_A reader wrote to me recently about my series on butch/butch relationships, complaining that the couples I featured were "androgynous" and "not really butch." This perplexed me. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to identify as "butch" is butch. I'm not in the business of policing identity--God knows there's enough identity-policing out there without adding my own picayune, self-serving biases to the mix.
And yet, sometimes my "free-to-be-you-and-me" approach feels too facile. As I said in a radio interview a few months ago, theoretically anyone can identify as anything. I mean, my grandmother could "identify" as a young black man, right? So at some point, can't self-identification strain reality? Should everyone be obligated to support and acknowledge a self-identification that we think is patently absurd? Or maybe there is there no such thing as absurd self-identification, if we believe identity is about defining one's self, not about subscribing to the labels other people mete out. When it comes to identity, "butch" is tough to pinpoint. I hear people talk about butch in at least three different main ways: being "butch on the inside," "acting butch," and "looking butch." I'll take each in turn. What does it mean to be butch "on the inside?" To be masculine? To have a "tough" attitude? To have the desire to act like a gentleman? If this is the case, then aren't a lot of cis men "butch?" But we don't usually think of typical straight guys as butch… so does "butch" mean to identify as female and have these characteristics? This makes an intuitive kind of sense, but excludes trans men and people who identify as genderqueer, which doesn't seem accurate, either. Hm. So how about "acting butch?" Does it mean acting "like a man?" Acting "masculine?" This seems roughly accurate at first. But doesn't defining butchness this way embrace cultural norms of how "men act" and "women act," implicitly accepting sexist ideas of men's and women's behavior? And even if we choose to define butchness this way (for, say, the sake of convenience or simplicity), do negative traits associated with cis men, like expressions of misogyny, count? It's also difficult to figure out how to balance certain behaviors against one another. My DGF is the one who kills the spiders and changes the lightbulbs. But she's also the one who vacuums. Do I average out all her behaviors, assigning positive and negative point values and summing them up: -2 for vacuuming; +3 for spiders? This seems absurd (and talk about reinforcing gender normative ideas--yuck). Appearance, perhaps, is the easiest of the three dimensions I introduced above, and is also the one that comes to mind most readily, probably because it is the one that differentiates us most from the other people in our surroundings on a day-to-day basis. If someone who identifies as a woman (or at least, not as a man) wears clothes, a haircut, etc., that most people associate with men, we might say that she "looks butch." Of course, this is separate from whether she identifies as butch. Not to mention, this still excludes trans men. Then again, if a trans man desires to be seen as a man, is he "butch?" And if he is, then why don't we think about cis men as being butches? Isn't categorizing the trans man differently from cis men disrespectful of his identity? And if he does identify, and is counted, as butch, are butch women "less butch" than the trans man, because they (may) appear less masculine? This is not a particularly comfortable idea, and may contribute to tension between trans men and butch women. Is appearance a necessary component of butchness? If someone identifies as female, has long hair, wears dresses and makeup every day, and feels comfortable with this self-presentation, can she call herself "butch" because she "feels butch?" Of course, she can... But as a woman who deals with flak for looking and dressing "like a guy," the idea of a gender-normative-looking woman calling herself "butch" makes me bristle. Arguably, it shouldn't. Arguably, it's none of my business to judge the accuracy of her identity. And yet, hypocritically, I would find it difficult to consider her butch. Despite these complications, I continue to not only to identify as butch, but to think of it as a useful term. It puts a name to some of the ways I deviate from mainstream gender norms in behavior, attitude, and appearance. Calling myself "butch" helps me own who I am. It offers a way to navigate my everyday life as a woman that other people perceive as masculine. It is a way of trying to understand, and trying to be understood. It says, "I am not flawed. I am just another, valid species of woman or gender or person of which you might not know. But I exist. And what's more, I am not alone. There are others like me." I experience an intangible flash of recognition and affinity when I encounter someone else I perceive to be butch. I look up to older butches, and I feel a maternal (paternal?) desire to help out the younger ones. I know that "butch" is hotly contested territory. And I know that there are good, smart, sociopolitical reasons for this contestation. But I guess that--occasional bouts of hypocrisy notwithstanding--the further I venture into butchhood, the less interested I become in defining it for anyone but myself.
