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.