trying to come to terms with my identity as a butch lesbian while also navigating the hellscape that is cisheteropatriarchal society as a transfem person is again and again proving itself to be a complicated and messy struggle, already starting with the nomenclature of identity, for example “transfem” is fine, especially as a marker of direction of transition, being called feminine is already grounds to mixed feelings depending on context, and “femme” just feels wrong. on the other hand though, in most settings im also deeply uncomfortable with being described as “masc”, and the gen z-queer tendency to no longer consider themselves butches, but “mascs” instead does not help with that. (that being said, i do acknowledge that that development also helped many transmascs come to terms with their identity, and also helped to show that the line between transness/transmasculinity and butchness is often blurry at best)

another part of at least my struggle in completely finding myself in my lesbian identity was the years i spent in queer, but mostly bi-/pansexual circles, with attraction to men being to some extent expected, reinforcing the link between femininity and attraction to men leading to myself feeling like an imposter for not being interested in men, especially because of my “male” socialization meaning that i was always taught to be attracted to “women”, regardless of the fact that my lesbian attraction and desire is everything straight attraction can and will never be.
and thats only the part of the struggle confined to queer spaces, those well-versed in terminology regarding lesbian and trans identity, if we now also take into account that, sadly, i have to exist outside of those spaces and circles too occasionally, the mess becomes even worse.

for a large part of society, “butch”  is not a term, especially not one referring to gender (neither is “lesbian” in that regard), and while they might have heard of trans and non-binary people by this point, we still exist inside their binary framework, and are only ever thought of in relation to “male” and “female”. for me as someone who has a deeply traumatic relationship to being percieved “male” and depending on social context, and will go to great lengths to minimize the possibility of being misgendered and mistaken for a cis guy this means that i can never ever present as butch as i want, as long as i have to exist in the hell of cisheteropatriarchy, because getting a buzzcut will just inevitably lead to cis people (as progressive and trans-inclusive as they think of themselves) to categorize myself into the box of “male” inside of their head.

on that note, respecting pronouns and identity is the bare minimum, true complicity (or “allyship”) for cis people is breaking down the boxes inside your head and truly understanding queer, trans, non binary and agender identites – its very likely you’re not really cis anymore when you’re done with that though.

now, back to topic: knowing that i have to conform to the societal expectations for “women” at least to some degree in order to “pass”, simply because out of the two options to get put into by society (and through that, by most people), it is the less violent and traumatic one for me, fills me with rage (although, that is ever present these days anyways), grief and sadness, but also envy to all those butches and mascs, who had the luck of not growing up with the implicit expectation placed upon them to become a man later on and thus associating the thought of even being associated with manhood and (traditional concepts of) masculinity with violence. they can feel much more free in exploring their identites, not always having to carry the trauma of being raised to become a “man”. i do feel a slight sting of envy every time someone i know shaves their head or gets a short haircut for the first time, knowing that if i were to do that, it would be met with ontological violence by society. another sometimes very confusing part of all this is the way i dress and express myself, essentially feeling some sort of (mild) dysphoria over myself in dresses, skirts, etc., while knowing that i look good wearing them, and getting external validation over looking feminine, but feeling a disconnect between the way i feel and the way i look in the mirror. of course not as severe when comparing this feeling back to my days of trying to present “male”, but it still feels dysphoric.

its also an interesting feeling to think about shaving my head, getting a buzzcut or just any short haircut, because back when i originally started figuring my trans identity out and rejected any and all connection to manhood, growing my hair out was an important part of that struggle too, but now, after years of transitioning and almost becoming complacent in the box of “being a woman” (as far removed i feel from womanhood, be it because of my radical and violent rejection of both the “male” socialization i was subjected to or the boxes of “woman” and “man”, or my complete lack of sexual and romantic attraction and/or interest in men, it is the societal box that is linked with less violence and trauma to my experience) , i feel like ive reached a similar point to the one many (c)AFAB¹ butches are, before they plunge into butchness, shave their heads and all of that. in my personal experience though, the rejection of the male gaze and the pressure to be attractive to men never was something i considered, with dodging the patriarchal conditioning to be attractive and available to men being one of the few upsides to being coercively assigned “male” at birth and being socialized as such. still, the pressure to be feminine is something i experience too, even if it comes from a different pressure than the one (c)AFAB butches experience.

of course its also naive to narrow down butchness to just short hair or a certain way of dressing and presenting gender, and trying to make up norms for something like lesbianism and queerness that, at least in the way i experience and live it, is the radical destruction and rejection of any and all norms and normative thought would fundamentally contradict itself.

all this being said though, finally coming more and more to terms with being butch is also incredibly freeing for myself, realizing and working on dismantling my internalized pressures to be feminine, be it in presentation or mannerisms, starting to associate positive, but “masculine” parts of myself and my personality no longer with the manhood i continuously distance myself from, but butchness and finally integrating them into myself instead of trying to fight them. its a hard, but healing process to acknowledge that, and to, even after years of being out as trans and transitioning, still figure out my identity more and more. what makes this all the more difficult to even grasp is the complete and utter lack of any transfem butch rolemodels, even though im deeply rooted in queer circles and spaces, i dont think i personally know a single transfem butch, making this identity all the more hard to grasp for myself, maybe writing this text and publicizing it will aid some queer sibling in feeling seen and understood and help them accept that its completely fine to be butch, no matter their relationship to masculinity and femininity or whatever gender society decided to pressure them into.

now to be pathetic and end on a quote, i chose one someone on twitter once used to describe transfem existance in general, and one i found especially true of being a transfem butch.

“We don’t exactly fit in. Anywhere. And we’ve made that our greatest strength.”  – Faith, Mirrors Edge

¹ (c)AFAB/(c)AMAB – coercively assigned (gender) at birth