Learning From Butch History
A chat with Butch Lineages, a DIY research group in the UK
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Butch lesbians are some of the most misunderstood individuals in recent history. Despite their centrality within social movements like lesbian and gay rights, labor activism, and feminism, butches haven’t been properly recognized for their contributions to society. This historical ignorance is a problem for queer and trans folks more broadly – if we don’t know our histories, how can we imagine a different future, or discover our place in the world?
For butches, there is a lack of understanding and visibility that contributes to this dearth of cultural knowledge and general respect. There are rich histories of butch lives from across the world, histories that intersect with social factors like race, class, and gender. But sociological intrigue aside, these were and are lives that deserve to be spoken about and preserved for future generations.
This absence of historical and communal knowledge led to the formation of Butch Lineages, a self-styled “DIY research group” based in the UK. They meet every month to discuss butch history and share knowledge, drawing both from personal experiences and archival materials. Butch Lineages was founded in May of 2020, and they have since grown to 10 core members and average about 20 attendees per session. I spoke with several members of the group about the objectives of Butch Lineages and what they’ve gained from being a part of the organization. If you’re in London, you can check them out IRL. If not, keep reading to learn more.
Can you tell me a little bit about how and why the group was founded? What was the intention behind it?
Aislinn: BLineages is here to tackle Butch loneliness by connecting us to eachother, through connecting to our past. Founding BLineages looked like booking a room at the Bishopsgate's library, making some flyers, and asking people to come and help me answer questions about our history and position in a UK context. I did this because I was lonely, because I didn't know my history, and I didn't know my peers. It turns out a lot of people felt the same, so we've grown to an initiative with a large and enthusiastic member base.
How do you define the word butch?
Aislinn: It's important that we say Lineages, plural. History isn't individual, and neither is the community who resonate with or stand to gain from learning about our history. But we have some common understandings. Butch is working-class, and it is a masculinity independent of men, of heterosexuality. It's a masculinity, in fact, in service of women. Be that the women we love, or the masculinity we take on to serve ourselves.
Patrick: Our group doesn't believe in a simple or individualist answer. "Butch" is a lesbian subcultural identity for someone who is masculine presenting and takes on social roles in relation to it. Its root is in American working class bar culture and was popularized in the west by the novel Stone Butch Blues. Our group's definition is expansive, we don't believe our existence begins and ends on that particular place/history. It happens here in the UK, all around the world, way before that, in the present, and in the future (and we look at the specific contexts that come with that)
.In what ways do you think butches have been misunderstood by others? (Either within the lesbian community or more broadly.)
Aislinn: Lesbians generally, but especially Butches, are held in a vitrine of permanent past-ness by larger society (including other queers!), in contrast to a transness which is in permanent emergence. This is lesbophobic and transphobic. Transmascs aren't replacing Butches, and Butches are not the TERF vanguard or final frontier of cis womanhood. Instead, Butchness is a unique gender position that holds great solidarity with trans women, has long existed parallel and independent to fully-formed trans men's community, and we are oppressed as women and as gender-variant people at the same time. Leslie Feinberg was a prominent member of the revolutionary trans liberation movement, a fierce supporter of trans women's liberation, and a self-identified woman. None of these things negate eachother.
Patrick: Here are some ways I feel misunderstood as a butch:
-"Chivalry" and other social roles related to masculinity are patriarchal, therefore, butches behave how we do to attain power
-Butchness is a costume we wear or roleplay we do because we think we "have to" and could take it "off" if we "knew better". No. Butch is who we are and goes beyond expressions of it like clothes and social roles
-"Butch is a masculine presenting afab cis lesbian" viewing the sum of parts as a whole is a deep misunderstanding of our community. Some of us are trans women, non-binary, bisexual, to give some examples, and feel that lesbian masculinity can express itself outside of Butch (which is a particular identity)
-Butchness is cis/Butchness is trans. Both. Butch is anti-gender by being a gender-non-conforming identity in a cis-heteronormative power structure. It also contextualises gender identity outside of those dynamics and redeems masculinity & attraction to women for women and other gender-marginalised people to enjoy
-Butch is political. Both. You cannot depolitise Butchness in a context where we're marginalised and it has always been tied to other intersectional fights. Butch is also just a way of being, experiencing gender and sexuality, that cannot be appropriated in the name of pure politics.
What does it mean for you all to be a “DIY research group?” What does that research look like, and how are you recording/archiving these insights?
Aislinn: We say DIY, but really it's DIT (Do It Together). We have no funding, we are completely voluntary, and we'd kind of like to keep it that way. You take part in BLineages because you're getting something out of it, we rely on a network of working-class women and grassroots organisations to thrive. Our history is alive and full of nuance and subjectivity. It's an essential Feminist principle to embrace that intersubjectivity and the value of different kinds of knowledge production. As for documentation, we're kind of still figuring that out. It takes a lot of work, and raises questions of privacy and priorities. But our notes, pictures, and publication efforts all feed into the Feminist Library's living collection.
Patrick: We are DIY because we reject the methods legitimised by powerful academic institutions as the only way to find truth about us and our history. We research through combined methods, including but not limited to; lived experience, dialectics, literature, archival-non fiction, magazines and zines. We have projects coming up at the Feminist Library (which is the archive that hosts us), republishing of books, records of our sessions, and support of our members' self-publishing projects to take on the tradition of our community.
What contributions/innovations have butches made (either within the lesbian community or more broadly) that you wish more people knew about?
Aislinn: We had a great session by Oran Keaveney about the contributions of Butch Dykes to the Easter Rising in Ireland. For example there was Elizabeth O'Farrell, who was literally removed from photographs after the revolution.
Anna: It's getting mildly better but I still see everywhere that stonewall was started by Marsha p Johnson/sylvia Riviera (who we love, but themselves say they didn't start it), not by a black lesbian, probably stormé delarverie. I know that stonewall has become a massive symbol at the expense of other similar events, yet it still sucks that that butches are forgotten from the official story
Patrick: Butchness is one of the most famous lesbian subcultural identities. In a world that erases our sexuality, hirstory, etc. that's valuable. People think we're the stereotype but we're a valuable minority. The work of Butches like Feinberg is very influential to queer theory, especially now in a post-modern, neoliberal context that overfocuses on queer identity divisions and not enough on intersectional solidarity and liberation.
What have been some of the most rewarding aspects of being a part of this group?
Anna: To see a diversity of butches has been really beneficial to a) accept that I'm butch even though I'm not the totally cliché butch you see in these old US magazines, and b) realise I can model my masculinity on butches, not just on men, which I think is a healthier approach
Aislinn: People always say it's the community. We talk to elder Butches and it's lost space, lost communality. Dyke bars, squats, getting into fights at the LGBT centre, mentorship. People have come into themselves at BLineages, and they've been challenged too. We're always disagreeing about something and we handle it really well, with a lot of mutual respect.
Patrick: It's really sexy. Feeling like I belong to a community and that the way I view myself has to do with belonging to it and being in service to myself and other dykes. Feels quite revolutionary too when you look at the history and archive.
This is so beautiful. DIT!!!
Loved this post.