Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme

by Ivan E. Coyote (editor), Zena Sharman (Editor)

Lambda Literary Award finalist

American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book

In the summer of 2009, butch writer and storyteller Ivan Coyote and gender researcher and femme dynamo Zena Sharman wrote down a wish-list of their favourite queer authors; they wanted to continue and expand the butch-femme conversation. The result is All Ways Butch and Femme . The stories in these pages resist simple definitions. The people in these stories defy reductive stereotypes and inflexible categories. The pages in this book describe the lives of an incredible diversity of people whose hearts also pounded for some reason the first time they read or heard the words "butch" or "femme." Contributors such as Jewelle Gomez ( The Gilda Stories ), Thea Hillman ( Intersex ), S. Bear Bergman ( Butch is a Noun ), Chandra Mayor ( All the Pretty Girls ), Amber Dawn ( Sub Rosa ), Anna Camilleri ( Brazen Femme ), Debra Anderson ( Code White ), Anne Fleming ( Anomaly ), Michael V. Smith ( Cumberland ), and Zoe Whittall ( Bottle Rocket Hearts ) explore the parameters, history, and power of a multitude of butch and femme realities. It's a raucous, insightful, sexy, and sometimes dangerous look at what the words butch and femme can mean in today’s ever-shifting gender landscape, with one eye on the past and the other on what is to come. Includes a foreword by Joan Nestle, renowned femme author and editor of The Persistent A Femme-Butch Reader , a landmark anthology originally published in 1992. Ivan E. Coyote is the author of seven books (including the novel Bow Grip , an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book) and a long-time muser on the trappings of the two-party gender system. Zena Sharman is the assistant director of Canada's national Institute of Gender and Health.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, LGBT, Feminism, Gender, Essays, Lesbian

314 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2011

About the author

Ivan Coyote was born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. An award-winning author of six collections of short stories, one novel, three CD’s, four short films and a renowned performer, Ivan’s first love is live storytelling, and over the last thirteen years they have become an audience favourite at music, poetry, spoken word and writer’s festivals from Anchorage to Amsterdam.

Ivan E. Coyote, die k.d. lang der kanadischen Literatur, stammt aus Whitehorse, Yukon, im äußersten Nordwesten Kanadas. Sie liebt Trucks, kleine Hunde, guten Kaffee, gescheite Frauen, Lederarbeiten, Tischlern, Geschichten erzählen, Angeln, Hockey, Knoten knüpfen, Kochen, auf Bäume klettern und ihren Mittagsschlaf. Heute lebt sie mit ihrer Partnerin in Vancouver. Ivan E. Coyote hat bereits fünf Erzählbände veröffentlicht und mit Als das Cello vom Himmel fiel ihren ersten Roman vorgelegt. Sie liebt es, Geschichten zu erzählen, und hat sich neben ihrem Schreiben auch als »Spoken Word«-Performerin einen Namen gemacht.

Reviews

[Danika at The Lesbrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I could guarantee one thing, it's that at least one entry in this collection will piss you off. There are opinions all over the spectrum in this collection, and there is a lot to be debated. For example: do butch and femme constitute each other, or can you be a butch without a femme and vice versa? Are femmes more privileged by having "passing privilege", or are they invisibilized, or are people just not looking hard enough for femmes? Is the concept of "butch" too tied to whiteness to be used in an antiracist way? Can other sexualities and genders by butch or femme, or only lesbians? Where do butch and femme fit into the trans spectrum, or vice versa, or are they unconnected? It is the trans questions that are particularly divisive. But I think this range is the strength of the collection: it is a good attempt to encapsulate a broad-ranging community that is entirely in flux. And the voices are strong, so even the essays that were actively angering me were still compelling.

[Hil · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's weird seeing the low ratings for this book based on the pieces from trans-exclusionist lesbians, when i feel like those pieces exist purely to provide the context needed for the clear, concise, and entirely necessary rebuttals that follow. the anxiety and prejudice that make up the former don't hold up once you encounter the warmth and surety of the latter, but you still need to see the journey. terf stuff is anxious and angry and defensive, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. seeing it jar like that matters.

[Janine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an anthology of writings on femme, butch, and more. It looks at how these identities have evolved and what they mean to individuals. With an excellent forward by Joan Nestle and two fantastic editors--Zena Sharman and Ivan E Coyote--I was very excited for this anthology. As a young person in Vancouver, Coyote's novels represented an universe I dreamed of accessing. I remembered the euphoria at seeing how my high school librarians loved them. However, it took me this long to finally pick up a Coyote. Or rather, an anthology edited by them.

