Chelsea, Interrupted

By society – by straight men – by confused women, butches are often regarded as a cheap costume of a man. Why not just have the real thing? Why not just have a man? How? How could you live your life not centered around men?
Well, with guilt. At least at first. And this isn’t because I’m ashamed of my identity. (If you couldn’t tell.) Innately, society pushes for heteronormativity. It’s in every form of media. Straight parents, princesses falling for princes, the cool teenage girls I remember looking up to always pining for some guy. In a sense, I feel a little bit left out. I don’t have the experience of a boyfriend coming over for dinner, shaking my dads hand. I’m sure there are great homecoming dresses I’ll never wear. Even just hearing my peers discussing their problems with men, I can’t bring much to the table.
Identity was not something that came naturally to me. The way I label myself now makes me so proud because of this struggle. It’s not that it’s my whole personality, but there’s no me without it. I always felt odd. I hated, yet appreciated, my femininity in a way I couldn’t describe. I tried for years, dating boys and putting on makeup and ultimately feeling like a complete fraud. If this is what is expected from a teenage girl, then what does that make me? Am I disappointing the ‘boyfriends?’ My family? Myself? Have I failed at being a woman? It took a long time to swallow that, to accept who I am knowing it will make my life harder.
Being butch is not a haircut, nor a rebellion. My existence does not intend to stick it to anyone. It’s an acceptance of self in its purest form. I’m a butch, I’m a woman in love with herself, in love with the way my femininity still shows in flannel and cargos. Enthralled by history, by grainy, black and white pictures of women who look like me, but in a time that couldn’t accept them. A time where photography, visibility, rarely gave them the light of day.
I cherish the knowing looks that me and older butches share at work. Behind my cash register tucked away in a small, republican town, I like to believe they see something in me the way I see myself in them. A future.
I’m a lesbian. I’m a dyke. I’m a woman. I’m a butch.

“‘I don’t see what women see in other women,” I’d told Doctor Nolan in my interview that noon. “What does a woman see in a woman that she can’t see in a man?” Doctor Nolan paused. Then she said, “Tenderness.” That shut me up.’” – Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar.