I’m working on editing the footage from the panel right now.  I think I’ll have it ready in segments, starting next week.

And as noted on their own tumblrs, the two on the left no longer identify as butch and now identify as hard-femmes.  I could reflect more on that, as many of my butch trans women role models have stopped identifying as butch, previously identified as femme, re-identified as butch or held any number of other fluid histories - myself included.  

I was recently ridiculed for not being butch enough along with the claim that trans women’s version(s)of butchness is not “real.”  I can dismiss it as transphobic, but it still leads me to ponder the meaning of “real” when butch/femme and gender performance in general is more complicated for trans folks than cis folks.  (Althouh I do see similar fluid histories of identifying with butch and femme among cis folks too).  Overall I think it says more about the inadequacy of these identities as proscriptions.  We each are who we are, and the language we pick up or leave behind along the way is always valid for what it means to us in that moment.

mtfbutches:

Image of the panelists from the Butch Trans Woman Panel at the Butch Voices conference in Oakland, CA last August.

[Image Description: Image of four butch or genderqueer presenting/identified transwomen with their arms around each other in a parking lot.  From left to right - The first person has light red hair and is wearing a red bandanna around her neck, a pink undershirt with an obscured rainbow image, and a purple hoodie.  The next person has a mix of red, blond and brown hair, a septum and lower lip piercing, a chain necklace with a heart shaped lock, and a black zip hoodie with a patch obscured by the strap of a messenger bag.  The next person has dark brown hair with red highlighting half-rimed glasses, a vest which has been detailed with gold studs, a dark blue collared undershirt with a light purple tie.  The last person (me) is wearing a black pinstriped fedora, dirty brown hair, half rimed glasses, a black collared shirt with a black tie, and an open grey pinstriped vest.]

-b