Coyote's two essays did not disappoint, nor did Sharman's essay. I thoroughly enjoyed others as well. There were some ones that were either chalk full of transphobia or painful liberalism, so I cannot think to rate this above three stars. Despite essays in this anthology contradicting others and some frustrating as hell reads, the beauty of this anthology is not lost on me. I recommend all femmes, butches, bois, and masc-of-centre Canadians read this. While it does include American writers, I do think the experience is enhanced when you are Canadian (as most of the writers are and because it's so lovely to find a Canadian LGBTQ anthology). Overall, a satisfying read that taught me a lot and made me reconsider what I know about femme and butch.

[rie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not even tryna be shady but the couple ones by explicit lesbians were the best ones…like half of the essays felt like they were nothing of substance, eye roll inducing or just plain whatever. Some of them felt like they stumbled into the wrong book or something. I don’t know, I didn’t vibe with this book the way I have other butch femme books though I feel some of this has to do with my expectations not being set correctly.

[Journey · Rating 2 out of 5]

with something so heavily theorized, it's nice to get personal narratives; but then, personal narratives can also be just as grating, self-indulgent, and/or obnoxious as theory sometimes. I liked a handful of these essays: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a wonderful, powerful, smart writer; Victoria Brownworth's commentary on how lesbian identities in the mainstream are being so straightwashed, and the forcing of lesbians to be viewed as sexually available to men, is extremely important; I also enjoyed Sasha T. Goldberg's and Chandra Mayor's pieces, and while I wasn't personally drawn to their essays, Amy Fox's and Elizabeth Marston's inclusion are notable.

that said... now there's a whole lot of essays left that I don't like and/or find terrible. There's the inclusion of a self-centered misogynist (who will go unnamed... their essay in the book may not be so grossly misogynist -- I refuse to read it -- but they sure are on their popular blog); the debatable inclusion of people who are not queer women (by which I mean men); blaming feminism for setting back butch identification by the feminist practice of hating all things male/masculine (Ivan Coyote in the introduction, and also Jeanne Cordova in "The New Politics of Butch"); offering these identities up to cis straight people ("Rogue Femininity"); and then there's the bizarre essay where a gay man talks about doing lesbian porn with his bisexual woman friend -- no, you identify as a man, she identifies as a woman, that is not lesbian in any way!

I wish there was a place for people to read the essays individually, because the essays that are good are really good, but I'm not sure that they're good enough to justify buying the whole thing in all its messy undefined glory.

p.s. alright, I'll admit "Hats Off" still gives me butterflies sometimes.

[Rachel Harlich · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a small handful of essays that I really loved and more that actually made me pretty uncomfortable or angry, like the ones that argued that cis women femmes are "straight-passing" or that butches and femme men are the only people transgressing gender.

[Lo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

An anthology on the shifting, contrasting, amorphous concepts of "butch" and "femme," whether in relation to one another, to a lover, to gender, to performance, to trans-ness, or to the queer community. I was surprised to discover how butch and femme can stand as their own identities irregardless of gender and sometimes even gender presentation, because they're unapologetically queer in a way that "masculine" and "feminine" often are not.

There were some essays in this anthology that I loved, some I thought intriguing, some I found too narrow-minded, others I just didn't like. This anthology highlights the spectrum of thoughts on and experiences with butch-ness and femme-ness that exist across the queer community, as well as all of its contradictions and annoyances. Sometimes finding a label that fits you feels like coming home; sometimes it's the labels that feel oppressive; and other times, the label feels right but the people around you have something to say. Overall, a good anthology, and one rooted in queer self-love, though a little difficult at first for people who may not be super well-versed in queer theory or terminology.

Favorite essays:
- "What We Know to Be True" by Sasha T. Goldberg
- "Split Myself Apart" by Redwolf Painter
- "Femme Cowboy" by Rae Spoon
- "baby butch" by Melissa Sky
- "Female Masculinity, Male Femininity, Feminine Masculinity, Masculine Femininity...?" by Prince Jei and Misster Raju Rage
- "Spotlight" by Deborah Anderson

[🍥 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always like to think about what audience the author had in mind when I’m reading something, whether it be a short story, essay, or full-length novel. While reading this, I struggled with that question.

