A quest for authenticity: contemporary butch gender

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,  May, 2004  by Heidi M. Levitt,  Katherine R. Hiestand

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Butch as a Transgendered Identity

Butch women can be considered a part of the transgendered community, as they fall outside of traditional male and female categories (e.g., Feinberg, 1993). By altering the image of a woman, and by generating a distinctly different gender performance, they traverse the boundaries of gender. Currently, however, much writing under the rubric of "transgender" is being focused on transsexualism so that, when it is discussed, butch gender often is cast as a precondition for women who later transition into men (FtMs). Theorists or therapists who only explore processes of creating or increasing gender-sex congruence, rather than the maintenance of incongruence within transgendered identities may negate the experience and desires of butch women and contribute to the existing tensions between butch and FtM communities (for a description of these tensions see Halberstam, 1998b; Hale, 1998).

In this study, some of the women considered themselves to be "transgendered" whereas others did not use this label in their self-descriptions. A few of the women had considered gender reassignment surgery earlier in their lives as a way to find female partners or to adapt to societal expectations and pressures, but all said that, even then, they did not have an intrinsic desire to be male. When they found a community that introduced an alternative gender category (i.e., butch) they experienced a freedom from a binary construct of gender and were allowed to develop a sense of gender that validated their own transcendence. After having developed a sense of confidence in their gender identity, the participants described becoming comfortable and proud of the butch parts of themselves that had been the source of their ostracism since childhood.

Future Directions

In a recent symposium (Bess & Firestein, 2001), researchers described the difficulties in some transgendered women's support groups, as the transsexual women focused discussion on drug and surgical changes, and other group members, who did not desire biological change, remained uninvolved or left the group unaided. Although some resources are being developed to help butch and femme women to develop positive identities (e.g., Levitt & Bigler, 2003), it is important to educate counselors and therapists about multiple transgendered experiences so that a variety of options are available to the development of a positive and authentic sense of gender. Butch women can be referred to web resources, to literature, and, depending on their locale, to community activities that support their identities.

The generation of resources for butch girls and women can help them to develop a strong and positive identification as they face challenges that are unique from those faced by other lesbians. Because of their childhood confusion about their sexual orientation and gender (see Levitt & Horne, 2002), which is often experienced by others as well as by themselves, butch girls may face additional challenges in developing a healthy sense of self-esteem. They can face great discrimination and harassment because of their gender atypicality (see Herek, 1995; Levitt & Horne, 2002) and accrue stressful experiences that may continue through adulthood. Our data highlight ways in which butch experience may be in need of separate study from lesbian experience in general. As well, our results demonstrate the complexity of gender identity. Gender identity development can be multilayered and entails an internal sense of gender that is understood and comes to be performed in relation to the signification and meaning of genders within different social contexts, an identity process guided by an agentic reflexivity and desire for authenticity.