#2: Butch Stereotypes, Cliches, and Misconceptions | Butch Lab

Symposium #2: Butch Stereotypes, Cliches, and Misconceptions | Butch Lab.

Where to even begin? Well, first, I suppose to detail the most recent prompt:

What do people think “butch” means? What are the stereotypes around being butch? What do people assume is true about you [or about your masculine of center friends], but actually isn’t? What image or concept do you constantly have to correct or fight against? How do you feel about these misconceptions? How do you deal with them? Do you respond to these stereotypes or cliches? How?

That’s a lot of questions, and a whole lot of touchiness underneath ‘em, if you ask me.

There are so many stereotypes, cliches, and misconceptions about us all that it’s a little difficult for me to filter through those to the ones that only apply to “butch.” What’s always interested me, from a bizarrely anthropological perspective, is that the lesbian communities I’ve moved around in almost seem to have a bigger problem with butch than do the hetero folks.

See, butch might represent the heteros’ worst nightmares, but it’s also what they expect. The “woman who wants to look like a man, be a man” makes sense to them. Those stereotypes are pretty basic, as such things go.

Out here in the gays, though, it’s a whole different ball game. I’ve heard a range of cliches, misconceptions, and flat-out assumptions that would make your hair curl.

Butches are sexist, chauvinistic, misogynistic. They’re all blue collar. Butch and stone are the same thing. Butch is the queer equivalent of a “strong, silent type.”  Butches are only attracted to femmes and straight women.

And that doesn’t begin to touch the assumptions that accompany a high femme presentation like mine… but this is about my guys, not about me.

It’s almost like the image of butch, even (and maybe especially) among gay and queer society is some kind of adaptation of the Marlboro Man, crossed with Rooster Cogburn. The ideal butch is apparently so like a man that they pass regularly and like it that way.

Um. Guys? That’s a transman. Just for the record.

I’ve written a zillion blog posts about how these stereotypes annoy, irritate, and generally piss me off. Usually, in response, I have a word or two for the perpetrator. But in my overall daily life, I can’t say that I engage the cliches and misconceptions in any concrete fashion. I love who I love, and don’t pay much attention to the ripple effects.

I haven’t remained friends with anyone who had a pervasive problem with my attraction to butches and transguys. The people with whom I strike up new friendships now don’t know me in any other context than married to a transguy. I think the biggest issue that I’ve encountered with other people is their surprise to hear that Rhett and I have some very nontraditional roles and responsibilities within our relationship.

Even the people who have no problem with us as we currently present (Rhett being pre-op and pre-T, butch-femme) are surprised to find out what a fantastic cook Rhett is. There’s usually a little bit of a raised eyebrow when they find out that he’s the one who has the big, squishy soft heart when it comes to animals. I’ve had countless people ask me how we handle the career aspects of our relationship, and if Rhett has a problem with me having a greater earning potential than he does.

Those are the kinds of questions that straight women who work outside the home get, too. So I guess you could say that most of the misconceptions that I do take the time to correct, when I come across them, have more to do with distinguishing “butch” from “biologically male” than with anything else. Because men who were born male and socialized that way don’t tend to cook dinner for their families without prompting. They don’t have that nurturing instinct fostered in them the way guys born female do.

I’ve written elsewhere, too, about how I think butch chivalry is the masculine expression of female socialization. To be the caregiver is traditionally a feminine role – but most of the butches I’ve met are the most protective, generous, and affectionate of people. It just shows up differently for them than it does for me.

I really do believe that most of the cliches and misconceptions about butch have stemmed from the feminist and post-feminist movements. I hate to say that, hate to throw my womyn-loving-womyn girlfriends to the wolves, but it’s true. The fight against male privilege was so brutal that, at some point, everything remotely associated with masculinity got painted with a very black brush.

It’s painful to watch a marginalized minority continue to marginalize within their own ranks, but it happens every day. Gays and queers are no better. We have our own caste system, and stepping outside that to be who we are and to love who we want is a daily choice to take the rough road over the smooth.

I guess there are things I do to directly address and combat these stereotypes. I write here (although usually, that’s kind of preaching to the choir). I write in a more “mainstream” gay venue, Card Carrying Lesbian. I educate my friends and family gently when necessary, and less gently when needed.

And I walk out the door every day with my husband, holding hands, in an act of silent activism. He’s mine, and I love him, and it shows.

Looking for more? Check out the joint blog, filled with gushy marital ad nauseum, at This Side of the High Speed Rodeo. You can also find me sounding off as a Guest Lesbian, at Card Carrying Lesbian, on my adventures as a transwife in an oh-so-straight world.