advice, butch, everyone is gay, finding community, identity, intersectionality, kristin russo, lgbt, lgbt advice, what do i call myself
“I feel a connection to the term butch, but it has a lot of history and specific significance for a lot of people and I’m not sure how well I fit the mold, so I’m hesitant to use it. I know I can identify however I want, but are there many people who identify as butch who aren’t stone and don’t bind?”
-Question submitted by Anonymous
Dannielle Says:
I think you can and I think it’s amazing that you know enough to be hesitant. A lot of people adopt terms and don’t know what they mean or the history and just tout around like they own the thing. You are in a fucking dope position.
It’s really cool that you’re unsure because you have the opportunity to understand the term even more and then figure out exactly why you’re so connected to it.
I feel like what you’re really getting at here is, “I identify with this term, but if people question me and tell me I’m an asshole for using it, I won’t know what to say.” SO HERE IS WHAT I SUGGEST.
Learn.
Learn a lot. Figure out where the term comes from and what it means to the people who originated that term. Learn why and how it has changed over the decades and find pieces of yourself all along the way. You don’t have to be the one perfect example of that term, but you do have to respect the term and know how to talk about it. So that when someone says, “whoa i thought butch was THIS SPECIFIC THINGY,” you have the ability to say “yea!! that is a huge part of why i feel connected to the movement, I’m shedding these blahblah standards, I don’t agree with the way society does yadda, etcetc” – BUT FILL IT IN WITH YOUR REAL FEELINGS.
LEARNING SOLVES SO MANY PROBLEMS.
