Butch-22: The Paradox of Being Butch

“I know what butch is. Butches are not beginner FTMs, except that sometimes they are, but it’s not a continuum except when it is.” -Butch is a Noun, by S. Bear Bergman

Have you ever heard of a catch-22?

A catch-22 is a paradoxical situation with no apparent way out because of how conflicting factors or contradictory rules keep you trapped in it.

That sounds kind of what it’s like thinking about gender identity and butchness.

Maybe you feel like you’re too femme to really be butch.

Maybe you feel like you’re too masc to really be butch.

Maybe you relate to your gender in complex ways that make you wonder if butchness could really apply to you.

We’ve got ourselves a butch-22 here 🤔

What does butch mean to you?

A lot of times I can feel like I’m not butch enough—like I’m supposed to be this stoic tough guy, who wears a leather jacket and rides a motorcycle 🏍

Most of the time, I feel like I’m a silly and emotional pretty boy, who likes wearing purple and pink, a gay who can’t drive 🤷‍♂️

“Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught.”-Leslie Feinberg

The ways we identify are more like poetry than dictionary definitions.

Because of that, I know there will never be any word that can fully describe who I am—but I can keep trying different words on, like trying on different outfits, and discovering what feels right.

Butch is a word that has helped me access parts of myself that feel right, like how putting on my first pair of boxer-briefs felt so right to me in a way that I couldn’t really explain.

And I think if I tried to explain it, I’d get caught in a Butch-22, because gender is fake, except when it’s not.