Butches to Masc

please read this if you care or don't care. just read

Before I discuss what it means to be masculine (masc) in 2024, I would like to share a brief history of being masculine as a woman, starting back to the 14^th century. I come upon figures called Joan of Arc (1412–1431) and Christina, Queen of Sweden (1626–1689). Joan of Arc was known as One of the most famous historical figures associated with masculinity, Joan of Arc was a French warrior who dressed in male clothing and led troops during the Hundred Years' War. Her defiance of traditional gender roles led to her being condemned as a heretic and martyr, though she was later canonised as a saint. Christina famously rejected the traditional roles of women in her time. She preferred a masculine appearance, often dressed as a man, and pursued intellectual and political ambitions, rejecting marriage and royal duties to live independently.

Moving much further into history, the 19^th and the early 20^th century. Lesbian feminism in the late 20th century focused on rejecting restrictive gender roles and empowering women to define themselves outside societal expectations. I spent a long time trying just to pick two people to speak about. However, the two that I ended up deciding were Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943) and Tallulah Bankhead (1902–1968). Radclyffe Hall was a British author known for writing the novel The Well of Loneliness (1928), which portrays a lesbian character who rejects traditional femininity in favour of a more masculine appearance and lifestyle. Hall herself was known for wearing men's clothing and having relationships with women, challenging gender norms in both her writing and her life.

Tallulah Bankhead was an actress known for her androgynous style and unapologetically masculine persona; Bankhead was one of the early stars who defied traditional expectations of femininity in Hollywood.

The butch identity, I feel, has been a term less used in recent terms as we have adapted to using the term ‘masc’ over the years. However, it is very important to mention the word butch, as the identity has affected the community in striving forward to have an accepting society for queer women. So, starting butch lesbians rejected traditional femininity, embracing masculine traits as part of their identity. The butch identity gained visibility, particularly in lesbian and leather communities, where women expressed masculinity through fashion, roles, and subcultures.

Now that my little history lesson is over, we can now dive into what it is like to be a queer masc woman today. The media representation of lesbians, I feel, lacks a lot of space within the scene. However, it is slowly improving. In the summer of 2024 (May), a show called ‘I Kissed a Girl’ aired. I loved to watch every episode as they would talk about the history of the lesbian community. For example, when Georgia mentioned that the letter L was the first letter because of the lesbians stepping up and helping with the AIDS crisis. I never knew this before. It was so lovely to watch as a young queer person myself.

Although if you look back on history, things nowadays are a lot better, I do still find there are many issues still. As a masculine woman myself, I often face prejudice, both from mainstream society and within lgbt communities. We are sometimes still viewed as "unnatural" or "aggressive." However, masculine women have been at the forefront of challenging gender expectations and contributing to the broader feminist and queer movements.

I would also like to mention that some people on tictok have created this sort of idea that we should be treated like men because we look like ‘men’. Some people, also on tictok, have this weird idea that there is some ‘masc shortage’, which annoys me because, in general, there is just a ‘shortage’ of lesbians because we are a minority group. So, of course, there aren’t a lot of us out there, but please don’t hide us and make jokes that feed into the trend. For example, ‘when my girlfriend is wearing sports bra and swimming shorts, but I remember that there’s a masc shortage, so I have to make sure she by me at all times’.