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Nixon Sentry. Love it. _I've finally got the new Butch Store up! Right now, it's just denim and watches, but there's much more in the works. Now for a brief FAQ: Q: Why did you make a "Butch Store?" A: Because butch fashion can be hard! Not only do we have few fashion role models, but menswear doesn't always fit us well. I want a place where butches can immediately find stuff they love. Q: How do you figure out what to put in the Butch Store? A: I spend ridiculous amounts of time going through websites and finding things butches might like. (I aspire to be a butch Tim Gunn, so this isn't exactly a chore for me!) Think of me as your butch personal shopper. Q: If I shop at the store, does it support Butch Wonders? A: A little, yes! 5-6% of what you spend goes to help Butch Wonders exist. But this blog is nonprofit. If I broke even for my site costs and time, it would be a miracle (and a welcome one, since I quit a paid part-time job to, uh, write more stuff for you to read for free on the Interwebs). Anything beyond this, will be donated to LGBTQ organizations. I'll let you know if that ever happens, and will even let readers vote on which organization I donate to. Q: I have an idea for something you should offer! A: Awesome. Email me and tell me what it is. So there's the lowdown on the Butch Store, friends. I hope you'll check it out. If you have any other questions or feedback, please comment! _ As most readers have heard, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court's ruling on Prop 8. I know it's hard as hell to keep track of all the cases and ballot measures (let alone understand them), so I've written a step-by-step guide/timeline that you don't need a JD to understand. State and federal courts: the basic setup First, California state courts have three levels: 1. Superior court (lowest level, where trials happen) 2. State appellate courts (also called "district courts;" middle level) 3. California Supreme Court (highest level) Then we have the federal courts. Three levels there, too: 1. District courts (lowest level, where trials happen--not the same as #2 above, despite the name) 2. Federal appeals courts (also called "circuit courts," middle level) 3. U.S. Supreme Court The California Supreme Court interprets California laws, deciding whether those laws violate the state constitution or the US Constitution. When it comes to the California Constitution, the California Supreme Court gets the final say. But not so for the U.S. Constitution; the federal courts get to have the final say over that. So it's important to understand that there are two kinds of "constitutional" violations that people talk about--the state constitution and the federal constitution--and a different set of courts gets the final say over each one. Understanding all this will make it easier to follow my breakdown. Okay, here you go: California Gay Marriage Timeline 2000: California voters pass Prop. 22, which is a state law saying that "marriage" means one man and one woman. 2004: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issues same-sex marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite Prop. 22. Anti-gay groups file lawsuits in SF superior court (state trial court), saying that Newsom's actions were illegal and the marriage licenses are invalid. Newsom says that Prop. 22 is unconstitutional, and that it's not illegal to violate an unconstitutional law. 2005: The SF superior court says that Prop 22 is illegal. Outlawing gay marriage is gender discrimination. The anti-gays immediately appeal to the state appellate court. Before the state appellate court decides anything, the California legislature passes a bill saying same-sex marriages are allowed. But a few days later, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoes it, saying the court should decide. 2006: The state appellate court overturns the lower court's decision. It says that preventing gay marriage is not gender discrimination, that the state's interest in protecting the "traditional definition" of marriage is valid, and that the definition of marriage shouldn't be decided in court. Of course, the gay rights lawyers appeal (those activist gays!) to the California Supreme Court. 2007: The California legislature passes another bill allowing same-sex marriages. Schwarzenegger terminates this bill, too (HAHA, get it? 'Cause he's the TERMINATOR!? Ha… ha?). 2008: The California Supreme Court rules on the Prop 22 case, saying that marriage is a fundamental right, and that voters can't just sweep it away. After all, what if people voted to take away the freedom of speech? You can't just "vote away" a fundamental right. You have to actually amend the state or federal constitution. So… the anti-gay folks do exactly that, and propose an amendment to the state constitution. (California lets its state constitution be amended by popular vote.) This is what's known as Prop 8. It's different from Prop 22, because Prop 22 was just a law; it didn't change the state constitution. Prop 8 passes. The California constitution now says that "marriage" means one man and one woman. (Interestingly, this means that trans people who legally change their sex can get married, as long as it's to a person of the opposite sex. Hmm... a rare case of trans "privilege!") 2009: Gay rights lawyers file a suit in federal district court (the lowest level of federal court) saying that the California constitution now violates the US Constitution. (See, states can say basically anything in their constitutions, as long as it doesn't violate the US Constitution.) So that's how a state decision got into federal court. 