What is a butch lesbian?

Perahps this thread will shed some light on it.

I would say it was the partner who most exhibited what are considered masculine traits, styes or idiosycracies.

@dxs – not really. Lots and lots of heat, but precious little light.

@elbanditoroso Read the description, then look at many of the comments.
http://www.fluther.com/165954/butch-lesbians-can-i-ask-this/#quip2837457
http://www.fluther.com/165954/butch-lesbians-can-i-ask-this/#quip2837515
http://www.fluther.com/165954/butch-lesbians-can-i-ask-this/#quip2837592

Still don’t understand? Maybe urbandictionary can explain it to you. I find the term severely politically incorrect as do many other people I’d presume, so there may not be a formal definition for it.

Probably the bad way of referring to a masculine lesbian, and probably the most (sorry having trouble finding the word) would be old term Bull-Dyke
My father used to use that epithet sometimes. Sorry if I offend anyone with the use of that reference.

Here in San Francisco, the term may only be used as a self description or as a description from women within the Lesbian community. It generally means a woman who is more muscular, wears her hair very short, and wears clothes most appropriate for work in the building trades.

Gay men may describe certain men as butch, a descriptor used by more effeminate gay men to describe men that are into more rough dominant sex.

It’s the woman who assumes a dominate male (masculine) role.

I’m surprised you’ve never heard that term before. “Butch” is pretty common. Seems kind of self-explanatory, but it describes someone (not just a lesbian) that has more masculine traits, behaviors, styles, self-perception, etc. than feminine. If we’re just talking lesbians, the other side of the coin would be a “femme lesbian,” which is a lesbian with more feminine traits than masculine.

Butch
Femme

I’d say that most lesbians fall somewhere in between rather than being one or the other. That’s just my experience, though.

A “butch lesbian” is often a “lipstick lesbian’s” partner.

Martina Navratilova?

@kritiper Not necessarily.

I Googled the name and this photo of Leslie Feinberg and her proud claim make it more than obviously clear to me.

Yup. I Dogpiled it and got several similar results, @jaytkay.

Boo from Orange is the New Black.

@elbanditoroso

I don’t think that Leslie Feinberg looks like a typical butch lesbian. She is much more representative of the way that a F2M transexual appears.

I would be the last person to deny anyone the right to self define in whatever way they feel best represents them, but with the vast majority of butch lesbians, in spite of whatever “male” looks they display, there is little doubt that they are, in fact, women.

I would cite someone like Lea Delaria as being far more typical of how a butch lesbian appears. As butchy as she is, there is no question that she is a woman.

Leslie Feinberg, on the other hand, doesn’t look like any butch lesbian I’ve ever met and I have a fair amount of them as friends or acquaintances.

Because she is not ONLY a butch lesbian, as SHE HERSELF has said. She said that the way she defines herself is dependent upon the context. And in a transgender context, she prefers not to be labeled as either gender.

And let’s not forget that gender identity and sexual orientation are really two separate issues.

Any transgender person can be described as either gay or straight mainly dependent upon how their gender expression matches up with the gender to whom they are romantically and sexually attracted.

That tends to make the entire thing to appear more complex than it actually is. People fall in love with whom they love. It’s society which has this overwhelming need to categorize it.

This simple fact, that gender and sexual orientation are two separate issues, tends to cause confusion primarily because society imposes a gay/straight dichotomy upon people defining themselves rather than simply allowing people to love the people to whom they are attracted.

Anyhow, IMHO Leslie Feinberg just does not look like the majority of butch lesbians. Her appearance is far more typical of a transitioned F2M transexual.

I think the common sense test would be: if you pased someone looking like this on the street (without any interaction) would you assume that you had passed a man or a woman.

For Leslie Feinberg the answer would undoubtedly be a man.

For Lea Delaria the answer would be a woman (most likely a butch lesbian woman.)

Hopefully that clarifies things a bit.

I think the term has been described sufficiently to answer the question. I really don’t understand why we need to put such delimiters on people. In this case, hir activism makes it understandable, but in other cases describing a lesbian as butch or otherwise seems irrelevant to me.

@syz I checked my Merriam-Webster’s 11th ed. and it agreed with me. To each his or her own, otherwise.

This gal looks pretty butch if you ask me!

A mannish lesbian. The term is sometimes associated with the partner who assumes the active or dominant role in a lesbian relationship.
Synonyms: boy dyke; boon dagger; boonch; bootch; bull; bull bitch; bull-dagger; bull-dike®; bull-dogger; bumper; butch; butch dagger; butz; diesel dyke; dike; dyke; top-sergeant.
See also: baby butch; baby dyke; boy dyke; buildiking; camper; dinky dyke; gaychick; molly dyke; semi-diesel; soft butch; stone butch; stone femme.