I identify as a non-binary gay person, “queer” when I’m feeling extra radical, and I identified with a couple of the stories in this, especially the first few (shoutout to “Home/Sickness: Self-Diagnosis” by romham padraig gallacher!) . But as I kept reading, they begun to feel...for lack of a better word, basic. By that I mean that a lot of the pieces started feeling repetitive, and some seemed like they were written for people who had never had a conversation with a lesbian before, butch, femme or otherwise. I started skimming after Ivan E. Coyote’s “A Butch Roadmap”, and by the time I got to Nairine Holtz’s “Slide Rules” I found myself completely skipping a lot of the entries. Apparently, that was for the best, because some of my fellow LGBT goodreaders have noted that some of the essays are a little...dated, to put it mildly, downright problematic to put it extra spicy. Many of the writers, it seems, grew up in the 60s/70s/80s, so are very much products of their time - in other words, I wouldn’t be surprised that some of them have separatist, or outright TERFy rhetoric, but that doesn’t mean I should have to suffer through that when I’m reading a book I was so excited about at first.

This has been in my “want to read” for a while and I finally got it as a gift for the holidays, so I felt like I had to read through the whole thing but, honestly, it was a little meh. When I really enjoy a book, I simply can’t put it down, but trying to get through 310-pages of essays that started feeling interchangeable 1/3 of the way through felt like getting my teeth pulled. Still, I’m giving it three stars because some of the pieces were very good, but some of them couldve been omitted. The “Always Butch and Femme” subtitle implies that we’d be getting a wide variety of engagement with butch and femme identities, but many of the stories, like I said, were very similar. Perhaps this would’ve been a lot better if the book itself, as well as many of the entries, were shorter.

To save anyone reading this some trouble, my faves were:
“Ride”
“Coming Back Around to Butch”
“A Dad Called Mum”
“Never Be Hungry Again”
“Home/Sick: Self-Diagnosis”
“Looking Straight At You”
“A Butch Roadmap”
“Femme Shark Manifesto!”

[Red · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super hit or miss. Some gross gender politics (TERFy things, bizarrely essentialist things), some crappy, meandering writing. Also, and this is the strangest part for me personally, I'm in the book - as a character referred to as "S" in someone's essay about their gender development. Very strange to see a conversation I remember described and interpreted by the other person, on the page. Also makes me feel famous 💃

[Lizzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

there were so many stories that I loved and parts that I took pictures of to save but there was a lot of the book that was not it (aka transphobic)

[Avery Bagelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

there were certainly a plethora of opinions here

[Rhiannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

part of my annual yearly book exchange with my partner 🩷 finished on new year's day (only kind of late).

there is so much discourse online with the terms "butch and femme" these days. while I think the term "gatekeeping" is reductive, I do think that the fierce online debates surrounding butch/femme identity leave out the nuances of the lived experiences of generations of lesbians and queer people. Young people (often very, or even very very young people) will definitively proclaim that butch and femme are specific identities, without considering that identity is deeply personal self-determined, rather than a prescriptive, static thing.

I also have preconceived ideas of butch and femme identities, as related to my own identity, community, desires, and other beliefs. Some of the essays in this collection made me uncomfortable at times. These are shared identities -- it can be difficult to navigate, uncomfortable, and can even feel personally threatening when someone claims the same identity as you, but expresses and relates to it so differently. This is especially complex for a marginalized group, which has been historically forced to vy for mainstream understanding and acceptance for survival purposes.

I would recommend this collection of essays to anyone who is willing to step out of the comfort of that rhetorical world and into the lived experiences of queer people, many with vast, deep, and sometimes contradictory experiences with gender and lesbian identity. yes, I was occasionally uncomfortable -- but I also felt incredibly seen. I think that seeing of (and being seen by) one another is something that is incredibly important for our community more than ever, especially as it continues to face the expectations and misunderstandings of the heterosexual and heteronormative world.

also I 🫶 butches

[Jean Roberta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thick collection of essays and manifestoes, with some poems, short fiction and brief autobiographies mixed in, is a current report on the diversity of queer gender identities in the twenty-first century. Its title is similar to that of an earlier book, The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, originally published in 1992. Joan Nestle, a legendary femme writer who remembers the early Gay Rights movement, edited the first anthology. As she says in the foreword to the current book:

"When Ivan and Zena told me of their soon-to-be-published collection, which you now hold in your hands, I did not react well."