2010: There's a trial in federal district court. The judge (Vaughn Walker) rules that the state has no "rational basis" for denying a right (marriage) to a particular group (gays). Even though sexual orientation doesn't get special constitutional protection under the law like race and gender does, you can't single people out for no good reason and deny them a right. Anti-gay groups appeal to the Ninth Circuit (the federal appeals court), saying that Judge Walker got it wrong, and that there are good reasons for denying marriage to gays. They also say that since Walker is gay himself, he was too biased to hear the case. 2012: Today's decision: the Ninth Circuit upholds the ruling. They say that Judge Walker was fine to stay on the case (duh). The big question is whether there was a rational reason to take away a right from a specific group of people. The decision goes through all the supposed reasons for Prop 8 and says, come ON--banning gays from getting married doesn't promote ANY of these goals. The only goal it DOES promote is harming a particular group, and that's not a legitimate/rational reason for a law. Next, the anti-gays will undoubtedly appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which may or may not take the case. In a future post, I might talk a little more about this. But for now, let's all bask in the happy afterglow of the Ninth Circuit's decision! This weekend, my brother (who is straight but metro, and can wear pleated pants with uncommon flourish) announced to me that one of his cats has come out of the closet. My brother sent me the rainbow-infused picture at left (the gay one's perched on the dresser). I was proud of the cat, and would like to think that as its aunt, I played a role in its conversio --er -- realization. My brother and me then brainstormed other ways to identify LGBT pets: Top Signs that Your Pet Might Be Queer
Special thanks to my hilarious brother for coming up with about half of this list! Do any of you have gay pets? How do you know? Do you feel like your own queerness helped or hindered their realization process? Yeah, I usually fight in heels. You? _I've been reading Derek Burrill's interesting book, Die Tryin': Videogames, Masculinity, Culture. And though I'm not finished yet, it's making me think more about gender performance and pop culture. One of Burrill's central arguments is that video games act as a fantasy arena of what he calls "digital boyhood." In order to succeed in the world of most video games, after all, a player has to beat up bad guys (often using creative weaponry and/or pre-programmed fighting skills), save women, etc. Video games are a space where boys are digitally sequestered off--in a space free from women, familial duties, and political commitments like feminism or equality, Burrill says. In playing video games, boys (and men) are often acting over and over to prove their masculinity in this weird, oddly pure, digital arena. My point in bringing up Burrill isn't to say that video games are inherently evil, nor that the men and boys who play them are anti-feminist. Rather, video games strike me as one more setting in which masculinity is established as the baseline--the default--the backdrop against which other things are measured. Masculinity (that is, mainstream heterosexual male masculinity) is the norm, which makes anything a "deviation." (I think back to my own video-game-playing days, which centered around Super Nintendo. Even in the (very few) games that offered an option of a female main character, these main characters were usually overly feminized, often princesses, and even more often scantily clad. Check out this great blog post about the female characters in Mortal Kombat (one of whom is pictured left). Makers of video games would probably argue that male characters sell. I'm sure movie producers and even authors of kids' books would say the same. Girls will watch movies with a male main character, but boys won't watch movies with a female main character. It's hard to imagine Harry Potter being as successful if she had been Harriet Potter. Why? Because boys wouldn't have watched it. As a kid, I remember wanting to be a boy. Not because I "felt" like a boy or wanted to kiss girls, but because it seemed like boys got to do all the cool, important stuff in the world, and I wanted to do cool, important stuff. Masculinity (by which, again, I mean mainstream hegemonic masculinity) is the "default" or backdrop in hundreds of different realms. Another example is school mascots. Why are the men's teams "Bulldogs" or "Bobcats" but the women's teams are the "Lady Bulldogs" or "Lady Bobcats?" Why not have the women be the "Bobcats" and the men be the "Gentlemen Bobcats?" Have you ever heard of that happening? It's hard to imagine. I don't know how to fix this. Maybe if little boys saw their fathers reading books with female main characters half of the time, or saw their big brothers play video games in which the main character was female, then this might all start to change. But it would either take a big shift on businesses' part (and what video game company is going to compromise their bottom line by being first to that party?), or on the part of people from whom little boys take their cues: parents, friends, older siblings. As it is, very early on in life, boys and girls learn that masculinity is a backdrop against which other things are measured. Eventually, this privilege comes to be taken for granted and seen as "natural." I suspect that this phenomenon has far-reaching consequences, and can't help but contribute to inequalities like the gender-wage gap and the fact that in virtually every industry, and in politics, at the highest levels of these arenas, men far outnumber women. What do you think? |
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