whatever means possible, it is imperative that masculine identified females make themselves more visible; remove fear and fight for acceptance. However, acceptance can only be attained through understanding, and understanding can only been achieved by knowledge.
In the male
identified subculture of lesbian women, there are terms used that define
different levels of female masculinity.
These terms are often foreign to those outside of the GLBT community, specifically stone butch, gender queer, gender fucker, transgender and drag king. The term “stone butch” as stated by
Robin Maltz in her article Real Butch: the performance/perfomativity of male
impersonation, drag kings, passing as male and stone butch realness, is defined by “masculine appearance, erotics, and
mannerisms that signify a deep investment in masculinity by a queer female
subject without reliance on surgical or hormonal interventions”(275). Gender queers often
identify as a person who feels that his/her gender identity does not fit into
the socially constructed "norms" associated with his/her biological
sex. And beyond the gender queer is
the gender fucker, one who consciously defies the constraints of socialized
gender. Transgender individuals
are referred to as those whose gender at birth does not match the gender the
subject most closely relates to. These individuals are most often willing to
modify their physical gender assignment through hormone therapies and surgical
interventions. Drag kings are
merely performative. Their dress
and appearance is largely based on entertainment and public performance. Drag kings are possibly the only group
accepted in present day lesbian society due to its performative nature. Other
groups, however, still find great difficulty finding acceptance within the
lesbian communities.
Finding acceptance
must first start with knowing one's history. The history, or rather herstory, of female masculinity is vast,
lengthy and rich in lesbian culture.
From the English masher acts and the musical halls of the late 1800s,
to the present day Chicago Kings, women have proudly been strutting their
maleness. In Sarah Water’s book Tipping
the Velvet, the main character Nan Astley recounts
her first meeting with drag king Kitty Butler by saying,
“She looked, I
suppose, like a very pretty boy, for her face was a perfect oval, and her eyes
were large and dark at the lashes, and her lips were rosy and full. Her figure, too, was boy-like and
slender - yet rounded, vaguely but unmistakably, at the bosom, the stomach, and
the hips, in a way no real boy’s ever was; and her shoes, I noticed after a
moment, had two-inch heels to them.
But she strode like a boy, and stood like one, with her feet far apart
and her hands thrust carelessly into her trouser pockets, and her head at an
arrogant angle, at the very front of the stage; and when she sang, her voice
was boy’s voice-sweet and terribly true.”
Since long before our time women
have been both performing and living as men. From the legendary piano man Billy Tipton, to Brandon
Teena, the subject of the academy award winning film, Boy’s Don’t Cry, to
author Leslie Feinberg. Women have
strengthened the history of female masculinity despite adversity, despite the
brutal beatings, and despite the humiliation. Yet still modern lesbian society finds fault in women with
accentuated masculine qualities.
The
beginning of this anti-male movement coincided with the feminist’s plight of
the late '60s and 1970s. As far
as radical feminism was concerned there was no place in lesbian society for
masculine identified females.
Lesbian, butch/femme relationships were viewed as oppressive and
unacceptable. In her article The Return of Butch and Femme: A Phenomenon in
Lesbian Sexuality of the 1980s, Lillian
Faderman touches on the butch aversion as it pertains to butch/femme
relationship in saying “They [radical feminists] regarded butch/femme as roles
in which the players were acting out with each other the oppression from the
parent culture.” (580) That being said the dislike within feminist communities
spawned an intercommunity conflict between lesbian feminists and masculine
identified females.
The
effect of the aforementioned anti-male feminist movement proved to be harshly
detrimental to various levels male identified females. Even the perfomativity of drag kings
became a taboo. Once again women
who embraced their masculinity were harassed, bullied, humiliated and shunned,
only this time, these spirit crushing acts, were created by other females. The lesbian society caved in on
itself, separating into two special interest groups; One group sympathetic the natural masculinity of butch and
trans identified women, the other in strong opposition. Slowly, yet with fierce agendas the
feminist movement chipped away at butch society, forcing extreme psychosocial
damage by alienating butch females from the visibility of the lesbian movement
and the comfort of their established communities. Female masculinity not only became a taboo within radical
sects, butch women became a threat.
