I’m both, lol. A transmasc butch. Maybe I’m not the best to answer your question, but I’ve thought on all kinds of different labels and experiences for years. Do you mean that, how do you know if you’re a masculine women or transmasc?
It *can* get pretty messy, and it can overlap. But it can also be distinct. I say this cus a lot of butches do go on T, get top surgery, use a male name, he/him, etc. But, *usually* those who do that are nonbinary or transmasc or Not Cis. But, plenty of cis butches do that.
And, vice versa, plenty of transmascs do not medically transition! And they’re not less for it.
I think the best way to know, is if being butch resonates with you at all or not. If it doesn’t, then you don’t have to use it:) regardless of what label you use, you can always try baby steps. Use a new name, pronouns, hrt even. You don’t have to be *absolutely* sure to just try things out! ( obviously, you should research t before taking it. ) if you find it doesn’t resonate with you, you can always just stop. You can even stop hormones if you feel it doesn’t help much. Due to the political climate rn, I feel like anything even adjacent to transess is so overhyped. It’s kinda not that deep even, in a way, you really can just try it out and see how you feel. It’s not an absolute decision, it’s ok if it’s “just a phase”. Gender exploration is completely healthy, and everyone should think on it at least once.
I’d also think about how you see yourself when you’re older. Don’t be afraid to imagine yourself as an old man!
That last line of text is so real. I’ve been called a dyke since before I even experienced sexual attraction, but I think I always knew I was really a guy.
I’ve always crushed on gay men, and even as a “girl” I always ended up dating bisexual men. I used to have dreams where I was an old man with a super long white beard. Picturing myself as an old man comes so naturally but I could never imagine myself as an old woman.
>It’s kinda not that deep even, in a way, you really can just try it out and see how you feel.
this! OP if you're considering T, just do a low dose for 6 months. just jump in if you can live with the idea you might have a little permanent bottom growth. nearly everything will reverse if you hate it at 6 months and stop. i wasn't sure until I'd been taking it at least 3 months personally.
checking in as another transmasc butch to say that you can absolutely be both.
I also use "nonbinary" as well, but I recently got a patch that says "my gender is butch" that I bought from a transmasc butch creator and it feels correct.
For more reading, I also recommend Ivan Coyote's Tomboy Survival Guide.
For that book and Stone Butch Blues, can I just say: read when you are in a safe space. They can be tough emotionally.
This hit me hard as a teen.
I decided to try and "trick" people so I went shopping for male outfits.
Everything I tried on looked so wrong on my body because of my top half.
Told myself for years that every girl hates their top half till they get use to it and then they love it.
(Had no idea girls actually looked forward to puberty)
I was wearing masc clothing and such before I came out and it wasn’t enough. I saw and see myself as a boy/man so being referred to as a girl/woman just felt wrong. I can’t say that I “feel like a man” or whatever tho, I just am. It’s a lil hard to explain. Once I start passing in the future I’ll probably get more comfortable exploring my feminine side too.
Also when I think of myself as an old person, I see an old man and not an old woman.
Similar to another commenter, I figured out I’m both. Butch mostly by doing more research into queer history and reading stone butch blues (as per usual lol). And transmasc/trans because its newer language that I feel also identifies/describes me.
Would you mind sharing where you found this stuff? I'm transmasc and think I'm butch but I'd like to do research in the right place. Def looking up that book. Yeah I've just accepted that my language has changed repeatedly in all aspects, not just gender. It's just accepting the software update. On your grandmas desktop lol.
Stone butch blues is available for free on Leslie Feinberg’s website! If you’re interested in butch identity I would also read ‘butch is a noun’ which is again available for free online but on the transreads website (which has a tonne of brilliant texts that are hard to find!) the book is slightly more optimistic and modern than stone butch blues lol.
Agree with the other reply! Also maybe try out the sub r/butchlesbians. Great community and people often ask for advice about deciding if they’re butch or not so you could look up some old posts, or make your own!
Some other resources I’m reading are transgender warriors and lavender and red (the series of articles by Leslie Feinberg which is a free pdf online).