As she explains, the title seemed too close to that of her own book. However, Nestle eventually calmed down. She came to believe that the current book, like the earlier one, represents a certain zeitgeist:

"The voices of another generation, of other cultural positions, new possibilities of gender discourse, and erotic adventuring are presented here, and these extend in complex ways the passionate and embattled conversation of the now out-of-print Persistent Desire."

The cover image of the current paperback says it all: a drawing of an androgynous-looking brown person of unclear ethnicity seems to be looking into a mirror as s/he applies lipstick (fuschia, slightly darker than the pink background) to her/his full lips. This person is either contemplating her (?) own image or that of the viewer. The artist, Elisha Lim, has said with lines and colour what the other contributors say in many words.

All the pieces in this book are worth reading, but some more than others. Besides Joan Nestle, lesbians of the Old Guard (who were “out” in the era of the Stonewall Riots of 1969) are represented by Jewelle Gomez, Victoria Brownworth and Jeanne Cordova. These voices from a time when butch and femme identities seemed mandatory in most gay/lesbian bars all lament the attempt of the lesbian-feminism of the 1970s/80s to simply erase “sex roles” as relics of patriarchal thinking. They also comment on the “mainstreaming” of the LGBT community in our time, and the effect this has had on gender identity.

In “A Butch Roadmap,” editor Ivan E. Coyote writes movingly of her/his sense of being exiled by the Pride Committee of Winnipeg, when they tried to make Pride Week “family friendly” by banning “extremists,” including drag queens and butch women.

Among the younger contributors, there are quite a few Canadians. This is probably not surprising for a publication from a Canadian press, but it seems unusual for the topic. Zoe Whittall (award-winning novelist who writes about 20-somethings in Toronto) brilliantly contrasts an older (more closeted) butch writer with a younger (more comfortable with Facebook) femme writer on a book tour in a short story, “A Patch of Bright Flowers.” The argument between the two writers serves as foreplay, and they agree not to write about what will happen between them after the hotel-room door closes in the last paragraph.

Another award-winning Toronto writer, Nairne Holtz, writes sensibly about being the femme in a long-term relationship with a lover who is sometimes mistaken for a man. In her essay, “Slide Rules,” she says: “What makes one person butch and another femme in a couple is hard to pin down yet easy to recognize.”

A third award-winning Canadian novelist, Amber Dawn, writes movingly about being both femme and a sex worker in “To All the Butches I Loved Between 1995 and 2005: An Open Letter about Selling Sex, Selling Out, and Soldiering on.”

Jeanne Cordova includes a graph named “A Post-Trans Butch Continuum” after referring to Karl Marx’s comment that technology defines the direction of social change. In her youth, even the most masculine of female-born people could not have defined themselves as transmen because transitioning from female to male via hormones and surgery just wasn’t possible then.

Some of the contributors seem so gender-fluid (including Elaine Miller, who coins the term “futch” for someone who is femme and butch by turns or simultaneously) that the exact meaning of “femme” or “butch” in their conceptual worlds seems unclear, as is their difference from 1970s lesbian-feminists who advocated androgyny for all. Perhaps the difference between old-style androgyny and new-style genderqueerness has to do with acceptance of those whose conception of a “lesbian lifestyle” is different from one’s own.

The “FEMME SHARK MANIFESTO!” (in capital letters) by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a rousing call-to-arms and a definition of fierce, queer femininity: “FEMME SHARKS WILL RECLAIM THE POWER AND DIGNITY OF FEMALENESS BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. WE’RE GIRLS BLOWN UP, TURNED INSIDE OUT, AND REMIXED.” This piece is notably anti-racist as well as anti-misogynist.

Space does not allow me to do justice to this book. It needs to be read aloud, discussed and debated. It will not be the last word on gender identity in lesbian space, but it seems unlikely to be become outdated any time soon. It covers a very large territory, both geographically and philosophically.
--------------------------------

[Margaret Adams]

Picked up a copy of this at my friend Dave’s house in Santa Barbara – never met the roommate who it belonged to. A mix of stories, analysis, & stories-as-analysis, some very good, some much less so. The personal is political, etc.

