Monday, August 15, 2011

Butch is a Way of Life

Thanks to the hundreds of women, womyn, dykes, Moc people, and gender-queer folk who've written in support of the birth and vision of Butch Nation. (see press release in my last post) My position is that there are no "sides" here; just legitimate political and values differences.

But, there are so few butch events in our country that I urge everyone to go to as many as they can. There is much to learn and lots of butch camaraderie to be soaked up at all such gatherings.

The radical core of being a gender-nonconforming woman means embracing both the masculine and the feminine Self. Butch is much more than a noun. It is a way of life enriched by its painful past and made noble by its authentic present.
Movements grow and change through splits and shifts. They are common. And not harmful so long as they are issue driven rather than personality based.

The Butch Enough blog post – (7/31 - ‘Gender is a Landscape Not a Line’ - http://butchenough.wordpress.com/) accurately details my hesitations with using "masculine of center people" as an umbrella identifier. Find it, read it!

If any of you are interested in serving butch community by joining our Board, please write info.butch.nation@gmail.com letting us know this. And friend us on facebook - Butch Nation for updates. We are growing!

In brotherhood and sisterhood,
Jeanne Cordova, feminist butch
Co-founder, Butch Nation

1 comment:

MasterAmazon said...

Thanks Jeanne for standing up for all us Female Identified/Female Proud Butches. I feel much better now that y'all have taken a stance and that you will be having some workshops. I hope to avail myself of them. Don't forget please, that some of us are also Female Proud Butch on Butch, not all of us are exclusively into Femmes. Nonetheless this Butch DykeAmazon has been twisting about what's been going on with Butch Voices and erasing us from the definitions, workshops or any kind of real inclusion. Many of us Female Proud Butches submitted workshops at the last conference, and we all pretty much were turned down.

We don't need excuses from Joe or anyone, or coverups. Just truth, transparency and real openness and open dialogue, nor to erase the words Butch, Woman,Female, Aggressive, Dyke, or any other designation that speaks to us and who we are because they have been difficult identities to survive through in the past and sometimes used against us. So what? We need to own ALL our Dyke and Butch Lesbian herstory, all of it, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Anyway thanks for taking a stand to include Lesbian and Feminist, even though it cost you, because many of us ARE PROUD to be Butch Lesbians with the understanding that Feminism applies to all of us born female living as female, and the sexism, lesbophobia and butchphobia we have had to endure throughout our lives, but first and foremost is sexism, especially if we attempt to get into nontraditional work as many Butches including myself have.

See you this weekend!
-In Butch DykeAmazon Solidarity,
-M.A.