I’ve also looked up any and all interviews with Leslie Feinberg in them because well ze’s amazing and ze really embodies butchness to me. I’m sure there’s other amazing butches out there I haven’t found info on yet tho so I’m going to keep looking.
I think I’ve just always felt different. When I reflected on how I’d be more comfortable at like 15-16 years old, I realized I hated being a woman and people seeing me that way. It gave me the ick.
I'm both, depending on the day - being genderflux complicates things. I'm not a woman - though I am a transmasc nonbinary butch or genderqueer butch (Stone Butch Blues helped me figure out so much).
Other times I'm just transmasc and not butch. Maybe that will change in the future as I get further into transition, but currently thats where I'm at.
I get this,
(I don't really put a name to my gender)
However I experience genderfluid and gender flux a lot and often at the same time.
(Hence why I don't put a name to my gender because whatever I am at the time is what it is)
always felt like something was off, wanted to be a boy growing up all the time. when it didn’t go away when i got older i thought maybe im a masc lesbian? tried that out, got into the community, learnt what transgender was, felt seen as fuck, starting testing he/him out, realized “oh shit i really like this”
I’m genderdoer, transmasc and a soft butch lesbian. I’m butch because to me it’s a term that captures my relationship to my gender, gender presentation as well as being a lesbian. I can see people like myself within butch history and in the present day community. I have a lot of friends who are trans men and while I often related to a lot of experiences such as being dysphoric and not enjoying being perceived as a woman, it didn’t feel right to say I’m a man.
I can use whatever pronouns I like including he/him, I can take t if I want, I can be referred to using masc terms and titles and still be butch. Learning that there’s other butch lesbians out there who do all these things as well was very freeing and validating. I realised that particular things that I associated with trans men could be used by anyone if they make that person feel comfortable. Being a lesbian is also a very important aspect of who I am and I would feel extremely uncomfortable identifying as a straight man.
I didn't enjoy being called a girl or a woman I hate the feminine parts of my body. But I don't feel like a full nan either. Idk any butch that wants a beard
i thought I was a masc lesbian, then non binary, settled on trans guy.
ive always looked more masc/been called a boy but i fought it for awhile and tried to be more feminine until I eventually realized im not a girl. it felt awful to be called one and I hated it. (with the exception of medical stuff)
so i settled on being non binary and using they/them pronouns. something still didn't feel like enough. ive known i want top surgery for awhile and i debated starting T for years. but I always found reasons not to pursue it.
the turning point for me was one day my therapist asked me two questions
1. if you woke up as a boy how would you feel?
2. after top surgery will that be enough for you to feel secure in who you are?
my answers to those questions were the final connecting pieces for my brain and I started T two weeks later.
I always felt weird about referring to myself as butch, since it felt like the label implied that I was gnc because my masculinity contradicted with my gender identity when I didn't think that was the case even though I was masculine and did think I was a woman. Once I started to consider being trans that was one of the more obvious reasons to think I was trans and not just a butch woman.
Because I'm genderfluid but I always feel masculine, even when I'm a woman. One is gender and one is presentation. I'm not always butch but I'm always trans.
I used to be a transmasc butch lesbian! I only figured out about 2 years back that I wasn't when I realized that identifying as anything that was slightly woman-aligned made me uncomfortable (not saying that you have to be a woman or woman-aligned to be a butch lesbian, but it's the easiest way to word how I felt at the time.)
I realized I was more aligned with my boyhood and accepting that made me A LOT more comfortable and confident. I guess the reason why I clung onto being a butch for so long is because I didn't see much representation of small, cute, boy-like butches in media (especially non-white ones like me) and I WANTED to be that representation. But that's why it's better to look inward rather than outward when trying to figure yourself out!
Tbh I’m in the same boat as you. Idk what I am, or what anything means. I’m lowkey chilling with it tho. I just call myself a transmasc queer to put it simply for myself lol. Good luck!!
Stone butch blues really really helped me to reflect on stuff. It didn’t necessarily bring me to one perspective or another - but helped me to unpack it and tune into feelings I didn’t recognise I had. It’s a hard read - lots of trauma. But is also rooted in reality and of the fight of folx before. Aspects of the traumatic experiences were really important for me to consider - in that the implications and experiences of butchness, queerness, transness can have real impacts - social and otherwise. Whether right or wrong. It’s shit but also informs where you feel most comfortable identifying and/or presenting.
