I think I have a number of butch followers who would disagree on the nature of seeing themselves
OH ANON. You’ve really hit a button for me, there’s SO MUCH I want to say, but I’m on mobile so I’m gonna take a short cut and just say that there was literally a song about the importance of butches seeing themselves performed at last year’s Tony Awards. SEEING OURSELVES MEANS A LOT.
Okay, I’m doing this. Like, I obviously can’t speak for all butches, but working in retail in nyc, I see quite a few. And there is almost always a moment where I see joyous recognition on their faces when they see me and realize we’re the same. AND I AM JUST A RANDO IN A BOOKSTORE, NOT A CHARACTER WHO DOES AWESOME THINGS. JUST IMAGINE.
And as far as me personally, I take every scrap of representation I can get because there’s SO MANY THINGS telling me being this way is wrong. People either pressure me to be more feminine or they pressure me to be something other than a woman. The few butch characters I have showed me that I can be this way, and they give me something I can hold onto in this tide of bullshit. I mean, I’ve said before I wouldn’t have figured out how to be myself without Haruka Tennoh, and it’s absolutely true. She resonated with teenage me SO MUCH, and it still took me years to finally dress the way that makes me feel good and comfortable. If I had seen myself on regular television, or in books I read, or in movies, I probably would have figured things out so much sooner. And now, even being sure of myself, I wish I had more well known characters to point to when people question me, ask me why I don’t wear big earrings or get breast implants (yes, real thing a woman said to me) so they could tell more easily I’m a woman, or ask how I can think I’m a woman when I dress like this, aren’t I non binary, or a man?I wish I had more loved butch characters to think of whenever I hear a girl say there’s no point in liking butches, because what’s the point in liking a girl who doesn’t look like a girl. I WISH SO MUCH ANON.
ALSO. I get the implication from the “butches like watching femmes” bit that you mean we care about seeing people we’re attracted to than ourselves, which, fuck off with that bullshit. Not to mention butches can also like butches. We’re people, believe it or not, there’s some variance among us.pls read this
I am so fucking angry that irl shit happened while this was going on.
I am even more fucking angry now that I can actually see this.
“You are not worth the effort and even if you were, I’m just gonna go ahead and assume that you like the same thing the lesbians who I see as a polar opposite to you enjoy. Or the thing I assume they enjoy.”
This is the shit playing out in front of my eyeballs. That’s great, yes, why I am fine. I mean, it’s not like I deal with what amounts to “you are wrong and therefore should not exist, so I’m just going to pretend you don’t” all day, every day, ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
Jesus fuck. Thank you ever so much. I’m going to punch a wall, tape my bruised knuckles, and write a proper reply when I calm down.
Wall punched. Knuckles bleeding. Dressing applied. I’m a bit calmer now.
“It’s not very surprising that butches aren’t seen widely.”
No, it’s really not. I mean, we have lesbians dying on screen every other week. Also, most things that include lesbians are not marketed at lesbians, they’re marketed at straight men, and apparently straight men don’t find lean women in flannel shirts, feeding their pets with a shit-eating grin, attractive. Or the people marketing lesbians at straight men don’t think these would be considered attractive. I’ve never been a straight man, or a person marketing lesbians at straight men, so I’m not an authority.
“My sense is that a lot of butches themselves aren’t really clamoring to see characters that look like them (…)”
Coming from a certified butch: my sense is that butches in general aren’t clamouring for ANYTHING AT ALL, because we fear being seen as pushy. I hope it’s better elsewhere; I can only speak for what it looks like here. And speak of it I shall. Suppose you’re a butch, and a girl starts talking to you. It looks like flirting. Maybe it is. You won’t get a firm, literal “gurl I’m flirting with you” message, it kind of breaks the mood. If you remain a dork with possible anxiety issues, you’ll be a joke if the girl was cruel, or you’ll be left to your own devices if the girl was serious. If you reciprocate, you’ll be branded a sexual deviant and atrocity unto God and your social status will take a headlong plunge to the Trash You Don’t Wanna Be Seen Talking To level if the girl was cruel, and you have a chance for clocking in a few dates if the girl was serious.
Risk calculation. Likelihood vs. severity. What you have to gain, and what you have to lose.
Butches I know generally don’t reciprocate.
And, hell, when I’m talking about the “social outcast” thing, I’m not even talking about dating. I had no concept of that it was possible for me to date another girl until someone asked me if there’s a girl I’d like to go out with. I’m talking about things like having a person to borrow notes from if you were absent from school/college. I’m talking about things like people not awkwardly replying with monosyllables when you try to talk to them about anything, literally anything, for fuck’s sake talking about the bitching weather would be motherfucking fine, I haven’t opened my mouth to anyone for longer than two minutes all month.
