Butch transfemmes: how is your butchness similar _and_ different to that of our non-transfemme butch siblings?

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she/they

I’m a butch transbian. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my butch identity, and how my experiences with butchness overlaps and maybe differs in some areas to my non-transfemme butch siblings. For example:

  • We’ve likely grown up with very different bodies and genitals, and that has impacted our relationship to our butchness
  • Our struggle with presenting butch in a way that doesn’t get us misgendered or give us dysphoria
  • Dealing with the pressure from outside transfemme circles and inside to present more feminine
  • Feeling like a fraud in lesbian spaces, because I feel like I’m dressing like a “man”, despite knowing that butch identity is a whole separate thing.
  • Fearing exclusion from cis lesbians, what if they think im a cis dude creeping around?
  • The lack of representation for butchness in transfemmininty
  • How do other butch transfemmes feel about femminine clothing?
  • How do we feel about compliments? Beautiful vs handsome?
  • Feeling tension between wanting to present more feminine in some ways to “escape” the masculinity I was imprisoned by growing up.

I would love to hear about any thoughts and experiences you’ve got.

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She/Her

I don’t know whether I’m butch or not, because I don’t really try for a butch look. What I do know is that I don’t really “get” femininity and masculinity. I can perform either or both, but they both feel like I’m acting, rather than expressing something from within myself.

I don’t have pierced ears, I don’t wear makeup, I don’t do my nails, I don’t do skin care etc, and I’m just as likely to be found in jeans and a tshirt as I am in a dress. With clothes, my goals are as few layers as I can get away with, and as easy and comfortable as possible.

I know I’ve sometimes felt like the odd one out, because I don’t really connect with femininity, but on the other hand, I’ve been in the community long enough to realise that every one of us has an something that doesn’t fit the narrative, and we nearly all struggled with feel disconnected because of it. These days, I still scratch my head and wonder what I’m missing, but I don’t feel disconnected or othered because of it. I’ve been in the community long enough to know that it’s my community, and to feel it in my bones.

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It kinda feels lonely as a butch transbian. Most transfemmes go cute/floral/alternative. I love wearing my cargo shorts and pants. Tank tops that show of my impressive delts and biceps muscles. But I switch it up with dresses and skirts sometimes. Half half or full femme because I still got that need for it.

I am so grateful for the boob job that health insurance paid for. It gave me the confidence to do most of that.

I am rarely in spaces where cis lesbians are, never really interact with them. I feel a bit alien around them. I grew up very differently than them. Noone forced feminity onto me as a child.

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5

I love skirts, and camisoles, and anything and everything pink. But, I also love looking androgynous/masc-ish.

External factors like passing* do suck, but I think that’ll get better with time, and so will my dysphoria (grow faster, breasts!)

I really love femme clothing, and I greatly enjoy wearing it. If that excludes me from being a butch, so be it: I don’t really care that much.

As for compliments, I like being called a pretty girl :3 I’ve also experimented with being called handsome, or being referred to as a boy. It doesn’t feel bad like it did earlier on. Maybe I’ll be a butch someday.

* I know, I know, it’s stupid. Please inform me of an alternative to the term, if you have one.

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4

After rereading this: huh, maybe I’m enby or something.

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5

I dunno, I’m looking at my friend who tries to look like a dominant femboy (expressing some kind of male gender while wearing a skirt, thigh-high boots, chains, and a crop top) and I don’t think he qualifies as butch but does succeed in maintaining that masculine gender while looking like a femboy. Being butch is a totally different vibe from expressing the right amount of masculinity to pass as a femboy and probably not a trans woman.

Gender is so confusing?!!!

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