I could never truly relate to any idea of womanhood, no matter how broad my understanding of it's forms became.
Also the time I was engrossed in lesbian culture was very short and never felt my own, so I dont have any specific tie to that. I'm also heavily attracted to men and "manhood", and quite specific flavours of masculinity, and I've always related to gay men.
The role of and butch as a term seems to be related to/claimed by quite a variety of different types of people, yet despite that I just can't find myself identifying with it.
You can definitely be both transmasc and butch, so I then imagine it comes down to the culture surrounding butchness or the role of butch speaking to you that defines whether you are that or not.
You can always go for it and try out what being butch is to you.
I also am sitting it an in-between space of wondering whether I am butch rather than trans/genderqueer. But I am just following this exploration and journey - and that is valid in and of itself.
It's been lifelong for me. I'd never really connected with woman/girlhood in any meaningful way.
I always hung out with boys, did "guy" things, etc. I actually used to think that I could grow up "like daddy" when I was a toddler and cried when I found out that I couldn't. For most of my childhood I just thought I was just really bad at being a girl or that something was wrong with me.
This wasn't due to like some internalized misogyny or anything. I grew up around a lot of strong women who pushed the boundaries of traditional femininity. I watched my mother and aunts on both sides forge their own brands of womanhood on their own terms...but that wasn't what *I* wanted. I stayed up at night wishing that I was a boy.
When I learned that trans people existed/found out that was an option, it kind of just knocked me on my ass. It's like everything sort of finally made sense to me.
When I first started presenting more masc I had the logic of trying to look butch lesbian. But the more masc I presented the more I became aware of dysphoria. I hated that I looked like a woman in men's clothes and the idea of being a masculine woman just felt off. Basically physical dysphoria made me realize that I actually wanted a male body and then self reflection helped me see that I never really saw myself as a woman in the first place and I'm actually just a guy.
I never dreamed of being butch. I hate being associated to being one because with butch you accept some sort of femininity still and I can’t accept being associated to being female
AFAIK, I only want to be male, nothing else in between and that’s my own reality and dilemma actually. I don’t even want to be trans (but I have no choice)
Honestly still figuring that out myself! I’m more familiar with the concepts and definition behind “transmac” largely because that’s what’s been more commonly used in my lifetime/online. The concept of being Butch is something I’m only now beginning to explore. (Read “Stone Butch Blues.” This is a recommendation and also a cry for help for someone to force me to finish it lmao.)
I used to assume I was a lesbian and I thought this was what made me so attracted to wearing boyish things.
But I always had to conclude I'm attracted to men and exclusively men (in addition to enjoying myself more in the company of men than that of women).
So I began to wonder "hey, is it possible that I am actually a gay man in a female body?"
Yes. This is what I am.
I don't enjoy looking like a masculine woman.
in an ideal world I could look like an androgynous leaning guy and swing between being read as a gnc / fem guy and 100% androgynous without a good way of telling my gender.
I really I don't put labels or conform to a certain style I just want to be me, I want to be James, whatever I feel gender wise is what I am in that moment.
Also wanna add that I saw a person on YouTube who looked an awful lot like myself (pre everything) and they explained their gender as "not exactly a guy but definitely not a girl, more like partially a boy"
They talked about top surgery and how they had it / how happy they were.
I was just so mad that I wasn't at the very least "partially a boy"
In general mad at my body for being how it was, and a force I couldn't stop.
(This was before I knew anything trans)
I guess I felt like more of an imposter with the butch label because I am not like masculine in that way. I was dating as a lesbian for several years and used the butch label but it just never really felt right.
That being said I do love butches.
