Butch (slang)
A butch is a lesbian who exhibits a masculine identity or gender presentation. Although the term originated in the lesbian community, it is also used by persons who identify as queer in the larger LGBTQIA+ community today.
Since the lesbian subculture of 1940s America, "butch" has been present as a way for lesbians to circumvent traditional gender roles of women in society and distinguish their masculine attributes and characteristics from feminine women. Butch is often understood as the counterpart to femme, with the two forming butch–femme dynamics, although butch-butch relationships are common as well.
History
Starting in the 1940s and 1950s, butch became a central identity in the lesbian community. It was often understood in conjunction with femme identity, and butch–femme relations have been studied at great length. As a result, butch identity on its own remains somewhat ill-defined. Butch people are often described as sexually dominant lesbians who are interested in having sex with femmes. The Queen's Vernacular claimed a butch was "a lesbian with masculine characteristics." In Of Catamites and Kings, Gayle Rubin describes a butch as those lesbians who use masculine mannerisms, and/or who wear traditionally male clothing, and/or who experience gender dysphoria. The defining characteristic that most scholars agree on is that butch people are lesbians who are to some degree aligned with masculine traits.In the US during the mid 20th century, butch people were usually limited to a few jobs, such as factory work and cab driving, that had no dress codes for women. During the 1950s, with the anti-gay politics of the McCarthy era and the Lavender Scare, homophobic violence was common, especially through raids on gay and lesbian bars. Although femmes also fought back, it became primarily the role of butches to defend against attacks and hold the bars as gay women's space. The prevailing butch image was severe but gentle, while it became increasingly tough and aggressive as violent confrontation became a fact of life. Black lesbians, especially vulnerable to police brutality and racial segregation, often socialised in private parties instead of bars, and often dressed formally, compared to the typical working-class attire of T-shirts and jeans that white butches adopted. Leslie Feinberg's novel Stone Butch Blues is a predominant piece of butch literature, and offers a window into butch bar culture, police brutality towards transvestites, and butch eroticism in the 1970s.