Femme vs. Butch | Internalized Homophobia Poetry Therapy

Author’s Note: This poem addresses a lesbian community topic of femmes and butches. These terms are exclusively used by lesbians for specific purposes, but not all lesbians use them. Personally, I use “femme” and “lipstick lesbian.” This poem uses the term “tomboy” (mainstream use for straight girls) and “butch” (subculture use for masculine-presenting lesbians).

Resources explaining / discussing femme and butch lesbian subcultures.

IMPORTANT: Do not misinterpret “femme” and “butch” to decide: “Who’s the man and who’s the woman?” THAT IS NOT WHAT THOSE TERMS MEAN. There are plenty of femme–femme (aka me and my future wife) and butch–butch relationships.

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“I think the world of you…”

Begins the Facebook message.

I have not read the rest.

Guilt.

Crushing guilt.

Not guilt from pretending to be bisexual,

Guilt from past anger and resentment.

This time?

Towards my own kind.

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I knew you were a lesbian.

I’m not sure who else knew,

I never spoke the knowledge,

I didn’t hear rumors either.

“Tomboy” is a common style,

It doesn’t equate sexuality.

I don’t know how I knew,

Why I saw you as a lesbian.

If you were just a tomboy,

A girl who society thought:

“She looks and acts masculine,

But she’s still a straight girl.

Therefore no actual issue arises,

No threat towards our way of life.”

But you weren’t just a tomboy,

Were you?

You were butch,

A lesbian like me.

I was femme,

Terrified of my own kind.

Terror grew into anger,

Anger became resentment.

You were a good friend,

But a threat to my safety.*

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Didn’t you understand we needed to be hiding?

Why couldn’t you conform to Western femininity?

Didn’t you know what they’d do if they found out?

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I was always feminine.

Growing up:

I loved dolls,

I loved dresses,

I loved pink.

I looked like society wanted.

In teenage years:

I hated the Mormon version of feminine,

At least what I was exposed to in Utah.

I didn’t hate it enough to fight against it,

After all, my gender expression was safe.*

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Why did you have to be butch?

Why couldn’t you be like me?

Why didn’t you conform to rules?

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I was going to approach you,

“Hey, I think…we’re the same.”

I planned many opening lines,

Never spoke any of them.

How would that have gone?

What would you have said?

How about the follow-up line?

“Could you…not be so obvious?”

What a ridiculous and selfish thing,

Forcing you into a box to protect myself!

I outwardly aligned with “straight girl,”

But my inward emotions surely did not.

I knew I wasn’t acting on my lesbianism,

I didn’t know if you were acting on yours.

Since I could see your desire,

I was afraid others would too.

Since we were friends,

They’d link me to you.

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Did anyone know?

Other than me?

I don’t know.

I do know:

I regret it.

I should have spoken with you.

Not the selfish way I imagined,

Instead — true understanding.

Butch and femme are subcultures,

“Lesbian” is what we actually are.

Homosexual women,

Presented in different ways.

If I had no hatred of what we were,

If I had a shred of belief it wasn’t a curse,

If I had given you a chance to see me —

In the same way I could see you —

We could have helped each other.

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Disclaimer: The woman in this poem is now an out and proud lesbian, but I do not know if she uses the subculture terminology. It is merely how I viewed her during our high school friendship.

*Why was I afraid for my safety to the point where I felt strong anger towards a friend who was only kind to me? It was partially due to my personality disorder symptoms growing during teenage years, but it also reflected the very real threat of (pseudo-scientific) conversion therapy. In fact, the LDS church is famous for using conversion therapy — evidence is everywhere, but Wiki has a summarized list.

If I had been “outed” in high school, I would have been sent to my bishop (religious leader) to discuss resisting same-sex attraction. I’m 100% sure I would have killed myself after our first meeting.*

Explanations of Femme and Butch | Lesbian Subcultures

Below are some perspectives from other lesbians. These articles contain historically accurate descriptions of butch and femme, but also have the authors’ opinions on the subcultures.

• .How Butch / Femme Subcultures Allow Gay Women to Thrive (2019)
  • “Whether reclaiming femininity from the male gaze with femme or rejecting feminine gender norms by embracing butch, the subculture is intrinsically radical: it empowers lesbians to renounce patriarchal standards of beauty.”
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• Butch-Femme (2004)
  • “To give a general but oversimplified idea of what butch-femme entails, butches exhibit traditionally “masculine” traits while femmes embody “feminine” ones. Although oral histories have demonstrated that butch-femme couples were seen in America as far back as the turn of the twentieth century, and that they were particularly conspicuous in the 1930s, it is the mid-century working-class and bar culture that most clearly illustrate the archetypal butch-femme dynamic.”
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• Lesbian Identity and the Politics of Butch-Femme (1993, 2010)
  • “The critique most often leveled against [butch/femme] role-playing in the lesbian community comes from the feminist belief that all role-playing replicates the very (hetero)sexual structure from which lesbians are supposedly free. The idea that one’s sexual identity might depend on or evolve from such role-playing is considered “unenlightened,” and a sign of one’s successful socialization into the dominant ideology.”
    .
• Imitation and Gender Insubordination (1990) by Judith Butler (well-known philosopher and gender theorist)
  • “Is it not possible that lesbian sexuality is a process that reinscribes the power domains that it resists, that it is constituted in part from the very heterosexual matrix that it seeks to displace […] In other words, the negative constructions of lesbianism as a fake or bad copy can be occupied and reworked to call into question the claims of heterosexual priority.”
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• “Why can’t non-lesbians use femme?” | On the Appropriation of Femme (2016)
  • “Femme is not some sort of exclusive club. It describes a specific social position. This position was named in a deep and well-documented lesbian historical context. I believe that should be honored, not dismissed or erased.”