Their visibility was seen as oppressive and detrimental to the feminist
cause. By embracing masculinity
within one’s self, such persons where viewed as traitors and infidels. As far as radical feminists were
concerned, masculine women embodied everything ugly about male society. The oppression, the dominance,
the male power asserted over women or in this case, femme identified
women.
Not only where
butch women now under attack, their relationships with femme women were caught
in the crossfire. Their
relationships together where, and in many cases still are, seen as both
regressive and repressive. Madeline
Davis and Elizabeth Lapovsky-Kennedy partially examine the separation of male
identified communities within lesbian communities in their article Oral
History and the Study of Sexuality in the Lesbian Community: Buffalo, New York,
1940-1960, while investigating period
specific sexuality, Davis and Lapovsky-Kennedy uncovered 2 contradictory trends
that where emerging “First, the community became more open to the acceptance of
new sexual practices, the discussion of sexual matters, and the learning about
sex from friends as well as lovers.
Second, the rules of butch-fem sexuality became more rigid, in that
community concern for role-appropriate behavior increased.” (20) While role
appropriate behavior became more ridged and established, this in turn separated
the community even more.
Non-butch/femme identities began stereotyping and pigeon holing
masculine women into oppressive roles thus creating tension between the
feminist lesbian communities and gender embracing lesbians. Butch/femme relationships were thought
to be inappropriate and against that which radical feminist had fought for. In Leslie Feinberg’s fictional novel Stone
Butch Blues, her character Jess Goldberg
expressed her delight in butch/femme relationships when she describes an
encounter at a bar. “I waited for her in the middle of the dance floor. Roy Orbison’s voice was smooth and
dreamy. I stood still, with her
hand in mine until she relaxed and moved toward me.
"After we’d danced for
a few moments, Yvette told me ‘it’s okay to breathe you know.’ We laughed real
hard together. Then I felt her
body move closer to me and we kind of melted together. I discovered all the sweet
surprises a femme can give a butch:
Her hand on the back of my neck, open on my shoulder, or balled up like
a fist. The feel of her belly and
thighs against mine. Her lips
almost touching my ear.” (33)
For women who
identify as either butch or femme, despite the harsh adversity, this is their
only comfort zone, not to be deviated from. The reaction to each other is not that of internal
oppression, or early psychological damage, it is quite simply what feels right;
what is natural for them. Female
masculinity reigns supreme in a femme world, however in terms of lesbian
society, adversity rules.
The
aversion to masculine identities in women snowballed from the radical feminist
movement of the 1960s into present society. Prejudice and stereotypes still exist in this day of gay
pride and lesbian visibility.
Leslie Feinberg’s character Max, in her fictional novel Drag King
Dreams, recalls her experience as a male
identified female searching for employment in post 9/11 society when she says:
“But I remembered
what it is like to be out of work and too queer to hire. I’ve worked here for such a long
time. I can comfortably use the
bathroom on the job. And if I got fired now, where is the movement in the
streets that will win my job back or find me another one?”(104)
Sadly, in present
day society, it is OK to be a lesbian as long as you fit the male imposed stereotype
of the “Lipstick Dyke.” Masculine
women continue to struggle through adversity both within general, heterosexual
society and lesbian societies.
As
cohorts to masculine females, the femme lesbian also becomes a threat to
feminist ideals. Often femme identified
women are criticized by their oppressively viewed identity. Many lesbian feminist see femme women
as condoning the repression of patriarchal society, as women who accept their
positions as lower class citizens by maintaining and seeking out gender
specified relationships. Judith Halberstam talks about the
aversion to Femme identified women in her book Female Masculinity as it pertains to lesbian identity and
community. Halberstam investigates
a particular article written by Victoria Brownworth called Butch/Femme,
Myth/Reality or More of the Same. Halberstam states “this article articulated
all too clearly the notion that lesbian role playing was a harmful form of
false consciousness that has nothing to do with pleasure or freedom of expression.”(131)
The distaste for femme identities is apparent through Halberstam’s translation
of the material and continues to be apparent in current lesbian society. There is a firm separation between
femme identified women and their feminist cohorts, thus creating an unstable
environment from which to allow a sense of community. Femme identified women are often as shunned as their butch
partners, and as alienated as other masculine identified women.