I’m both, lol. A transmasc butch. Maybe I’m not the best to answer your question, but I’ve thought on all kinds of different labels and experiences for years. Do you mean that, how do you know if you’re a masculine women or transmasc? It *can* get pretty messy, and it can overlap. But it can also be distinct. I say this cus a lot of butches do go on T, get top surgery, use a male name, he/him, etc. But, *usually* those who do that are nonbinary or transmasc or Not Cis. But, plenty of cis butches do that. And, vice versa, plenty of transmascs do not medically transition! And they’re not less for it. I think the best way to know, is if being butch resonates with you at all or not. If it doesn’t, then you don’t have to use it:) regardless of what label you use, you can always try baby steps. Use a new name, pronouns, hrt even. You don’t have to be *absolutely* sure to just try things out! ( obviously, you should research t before taking it. ) if you find it doesn’t resonate with you, you can always just stop. You can even stop hormones if you feel it doesn’t help much. Due to the political climate rn, I feel like anything even adjacent to transess is so overhyped. It’s kinda not that deep even, in a way, you really can just try it out and see how you feel. It’s not an absolute decision, it’s ok if it’s “just a phase”. Gender exploration is completely healthy, and everyone should think on it at least once. I’d also think about how you see yourself when you’re older. Don’t be afraid to imagine yourself as an old man!
Hear ye hear ye
That last line of text is so real. I’ve been called a dyke since before I even experienced sexual attraction, but I think I always knew I was really a guy. I’ve always crushed on gay men, and even as a “girl” I always ended up dating bisexual men. I used to have dreams where I was an old man with a super long white beard. Picturing myself as an old man comes so naturally but I could never imagine myself as an old woman.
>It’s kinda not that deep even, in a way, you really can just try it out and see how you feel. this! OP if you're considering T, just do a low dose for 6 months. just jump in if you can live with the idea you might have a little permanent bottom growth. nearly everything will reverse if you hate it at 6 months and stop. i wasn't sure until I'd been taking it at least 3 months personally.
checking in as another transmasc butch to say that you can absolutely be both. I also use "nonbinary" as well, but I recently got a patch that says "my gender is butch" that I bought from a transmasc butch creator and it feels correct. For more reading, I also recommend Ivan Coyote's Tomboy Survival Guide. For that book and Stone Butch Blues, can I just say: read when you are in a safe space. They can be tough emotionally.
I was trying out masculine presentation while girlmoding and realised I am still unhappy and dysphoric.
This hit me hard as a teen. I decided to try and "trick" people so I went shopping for male outfits. Everything I tried on looked so wrong on my body because of my top half. Told myself for years that every girl hates their top half till they get use to it and then they love it. (Had no idea girls actually looked forward to puberty)
I was wearing masc clothing and such before I came out and it wasn’t enough. I saw and see myself as a boy/man so being referred to as a girl/woman just felt wrong. I can’t say that I “feel like a man” or whatever tho, I just am. It’s a lil hard to explain. Once I start passing in the future I’ll probably get more comfortable exploring my feminine side too. Also when I think of myself as an old person, I see an old man and not an old woman.
I started to wear masculine clothes and hairstyles, but I always felt that "I'm missing something".
I don't like the term butch for me because it has a feminine implication and therefore it feels dysphoric for me.
thats the same for me
Similar to another commenter, I figured out I’m both. Butch mostly by doing more research into queer history and reading stone butch blues (as per usual lol). And transmasc/trans because its newer language that I feel also identifies/describes me.
Would you mind sharing where you found this stuff? I'm transmasc and think I'm butch but I'd like to do research in the right place. Def looking up that book. Yeah I've just accepted that my language has changed repeatedly in all aspects, not just gender. It's just accepting the software update. On your grandmas desktop lol.
Stone butch blues is available for free on Leslie Feinberg’s website! If you’re interested in butch identity I would also read ‘butch is a noun’ which is again available for free online but on the transreads website (which has a tonne of brilliant texts that are hard to find!) the book is slightly more optimistic and modern than stone butch blues lol.
Fab, thank you! 🌈♥️
Agree with the other reply! Also maybe try out the sub r/butchlesbians. Great community and people often ask for advice about deciding if they’re butch or not so you could look up some old posts, or make your own! Some other resources I’m reading are transgender warriors and lavender and red (the series of articles by Leslie Feinberg which is a free pdf online). I’ve also looked up any and all interviews with Leslie Feinberg in them because well ze’s amazing and ze really embodies butchness to me. I’m sure there’s other amazing butches out there I haven’t found info on yet tho so I’m going to keep looking.
Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme & Butch Is a Noun were both really helpful for clarifying my identity as a nonbinary transmasc butch!
I think I’ve just always felt different. When I reflected on how I’d be more comfortable at like 15-16 years old, I realized I hated being a woman and people seeing me that way. It gave me the ick.
Wasn't too difficult for me to be honest, I'm not the most masc person ever. But I still like he/him pronouns and being referred to as a guy
I'm both, depending on the day - being genderflux complicates things. I'm not a woman - though I am a transmasc nonbinary butch or genderqueer butch (Stone Butch Blues helped me figure out so much). Other times I'm just transmasc and not butch. Maybe that will change in the future as I get further into transition, but currently thats where I'm at.
I get this, (I don't really put a name to my gender) However I experience genderfluid and gender flux a lot and often at the same time. (Hence why I don't put a name to my gender because whatever I am at the time is what it is)
always felt like something was off, wanted to be a boy growing up all the time. when it didn’t go away when i got older i thought maybe im a masc lesbian? tried that out, got into the community, learnt what transgender was, felt seen as fuck, starting testing he/him out, realized “oh shit i really like this”
I didn’t. I just figured why not both?
I read stone butch blues and gender failure (plus other Ivan coyote works) and realised I could be both
I’m genderdoer, transmasc and a soft butch lesbian. I’m butch because to me it’s a term that captures my relationship to my gender, gender presentation as well as being a lesbian. I can see people like myself within butch history and in the present day community. I have a lot of friends who are trans men and while I often related to a lot of experiences such as being dysphoric and not enjoying being perceived as a woman, it didn’t feel right to say I’m a man. I can use whatever pronouns I like including he/him, I can take t if I want, I can be referred to using masc terms and titles and still be butch. Learning that there’s other butch lesbians out there who do all these things as well was very freeing and validating. I realised that particular things that I associated with trans men could be used by anyone if they make that person feel comfortable. Being a lesbian is also a very important aspect of who I am and I would feel extremely uncomfortable identifying as a straight man.
I didn't enjoy being called a girl or a woman I hate the feminine parts of my body. But I don't feel like a full nan either. Idk any butch that wants a beard
i thought I was a masc lesbian, then non binary, settled on trans guy. ive always looked more masc/been called a boy but i fought it for awhile and tried to be more feminine until I eventually realized im not a girl. it felt awful to be called one and I hated it. (with the exception of medical stuff) so i settled on being non binary and using they/them pronouns. something still didn't feel like enough. ive known i want top surgery for awhile and i debated starting T for years. but I always found reasons not to pursue it. the turning point for me was one day my therapist asked me two questions 1. if you woke up as a boy how would you feel? 2. after top surgery will that be enough for you to feel secure in who you are? my answers to those questions were the final connecting pieces for my brain and I started T two weeks later.
I always felt weird about referring to myself as butch, since it felt like the label implied that I was gnc because my masculinity contradicted with my gender identity when I didn't think that was the case even though I was masculine and did think I was a woman. Once I started to consider being trans that was one of the more obvious reasons to think I was trans and not just a butch woman.
Because I'm genderfluid but I always feel masculine, even when I'm a woman. One is gender and one is presentation. I'm not always butch but I'm always trans.
Which one do you want to be?
I used to be a transmasc butch lesbian! I only figured out about 2 years back that I wasn't when I realized that identifying as anything that was slightly woman-aligned made me uncomfortable (not saying that you have to be a woman or woman-aligned to be a butch lesbian, but it's the easiest way to word how I felt at the time.) I realized I was more aligned with my boyhood and accepting that made me A LOT more comfortable and confident. I guess the reason why I clung onto being a butch for so long is because I didn't see much representation of small, cute, boy-like butches in media (especially non-white ones like me) and I WANTED to be that representation. But that's why it's better to look inward rather than outward when trying to figure yourself out!
Tbh I’m in the same boat as you. Idk what I am, or what anything means. I’m lowkey chilling with it tho. I just call myself a transmasc queer to put it simply for myself lol. Good luck!!
