Butches and Femmes: What Divides and Unifies Us

*Disclaimer: I understand the points of view of the people who think classifying women as butch or femme is too binary. I think it goes without saying that everyone falls somewhere along a spectrum; few people are entirely one thing or another.

This piece, however, is for the people who do perhaps identify more strongly with one than the other. For example, yes, I am a mix of masculine and feminine traits, and no, I don’t conform to all the societal expectations for what constitutes appropriate female behavior—but were I to check a box, it would be femme. I identify as such, even though not every single one of my traits are feminine.

I’ve heard people ask, “Why put yourself into the category of femme? We’re all just people.” And yet, lesbians themselves historically divided themselves for many years, with much of lesbian life organized around women self-identifying as butch or femme. Though there may be more variability now (which is great), that doesn’t eliminate the discrete categories from which this variability stems. 

That said, this entry will perhaps resonate best with those who do identify as butch or femme. It is not meant to put anyone in a box, but rather speaks to the people who have already self-labeled themselves as such. 

Historical Roots of Butch/Femme

Butch and femme roles within the lesbian community have existed since the 1940s. Murray Hall was one of the earliest examples of a butch who worked in Edinburgh, passing as a man in order to provide financially for her wife and be with her without the threat of persecution by a homophobic society.

Not all butches were closeted trans men, but many opted for the identity because it made it easier to get jobs, live with their loved one, and evade stigma. An attraction to femmes also pushed some lesbians to adopt the butch role. As Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis wrote in their book Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, “The guidelines for attraction (back then) ran very deep; butches were not supposed to be attracted to one another, nor were fems supposed to be attracted to one another.” Furthermore, if “[butches] loved women, it must be because they were mannish, and vice versa.”

Once a lesbian chose a role, the enforcement of it could be rather rigid. At bars, the butch was to approach the femme, while the femme was to wait for the butch. Many of the bars even had separate bathrooms, marked “butch” or “femme” respectively at the door to each one.

Nowadays, these roles aren’t enforced by society or the lesbian community the way they once were. It’s more common to see greater variation, with women voluntarily self-identifying as one or the other— or somewhere in between —as part of their own personal expression. Fewer define themselves as clearcut femme or butch, and when they do, the dichotomization between the two groups is also less rigid than before. 

Still, the roles continue to exist to some extent within the lesbian community—and with them comes the potential for division and misunderstanding. 

Femme Challenges

Without physical or aesthetic markers of our membership to the LGBTQ group, we femmes often pass as something we’re not. Constantly assumed to be straight, we find ourselves having to come out repeatedly throughout our lives. Within every new interaction, particularly when younger, I would privately gauge when the right moment was to disclose my sexual orientation in conversation with another person (if at all).

Even when we do proclaim our gayness, we are still at times not believed.  As Mary Emily O’Hara wrote in an article for Daily Dot, “Femininity is sometimes seen as the opposite of queer, for mysterious reasons that have no provable basis.” This challenges us to constantly assert our legitimacy, as we are not taken seriously, “no matter how many times we clearly state who we are and what we want.”

I’ve lost count of the number of times men have intruded on dates between other women and me—unable to respect that we (or myself at least) were not attracted to the male gender.

Not only does our invisibility increase the amount of sexual harassment, it also makes it harder to meet other women, who cannot tell that we are gay. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but after cutting my hair short in Uruguay, not only did the cat-calling from men seem to tone down, but in addition, more women seemed to be approaching me than ever before.

The invisibility also interferes with our forming of kinships with one another. Historically, femmes have lacked community since the early days of the LGBTQ subculture, which Laura Harris and Elizabeth Crocker touch upon in their book Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, and Bad Girls:

“Fems’ socializing together was not an institutionalized part of this culture. They might have had individual girl friends, but there was no network of femme friendships akin to the camaraderie of butches. Instead, there was a tradition of competitiveness. Because of this, there was no safe and supportive place in which fems could share reflections of their passion and learn from each other’s joys and losses.”

Since butches may generally have a less difficult time finding each other, they can more easily build a queer network that might ease some of the separateness and isolation that often accompany minority experiences.

As a butch who once presented as femme wrote on an online forum, “I don’t have to wear gay things because I know that the way I look gives off gay vibes.”

 Another self-identified butch wrote, “There are ways I’m respected more than feminine women, and ways I’m respected less. Queer people do gravitate towards me, which is handy.”

Butch Challenges 

One issue that butches deal with (gathered from talking to butch-identified acquaintances and reading online) is seeing less representation of themselves in TV shows and film, as media tends to be more heavily saturated with “conventionally attractive” femme-femme couples that are palatable to the male gaze. 

Boo from Orange is the New Black was one example of positive representation; May from Feel Good and Abby from Showtime’s Work In Progress are a couple others. Still, well-fleshed-out butch characters are few and far between—certainly unrepresentative of the real-life, actual butch population outside of Hollywood.

Additionally, because butches’ sexual orientations are more readily visible than femmes’ are (due to the prevalent conflation of gender presentation with sexual orientation) they also may face more outward discrimination—a reminder to us femmes that our ability to pass can be both a hindrance and an asset, depending on the circumstances.

As one femme put it: “I have not walked through this world knowing that being who I am is an affront to the sensibilities of many. I have never thought twice about entering a women’s restroom or dressing room for fear that I would be taken for a freak or sexual predator based on my appearance.” 

While butches may not be sexually harassed by men as often as femmes are, they are more likely to experience harassment of a more physical or even violent kind. 

“I definitely get harassed less,” a butch commenter wrote. “Though when I do, it often comes in the form of a physical attack.”

When my hair was short and I didn’t wear makeup, I picked up on a subtle increase in judgmental stares within certain spaces. Such is to be expected when one outwardly “wears their gayness” (which includes inside places that may not welcome it). 

Butches may also be more likely to face lack of acceptance from family, coworkers, and strangers alike due to their gender nonconformity.

I’ve heard some femmes argue that butches carry male privilege. Others have said they reproduce toxic masculinity in queer spaces, wielding the same tools that straight men use to invalidate women and assert their dominance. Andrea Long Chu has written that butches were guilty of “smuggling patriarchy into lesbian utopia.”

A butch on the forum makes a compelling point against this argument, though, pointing out how it overlooks the fact that, “performing masculinity as a woman is a deviance from ‘proper’ gendered behavior and as such is a dangerous transgression for a woman to make.”

What Unifies Us

One femme acknowledged that  “As a lesbian woman who has been feminine throughout (her) life, (she) cannot fully understand what it is like to live as (her) wife; a butch woman.”

That said, even if our experiences diverge, and even if we’ll never know firsthand exactly what it’s like to be the other, I still believe in the capacity for empathy to overcome these chasms. 

Empathy, in my mind, is an infinite resource. When we find ourselves feeling impatient, or competitive, or oppressed by one another, it can be helpful to remind ourselves of this.

Because at the end of the day, what matters most is not identifying who struggles more, but the acknowledgement that we struggle differently. What matters too is the recognition that we all share the commonality of living as under the still-present boot of patriarchy.

Making space for others’ distinct realities doesn’t invalidate the truth of our own. We’re all here. We’re all queer. I believe there truly is enough space for everyone.