No, I’m not exaggerating.
There’s being an introvert, and then there’s staying sane.
“[my sense is that a lot of butches] are fine with watching the same gaggle of femmes that entertain the wider public.”
No, we are not. Take any group of people and ask them if they want to be properly represented in the media. Drop me an ask when you find one that says “no”.
Sam said it before. I’m going to say it again.
There is one unapologetically Butch And Okay With It character that I know. Haruka Tenoh. There is a scene where Haruka says, “I don’t feel abnormal. What I’m right now is the closest to my true self. I can only live in this manner, no matter what I do.”
If I hadn’t seen that fucking filler episode, I would have went on believing that I went wrong somewhere for not wanting kids and staring at girls rather than at boys and the best I can ever count on in life is a quiet existence with a cat or five maybe. Quite possibly, I would eventually lose the struggle against suicidal depression I’m still wading my way through, and jumped off a fucking bridge, during winter, so if drowning wouldn’t get me then hypothermia fucking would.
You know why people want representation? You know why people get so fucking livid when their token characters are reimagined into harmful stereotypes or killed off? You know why every “it’s just fiction, calm the fuck down” invokes anger and disgust?
Look at things that are possible in fiction. It’s possible to have flying lizards that breathe fire, it’s possible to have laser swords and plasma rifles, it’s possible to live on other planets and travel through time and talk to angels and fight against demons.
But it’s not possible to have a lesbian couple that gets a happily ever after.
And God forbid one of these women wears heavy boots and cargo pants and flannel shirts.
“A market that consists of only a percentage of the gay community is not worth going after in most cases.“
That’s where you assume that only butches want to see butches. You assume that no gay, trans, ace, poly, or anyone fucking else would like to stop betting whether this ~LGBT+ character~ they are watching the show for (yes, it’s a thing, Rainbow Peoples pass the word along. “Hey there’s a gay chara in this series I’m watching!” – “WHAT IS IT CALLED I NEED IT YESTERDAY”. Doesn’t matter what genre, doesn’t matter what actors, doesn’t matter if it’s a live-action TV series or a cartoon or a fucking comic book. We want representation THIS badly.) is going to die in the first season or if they’re going to make it to the third.
The following is going to be my personal experience.
Me and a few buddies sitting in front of a screen. Popcorn, soft drinks, marshmallows.
Buddy A: so I hear there’s a lesbian in this movie
me: *claps her hands* okay! bets!
Buddy B: dead in the first thirty minutes
Buddy C: dead in the first hour
Buddy A: you guys…
me: dead in the first forty-five minutes, bonus points for getting fridged
*all around laughter*
Buddy A: I’m saying she’ll survive
me: you know you’re gonna lose
Buddy A: okay but how jaded can you get? you gotta have some hope
me: eh
Buddy B: no one betting whether butch or femme?
Buddy C: bitch, of course it’s a femme… now press play, you’re the closest to the mouseEnd of personal experience.
You assume that no femmes want to see butches. You assume that no people, into or not into women, want to see butches. You assume that people who don’t care jack shit for representation aren’t tired of seeing the same old cardboard cutout circulating on TV yet fucking again.
By all means, you go on and assume that. Please continue to rationalize the need to erase people that look like me from the media. Please continue to frown at statistics about suicides and severe depression among people who were shown dragons and magic, but weren’t shown themselves. I’ll be over here if you have more questions.
anyway I wanted to add another butch voice to the pot, but I especially want to draw this out of what she said:
Coming from a certified butch: my sense is that butches in general aren’t clamouring for ANYTHING AT ALL, because we fear being seen as pushy.
I get asked sometimes why I’m like..in the trenches for butch women when i myself am not.
Mostly, it’s because I’ve found butches won’t speak up for themselves. Because of this kind of thing. Must butches are so sensitive to the idea of being seen as aggressive, of being seen as pushy, as being seen as ‘like men” (which they are nothing like men, butches are women and they way they perform womanhood is real and valid) that they have a slight tendency to get bulldozed. I’ve seen it in conversations like this, I’ve seen it in the way my wife cringes when someone in the woman’s bathroom gives her THAT LOOK (my wife 110% identifies as a woman and sometimes when she’s in a suit she goes into the men’s room because she’s SO AFRAID of making women uncomfortable that SHE would rather be uncomfortable), and I’ve seen it in the community. It upsets me, and it makes me sad, and welp, that’s why I’m here.
It’s not very surprising that butches aren’t seen widely. My sense is that a lot of butches themselves aren’t really clamoring to see characters that look like them and are fine with watching the same gaggle of femmes that entertain the wider public. A market that consists of only a percentage of the gay community is not worth going after in most cases.
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