[Iskra Ryder · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating takes on butch and femme as identities

[Gabriel H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rich, broad collection. Some of it's aged poorly, some of it feels exceptionally prescient. Not quite my gender(s) for the most part, but definitely some good folks in the general neighborhood. It's good to know your neighbors, everyone.
I started listing out favorite pieces but it got long enough that it stopped feeling entirely useful as an endeavor, which is a pretty positive note.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 mostly good but some of the essays were so weird about transness i can’t go higher
anyway. Women. that is all folks

[Logan]

DNF p. 121 can’t believe I’m saying this but I need a break from lesbian anthologies…will return to this later 💜

[Eliot Fiend · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved it.
a few words of my greatest appreciation: thanks for helping me learn the names of my ancestors and remember to remember them.

our butch and femme and genderfucked, trans, genderqueer, in-between stories are all too easily silenced and whitewashed over even over a decade, a generation. books like this are important for young queers to read (and without having read it yet, "persistent desire" is now definitely on my reading list for the same reason.)

this book broadened my understanding of butch-ness and femme-ness. i appreciated the diversity of perspectives, and particularly the pleasurable spectrum and storytelling of how butch and femme-ness have shifted in definition over the past few decades.
it helped me to accept and develop new narratives for understanding the increase of young masculine female-assigned people transitioning, to appreciate the legacy of feminist and lesbian thinking to creating the queer space that exists now, and to understand my own place and political choices in a rapidly evolving gender landscape.

in particular, i loved joan nestle's forward and jeanne cordova's essay, "the new politics of butch." amy fox's "changed sex. grew boobs. started wearing a tie." is a sharp and insightful narrative of transbutch experience which i had not encountered and so appreciated. "me, simone, and dot" by chandra mayor is a highlight among other essays that address generational understanding of gender and the concept of 'failure'--to be a woman, or failure to be a man.

almost as much as i appreciated the essays and stories, the paragraph bios of the many authors reflect a thrilling landscape of organizations, publications, blogs, and connections to the life-long work of these amazing people. i can't imagine being in a room of these authors--i would swoon hard--and getting to be in a room with their work, knowing they're out there, is definitely swoon-worthy.

and of course, the "femme shark manifesto," "baby butch: a love letter from the future," and ivan coyote's "hats off" letter to "all the beautiful, kick-ass, fierce, and full-bodied femmes out there" are the indispensable and so important trani-femme-manifestos that push these stories into calls...for recognition, stepping into our power, for our communities to shape themselves so that we all fit, to stop policing ourselves and each other and find the language and path to move forward in our most powerful and brilliant (and sometimes wild and incoherent) selves.

[Zoe Kozak · Rating 2 out of 5]

Other reviewers are VERY right about finding essays that will piss you off. I thought it was okay, some made me feel really seen. But, boy was it dragged down at times... there were some very, very brilliant people in here, and other eye-roll, teeth gritting inducing transphobic, misogynistic idiots. 3/5.

EDIT: I'm actually bumping this down to a 2/5. Trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) transphobic rhetoric is present in many chapters in this book concerning butch lesbians (not to mention non-binary lesbians). "The trans agenda is turning our butches into men! We can't be gender non-conforming without transsexuals turning our precious lesbians into men!"

This is TERF rhetoric that no trans person actually subscribes to, much less transfeminists. It was a little enraging. It's historically been acknowledged (in several chapters, no less) that transmasculine (transitioning to be masculine, not necessarily a man) butches have been a part of the lesbian/butch community since it's inception, even if those individuals at the time were unaware and only transitioned later. Perhaps a butch becoming himself is a good thing?

There is no shortness of butch in the world-- the identity will not die out, especially since so many of these "transsexualized butches" haven't been brainwashed out of being butch, and to say so is both ignorant, misogynistic, and transphobic. Why is empowerment and transition not to be celebrated? Is a butch becoming more masculine (much less a man! the horror!) a bad thing? Why can't transphobic lesbians support those "ex"-community members in their transition?

It goes without saying that these TERFs entirely exclude transgender women. Apparently, butch doesn't include transmasculine individuals, nor can butch or femme include transgender women. Some of these cis lesbians need to take a hard look internally and move on.

[C.E. G · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Some of the essays here were fantastic, but mostly I felt like they were written for a different crowd. As you can guess from the title, the essays here talk about butch and femme - being one or both or bouncing between the two. But there wasn't much about being neither, which is something I've been aching to read about. Not the fault of the book, but an explanation for why it wasn't a personal 5-star read.

