This post was submitted by Amelie

Ever since my junior year of college, when I developed an independent study, I’ve been more aware of the plight of butch-identified women in the United States. I was lucky enough to be able to work with a professor with extensive knowledge of butch/femme relationships in the 1940s and 1950s. When I started the course and through my first set of readings, I couldn’t help but see butch-identified women as trying to achieve heteronormativity. On deeper inspection, I realized this was not the case. And now, hopefully, that realization will come to a wider range of people.

Last week NPR’s Tell Me More did a piece on the first-ever Butch Voices conference, which took place August 20th through August 23rd in Oakland, CA. The segment was hosted by Jennifer Ludden and featured Joe LeBlanc, the founder of Butch Voices, and Krys Freeman, the conference’s logistics coordinator, and explored numerous aspects of the Butch Voices convention.

The goal of the Butch Voices conference was to give woman-identified butches – whether Butch, Trans, Stud or Aggressive, or she, he, ze, hy, zie or hir – a space to come together and have a voice. It was an opportunity for them to define who they are, explore the issues that plague their community and have open discussions about being butch and the butch experience.

This year’s conference boasted a wide variety of speakers and workshops. Noted filmmakers Cheryl Dunye and Kimberly Peirce both participated; workshop topics ranged from “Classic or Classy? Dealing with Classed Stereotypes in Butch/Femme Communities” to “Taking it On: Dealing with Our Internalized Misogyny.” There was even a workshop about reviving chivalry, only with feminism built in.

Butch culture is grossly underrepresented in popular culture, and when it is shown, it’s often mocked or reduced to stereotypes of masculine dykes that like leather, construction and cat calling femmes. And while certainly many that identify as butch can be interested in leather and construction, as LeBlanc points out to Ludden, “there’s butches who enjoy cooking, who enjoy sewing.” LeBlanc further states that being butch isn’t just about the clothing or the hairstyle, it’s something much deeper, and that one of the reason butch identity is often seen as one-dimensional is because it does have such strong visual connotations.

When some of the only representations of queer women on television come via The L Word or shows like Gimme Sugar, portrayals of women-identified butches cannot accurately display the range of butch identities, or in the case of The L Word, allow them the complexity that they deserve. Because of this, conventions like Butch Voices are incredibly important.

Woman-identified butches and the wider butch culture have played a crucial role in the development of the wider GLBT diaspora. Hopefully, even though butches can often be pushed to the borderlands and stereotyped in popular culture and in lesbian culture, events like Butch Voices can begin to widen the dialogue surrounding butch identities and culture, breaking down stereotypes and allowing more truth to come through.

For more information, visit www.butchvoices.com.

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