Butch Voices 09 and the woman identified butch

August 29, 2009 at 9:58am · I had been wanting to write about the butch voices conferences but I couldn’t figure out what to say.. In the beginning, when I heard about it I wanted to be a part of it to volunteer, to push the event forward. Then the website came along and I read everything I could about it and I worried that the actual conference may not reflect me at all…Maybe this was just for trans and genderqueer butches. At 36 yrs old, I despaired that I was a dying breed and no one would even be talking about women identified butches. As the event came closer, I made a decision to go and see for myself. I needed to know if there was anyone out there like me left in the world. So with a knot in my throat and a racing heart, I entered the Bulldagger workshop led by Sasha T. Goldberg. I got there early so there were only about 5 of us and my heart sank..maybe it was true, these were the end days for my subset of butch. Then an amazing thing happened, women kept coming in! white women, black women, asian and southeast asian…old women, and young. I wasn’t alone and every introduction brought me to the brink of tears, every time someone said they felt alone I felt it in my heart too. Being in that room with those women changed my life. No longer will I ever feel the bitterness of becoming extinct and irrelevant. I’m still alive and they are alive and we are all a tribe moving together on our journey. Now I can be a bigger person and be more expansive toward my trans and genderqueer brothers, because I don’t have to disappear from this community. I want to thank everyone who helped to make this conference happen from the bottom of my heart.

A Gender Moment - 3/1/11

A Gender Moment


This morning, I worked out and then went to my new building to take a shower. When I got in there I realized it was like a woman's locker room at the gym, with the shower stalls and the open space to change clothes. I panicked. What if a woman came in while I was getting dressed and saw me putting on my fruit of a loom tighty whities?? My heart started racing and I considered not taking a shower…only I was really sweaty. After taking a few deep breathes, I reasoned that if someone walked in, it might be uncomfortable for a minute but we'd all get over it. I mean, what's going to happen? She gonna revoke my woman card? Go tell my mama I'm wearing the wrong underwear? I'm grown..it's ok…So armed with this self talk I took the shower and got started with my day…



But here again is the nature of the gender fear that I think some butches face…I love women and they terrify me…even though I see myself as a women( a different type, but a woman none the less)

My Father's Face - 10/7/09

My Father's Face


When I was small I remember my father coming into my room and standing over me. It was almost like a waking dream. I wasn't scared cause my daddy was the biggest strongest man on the planet. I was safe. As an young adult I have remembered that dream and wondered why he did stand in my room looking at me...It wasn't until 911, that I walked into my lil toddler niece's room and looked at her in her baby bed sleeping soundly….Then I understood.

We stand because we have to…

We stand because there is something to protect, and something that can be lost. We stand through our own fear and even when we really wish we could sit down…

Now as an even older adult, In this time of great turmoil in my life, I long for the waking dream so that i can see my father standing there again, in all his strength and glory, for me

I am not here - 2/11/09

I am not here

Will I go on?
Will the world end without a Reed of grass standing tall?
I worry about these things..
almost as much as the length of my hair.

So much on my plate..black..woman..lesbian..butch.
Boiled down to nothing.
Looking for what's underneath..

Have you seen me with your eyes?
Felt me with your hands?
Heard me with your ears?
Do you know about my deconstructed soul?

Did you know
my blackness contains light?
My womanhood is precious
My love is safe inside women
My femaleness lives in peace with my maleness


My soul..is not black.or woman. or lesbian. Or butch
I think..
I think..
I think..
I'm just me.

I Sing the Body Electric

I used to be ashamed of this body
I used to be angry with this body
I used to hold my head down in this body
I used to apologize in this body
I used to NOT want to be in this body...

But then..

I discovered the strength of this body
I discovered the look of this body
I discovered the courage of this body
I discovered the heart of this body
I discovered the vulnerabilty of this body
I discovered the sensuality of this body
I discovered the oneness of this body

Now i sing the praises of this body..this body that has and still teaches me everyday about being butch..

Send Her My Love

I send her my love..all the way down the line. I send her my love through this pen on this paper and through this keyboard on this computer. I dream of her eyes a full blue that turn into mere rings around darkness when she looks at me, dilating fully to take all of me into her. I enter her swimming into her soul and I whisper to her that she has a home inside me too, built at the dawn of time, when we were but children pretending to be adults. I have ached with our parting and I have lived with the terrible pain of that separation all these years, for we both were wounded then.

As an adult i struggle with the complexities of life, but I long for the garden of Eden that was once ours. As I send her my love, I wonder if she sends hers to me too..

Butch Like Me

Growing up into my butch ness, I have always felt that being butch was one of the most subversive things one could be. Think about, a masculine looking woman-that is a woman loving other women. The world flips out when faced with that quiet statement. Here is a woman that will not transition, will not be male, and will not be misread, so you (world) can soothe yourself. Deal with it.


This is my testimony and I need someone to hear it. I am not trying to slam anyone else. I am merely a lost soul looking for my tribe, my people, my clan. I don’t know where to find them because the butch seems to be in decline.

I am not genderqueer, trans, or ftm, but I have friends that identify in all those ways and I love them but my pool of people that experience the world as I do is growing small.

I am often alone and confused. This is a brave new world. It’s very brave and very new. The simple description of Butch is now a large umbrella that may not actually include me…I feel adrift, lost because it seems I am merely a throwback in comparison to all there is out there today, for I am just a woman identified butch, and there may not be as many of me as there once was.

From the moment I wake up in the morning to the second I fall asleep and all the minutes in between, I walk on this planet, in this world, and in every space as a woman that is masculine in appearance. Every day finds me having to fight for the right to be a woman in this masculine looking body. My womanhood is disrespected and slowly encroached upon in small ways like being called sir or addressed with male pronouns, being challenged in the women’s bathrooms, and being asked if I’m going to take “T”, and the list goes on. How can I survive these changes and this new environment? Are there others of you out there like me? Am I the last feminist butch woman standing? If so, I’ll turn the lights out when I leave.