Personal favorite: Deisel dyke.

@Earthbound_Misfit

FWIW I agree with you completely but that’s the way our society currently is.

The entire gay/straight continuum is rigorously imposed by our current society regardless of whether a person states that they don’t want to be “a label” or not.

As far as I’m concerned, a person loves whom they love pretty much regardless of whether they’re gay, straight, transgenderor whatever. The label is really only important to the rest of society.

I have seen documentaries and interviews with couples who’ve been married for 20 years or more where that man has gone through a transition to become a woman.

A lot of the wives opt to divorce but there are some who choose to stay with their mate because they love them regardless of the gender change.

And then invariably one of the interviewers then asks the wife (whose spouse, formerly male is now also a woman) “Well, now that you’ve chosen to stay in the marriage, does that mean you consider yourself a Lesbian?” and invariably the answer to that inane question is a firm “No, of course not.”

But that’s how society wants to label her. But she’s the exact same person she has been for the past 20 years. She is not the one who changed. Her spouse was. So, how does that automatically make her a Lesbian (as if someone waved a magic wand over her, completely regardless of her own will.)

But that’s what society will automatically insist upon even tho it makes no logical sense to her.

Yeah, labels can certainly get ridiculous, can’t they ?

In my mind butch is usually more blue collar looking. Short hair, maybe a flannel shirt or camoflage clothing, they typically are overweight. If she self idenitifes as butch, then she is in my book, whether she fits my stereotype or not. Men can be unmistakenly men and not be butch.

@jaytkay That photo of her doesn’t look butch to me at all, it looks more like cross dressing. Although, since women have in the past worn masculine suits with ties as a fashion statement, some people might not even go as far as calling it cross dressing. Although, like I said, if she self idenfies as butch then I’m not really here to argue it. I guess she is butch relative to being a lipstick lesbian.

@kritiper Ok, I’ll be sure to let my butch friends (and partner) know. They’ll be interested to know they’ve been butch for all the wrong reasons.

@JLeslie

Did you read her own statements about that in the obit in the link?

The reason I ask is because she makes it clear that she regards herself as NOT ONLY a butch lesbian but transgender as well and how she describes herself is very much dependent upon CONTEXT.

Our current society is so focused upon labels that any bit of nuance gets lost in the confusion.

Leslie Feinberg was not someone who easily fit into just one category and one only, regardless of whether or not it makes peoples head explode trying to do so.

And “cross-dresser” is not accurate at all because transgender folks consider their manner of dress to coincide more accurately with their inner gender identity.

THAT is not cross-dressing. Drag performers are cross-dressers. Transsexuals are dressing according to their identify. For them there is no “cross” about.

(at least that’s how it was explained to me by some of my transsexual friends who are irked by being lumped in with cross-dressers. Whether they’re speaking for all transsexuals everywhere , I can’t really say. But I do know that trans people are not fond of the term, that’s all.)

@Buttonstc I was only remarking how the photo looks to me. I agree transsexual would have been a more appropriate term.

I do care that I use the term the individual themselves identify with. My assumptions or mistakes at first glance are not out of disrespect. Actually, on the contrary, since it doesn’t matter to me if someone is a man, woman, gay, straight, cross dresser, transgender, transsexual, bisexual, asexual, or even a polygamist I am not personally overly concerned with knowing what someone is in the realm if dressing and sexuality. If I like you I like regardless.

@Buttonstc Leslie Feinberg actually did identify as a transman for many years, and had appropriate hormone therapy and (I believe) at least some surgery). It actually took me by surprise to discover that she had effectively “detransitioned” later in life and was living as female again. But anyway, that’s why her appearance was more typical of a transman than of an average butch lesbian.

@downtide

Thanks for the additional info and it makes sense regarding her image as presented in that photo.

That’s so interesting. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “detransitioning” :)

But human sexuality is a highly complex subject. And, come to think of it, I have read reports of M2F transexuals who had bypassed the strict protocols requiring a year of therapy plus living as a female for a trial prior to any surgery being done.

They found someone willing to bypass all that and just do the surgery only to find themselves years later miserably unhappy and seeking to have the surgery reversed.

But these are a few isolated cases compared to the large number of trans people who are happy and well adjusted post-surgery.

@kritiper “I checked my Merriam-Webster’s 11th ed. and it agreed with me. To each his or her own, otherwise.”

Because, of course, Merriam-Webster’s is the ultimate authority on gender/sexuality issues.