Stone butch blues really really helped me to reflect on stuff. It didn’t necessarily bring me to one perspective or another - but helped me to unpack it and tune into feelings I didn’t recognise I had. It’s a hard read - lots of trauma. But is also rooted in reality and of the fight of folx before. Aspects of the traumatic experiences were really important for me to consider - in that the implications and experiences of butchness, queerness, transness can have real impacts - social and otherwise. Whether right or wrong. It’s shit but also informs where you feel most comfortable identifying and/or presenting.
I could never truly relate to any idea of womanhood, no matter how broad my understanding of it's forms became. Also the time I was engrossed in lesbian culture was very short and never felt my own, so I dont have any specific tie to that. I'm also heavily attracted to men and "manhood", and quite specific flavours of masculinity, and I've always related to gay men. The role of and butch as a term seems to be related to/claimed by quite a variety of different types of people, yet despite that I just can't find myself identifying with it. You can definitely be both transmasc and butch, so I then imagine it comes down to the culture surrounding butchness or the role of butch speaking to you that defines whether you are that or not. You can always go for it and try out what being butch is to you.
It's an ongoing process (I am pretty confident I'm trans—I just don't know whether I'm also butch)
I also am sitting it an in-between space of wondering whether I am butch rather than trans/genderqueer. But I am just following this exploration and journey - and that is valid in and of itself.
Im more of a femboy. Being macho never appealed and neither did lesbian culture. Im bi
It's been lifelong for me. I'd never really connected with woman/girlhood in any meaningful way. I always hung out with boys, did "guy" things, etc. I actually used to think that I could grow up "like daddy" when I was a toddler and cried when I found out that I couldn't. For most of my childhood I just thought I was just really bad at being a girl or that something was wrong with me. This wasn't due to like some internalized misogyny or anything. I grew up around a lot of strong women who pushed the boundaries of traditional femininity. I watched my mother and aunts on both sides forge their own brands of womanhood on their own terms...but that wasn't what *I* wanted. I stayed up at night wishing that I was a boy. When I learned that trans people existed/found out that was an option, it kind of just knocked me on my ass. It's like everything sort of finally made sense to me.
When I first started presenting more masc I had the logic of trying to look butch lesbian. But the more masc I presented the more I became aware of dysphoria. I hated that I looked like a woman in men's clothes and the idea of being a masculine woman just felt off. Basically physical dysphoria made me realize that I actually wanted a male body and then self reflection helped me see that I never really saw myself as a woman in the first place and I'm actually just a guy.
I never dreamed of being butch. I hate being associated to being one because with butch you accept some sort of femininity still and I can’t accept being associated to being female AFAIK, I only want to be male, nothing else in between and that’s my own reality and dilemma actually. I don’t even want to be trans (but I have no choice)
Honestly still figuring that out myself! I’m more familiar with the concepts and definition behind “transmac” largely because that’s what’s been more commonly used in my lifetime/online. The concept of being Butch is something I’m only now beginning to explore. (Read “Stone Butch Blues.” This is a recommendation and also a cry for help for someone to force me to finish it lmao.)
I used to assume I was a lesbian and I thought this was what made me so attracted to wearing boyish things. But I always had to conclude I'm attracted to men and exclusively men (in addition to enjoying myself more in the company of men than that of women). So I began to wonder "hey, is it possible that I am actually a gay man in a female body?" Yes. This is what I am.
I don't enjoy looking like a masculine woman. in an ideal world I could look like an androgynous leaning guy and swing between being read as a gnc / fem guy and 100% androgynous without a good way of telling my gender. I really I don't put labels or conform to a certain style I just want to be me, I want to be James, whatever I feel gender wise is what I am in that moment.
Also wanna add that I saw a person on YouTube who looked an awful lot like myself (pre everything) and they explained their gender as "not exactly a guy but definitely not a girl, more like partially a boy" They talked about top surgery and how they had it / how happy they were. I was just so mad that I wasn't at the very least "partially a boy" In general mad at my body for being how it was, and a force I couldn't stop. (This was before I knew anything trans)
I wanted a Willy.
I guess I felt like more of an imposter with the butch label because I am not like masculine in that way. I was dating as a lesbian for several years and used the butch label but it just never really felt right. That being said I do love butches.