That
brings one to question: How do we as a lesbian society fix this problem of
unwarranted adversity? How do we
make female masculinity more visible and acceptable? It is well understood that progress within the heterosexual
society is something that could creep along at a turtle's pace, however, within
the confines of lesbian society it is imperative that those maintaining butch
and/or transgender identities, as well as those who stand in solidarity with
them, educate those with archaic opinions concerning the female
masculinities. Susan Ardill
and Sue O’Sullivan offer their opinion on butch acceptance in their article Butch/Femme
Obsessions, while researching the obsession
with butch femme identities they close their article with a call to action by
saying “The opening out of the complexities of our sexual, social and psychic
lives as lesbians should lead to opportunities for deeper understanding, not
new confining orthodoxies” (84)
With the help of butch positive online communities such as
Butch-Femme.com and fallengoddess.com the movement to make butch communities
more acceptable and accessible is gaining strength. In many communities local gay bars sponsor butch-femme
nights, celebrating the butch/femme dynamic, and occasional larger venues such
as the butch/femme ball in Las Vegas are used as an ice breaker for online
communities to celebrate in real time.
Bringing these communities and their events to visibility is becoming a
mandatory reality.
Female masculinity is not only accepted within these circles,
it is also celebrated by their allies. Acceptance within these social circles
is imperative to the butch psyche.
These communities are a superior source of positive psychosocial
interaction and offer the masculine female a chance to build positive romantic
and platonic relationships. They are
able to gain the support of other masculine identified females, therefore
forming positive support systems that would otherwise be lacking within lesbian
society. In her work Desire
Work, Perfomativity, and the Structuring of a Community: Butch/Fem Relations of
the 1940s and 1950s, Natasha Kraus talks
about the need for community and what one does in order to establish belonging
to said community in saying:
“Emotion management often requires conscious work to
restructure oneself at a deep level. This emotion management not only reshapes
the self, but actually shapes the experience as well. By replicating one's
identity through deep emotion work, an individual affects the very community
rules to which she is attempting to adhere; the need for deep emotion work
manifests instability of the community structure, while the process of
reforming one's identity replicates the community structure.” (34)
There is no time like the present to engage oneself in the
building of butch positive communities.
Even in our present day, the adversity against diversity within the
lesbian community is fierce.
Butch life in present day lesbian
society leaves much to be desired.
From feminist minded women and their attempts to “convert” the butch,
too pure ignorance of the butch presence, established lesbian communities are
far less supportive of their butch sisters than what one would have seen even
in the 1940s. Stone butch identities are seen as
something to be broken and conquered instead of embraced and accepted. While the gender fuckers and drag kings
are marginally accepted as they are seen as mostly performative, the stone
butch and transgender continue to encounter a large amount of difficulty. In many circumstances ignorance rears
its ugly head while the feminist plight fights to “change the minds” of
masculine females. Sadly, (as with
homosexuality within the hetero communities) female masculinity is seen as a
choice. And though this may be a
correct assumption within the drag king and gender fucker scene, this
assumption is quite the opposite with stone butches and transgender females.
Their masculine nature is as inborn as the color of their skin. What modern day post –feminist lesbians
fail to understand, is by maintaining ignorance and adversity against female
masculinity, they are essentially running the interest and plight of diversity
into the ground.
Building
a strong ground for visibility and gaining support from their butch peers is
the cornerstone of the butch movement. Masculine identified females have struggled through
decades to gain respect, acceptance, and dignity, while the feminist movement
and the post feminist aftershocks continue to tear away at their fight for
equality. Through all levels
of female masculinity the tension can be felt, and though their history is
strong, without butch-positive communities, their future will be weak. As a society within itself, female
masculinity must take initiative and educate those who maintain ignorance, and
show them the butch/trans/masculine female’s fight. Lesbian communities must open their minds as well as their
ears and listen to butch history and find their own histories within that. They must erase the apathy and embrace
sympathy. The GLBT community,
whether bisexual, stone butch, post-feminist lesbian, transgender, or any of
the available terms; they are all fighting for the same cause. Equality. Strength is in numbers, not in separatism.