Still, a lot of good writing, and I appreciated the diversity of voices, even if one or two of them pissed me off for being a little trans- or andro-phobic (ugh, just looked up androphobic, and it means fear of men. but what I mean here is dislike of androgyny, which I felt in Victoria Brownworth's essay). Plus, it's a very Canadian collection, and I like to think I'm very Canadian at heart.

And again, I want a poster of this book cover.

[For Books' Sake · Rating 3 out of 5]

"At times simplistic, at times sentimental, at times uncomfortable and alienating, despite its flaws overall Persistence makes for fascinating reading. With a contributors’ list featuring authors, performers, artists and activists, there’s a diverse range of identities and experiences represented, from butch pregnancy to femme invisibility to sex work and all sorts that’s inbetween."

(Excerpt from review of Persistence: All Ways Butch & Femme at For Books' Sake)

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edited by the impressive team of Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sharman—an adorable married couple (see photo below)—the collection Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme (2011) certainly does live up to its name. It’s refreshing to see an anthology reflect a remarkable diversity of perspectives on these two loaded concepts and identities. It’s exactly what you’d expect from the Vancouver-based Ivan—a storyteller and writer—and Zena—a radical government bureaucrat and gender researcher, and from the fantastic queer-friendliest publisher Arsenal Pulp Press.

See the rest of my review at my blog: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wor...

[Liv · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several of these essays are excellent! However, it’s a bit dated... I mean... I guess it’s interesting in a way to read that weird perspective some butches and femmes had that non-binary and trans ppl were erasing butch/femme culture. But... eyeroll! Very diverse group of writers in terms of background, ethnicity, gender orientation, age, mental health, (dis)ability. Funny how much focus there was on butch/femme couples. Not much femme 4 femme representation which would have been nice. Read this for a book club and it sparked a lot of good discussion, debate. A good read overall!

[Adina]

I picked this up because I unabashedly love Ivan's work and thought I would learn a lot from it. I did. Some of the essays are beautiful and moving, but over half way through the book I had to put it down.

Everyone is entitled to their own self definition, but the labels and definitions feel limiting and prescriptive. To be fair, I should have expected that from the concept of the book.

Maybe I'll pick this up again in a few years and read through the essays that speak to me.

[Felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these were powerful and beautiful and great, and some of these just seemed to valorise (cis women) butch and femme identities at the expense of androgyny, trans* and other queer identities, which was just effing punishing, tbh. There really was a broad spectrum of essays and pieces, though, and many that I really enjoyed reading.

[Sadifura · Rating 2 out of 5]

im sorry but the transphobic and transmisogynistic essay about butch/gay male flight was disgusting. aside from a few good essays that and the pretty uniform experiences of butchness and femmeness really signaled to me that as a nonbinary person who's gender can't neatly be categorized I really don't belong in this space or have a space in relating to this

[daydreamingfemme · Rating 4 out of 5]

I deem this as a necessary read, even though I didn’t enjoy all of it.

Personally, the pros outweighed the cons. There were certain essays that I had to will myself through, certain quotes that were invalidating; even times where things were called “lesbian” when in truth, they weren’t in the slightest.

There was a handful of essays that either didn’t stand out to me or were just upsetting. And when I have my own copy, I’ll be ripping out certain pages :) Yet, still, I found myself in a lot of these pages, which is why the rating is more positive than this review.

Butch and femme are stand-alone identities, even though we can serve as each other’s rock within the community. It isn’t a requirement to couple up with the other if you identify as one. After all, there are lesbians who either identify with both or identify with neither. But there were no essays addressing femme4femme couples, and only one or two addressing butch4butch.

There is an amount of transphobia and downright nonsensical opinions that are bound to piss people off. Despite that, I personally didn’t feel the need to skip any pages. I was fully attentive throughout all of it, even when I heavily disagreed with some parts.

I did enjoy getting to see people of different identities voice out their experiences. It broadens your horizons and creates more empathy.

Although I understand that butch and femme are identities with evolving definitions and are becoming more inclusive… I don’t like how it was starting to include men, cis-women, and bisexuals. I was happy to see bisexuals being acknowledged in a queer anthology, but there comes a line where it starts to negate lesbianism. There was a certain essay (that will go unnamed) that claimed lesbianism because a feminine man had sex with a bisexual woman.

???

Moving on…

I loved the storytelling aspect of some essays. I love how it was mostly Canadian. I loved how it acknowledged queer people of colour, queer disabled people, and fat queer people. Certain pages gave me a flutter. I really felt like I learned something once I put it down.

Some of the essays are so deeply personal that I admired the writers for being so vulnerable.

And when I felt like I was pushing through most of the second half, the last “Hats Off” essay really turned it around for me. The writer that you are, Ivan E. Coyote.

I don’t regret reading this in the slightest :)

Here are my favourites (biased because I’m a femme):

• “Ride”
• “Never Be Hungry Again”
• “Looking Straight At You”
• “We Know What To Be True”
• “Split Myself Apart”
• “With Both Fists”
• “A Guide To Getting Laid by a Girl in Lipstick and High Heels”
• “Rethinking High Maintenance”
• “baby butch”
• “FEMME SHARK MANIFESTO!”
• “Spotlight”
• “Hats Off”

[Xo🦇🐈‍⬛ · Rating 3 out of 5]

TW: Biphobia, Transphobia(like active from one of the writers) , Fatphobia, Gender Dysphoria, Homophobia (Internalized and Mentions of external)

I don’t know what rating to give this book. There are so many passages I would recommend to someone learning about the butchfemme dynamic or recently joining the community (just like me). However, some passages had a talent for dragging on and one passage rubbed me the wrong way to the point of taking a break from this book. Due to the fact it’s an anthology, I would recommend some passages but not the entire book.

Some passages contradict each other so heavily it’s not even a game. You will have beautiful works about being femme and how it ties to the trans experience or how someone’s trans identity….And then you will read a passage that actively shits on trans people smack dabbed in the middle (which I find strange cause Ivan E Coyote is nonbinary). You will have a passage discussing how masculinity can be fluid and how if we (queer people) few it as rigid, it limits us. And another passage will talk about how rigid masculinity is and how it holds them back. One passage will discuss how the butch-femme dynamic is important to queer gender and how butches and femmes are siblings in arms…..Another passage says fuck that. I get that everyone has different perspectives but some serious editing needed to be done. This book was supposed to be about the butch-femme community. All of us. Some of these passages don’t really embody that community.

But one thing I loved was the diversity in this anthology. I admire the fact the Coyote and Sharman highlight trans, BIPOC and disabled voices. Voices that are usually silenced in our community despite their impact. I also like how they acknowledge how butch-femme dynamics aren’t lesbian exclusive (although, they do highlight lesbian butch-femme dynamics). The book also references some really good resources that I would also recommend (Butch is A Noun and Brazen Femme be two that stuck out) Anyways here are some passages I would recommend!

- Coming Back Around to Butch
- A beautiful creature
- Never Be Hungry Again
- Home/Sickness
- Brother Dog
- Between My Fingers
- Masculine of Centre,Seeks her refined femme
- Me, Simone and Dot
- Split Myself Apart
- With Both Fist
- Rogue Femininity
- Changed Sex. Grew Boobs. Started Wearing a Tie
- The New Politics of Butch
- Spotlight
- Femme Shark Manifesto
- A Failed Man

[Pearl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This hit me like a tonne of bricks, like a comet from out of space, like any other cliche you can think of.

I’ve only recently begun putting effort into my outward appearance regularly. It’s embarrassing to say that my teens traumatised me this thoroughly...but they did. It was a combination of never wanting to be seen to make too much effort (because then the ridicule hurts more right?) and my clumsy understanding of what feminism meant. I spent years in overalls, hair shaved off, no makeup on, mumbling my own little mantra ‘I don’t have to be palatable’

But here’s a thought: maybe I want to be palatable. Not for cis men, but for my own people. Maybe someone who has a nine step skincare routine, who watches the amount of YouTube make up channels I do (for relaxation), and who loves a nice dress could be feminine. Or at least adopt aspects of femininity that appeal to only me. A shorthand of fish-nets, unshaven underarms and dangling pearl earrings meant for no one but other girls. A Dimestore Diamond as The Gossip sings.

The essays in this collection opened my eyes to a whole spectrum of lesbian experience outside of the androgynous cool that surrounds me here in Berlin. Some essays (Laiwan, Ivan Coyote, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Debra Anderson) hit me more than others, but I think there’s something for everyone in here.

Some of these essays will annoy the shit out of you, and that’s good too. Read this book. Something in it is bound to speak to the little sewn up pocket in your soul.