Butch flight, and how I was never butch

I came out as a dyke when I was 14 years old, and never faced any problems for it. I always liked butch women, lived in a liberal city, had wonderful, open, accepting parents, and a good strong lesbian community. But there was always something off about my gender, and I tried to come out as trans when I was 15 or 16 but just didn't know how to describe myself. So I continued identifying as a dyke, and just kind of withdrew gender-wise. I went to an all women's college and just refused to deal with my gender issues, except for a brief period during which I tried really, really hard to be a girl.

I was never "butch", I never identified as "butch" and I never felt like a butch woman. Boi, maybe, but never butch. I remember trying to differentiate my gender in my actor's bio for the Vagina Monologues (I wrote "proud to be female bodied" and the program editor changed it to "proud to be a woman" which upsets me to this day). Femmes wanted me to be butch, lesbians wanted me to be butch, but that never felt like an appropriate identity to me, and it always grated a little bit when someone used it on me.

I left Mills and ran into an old friend who had since come out as trans, and suddenly everything made sense. None of my friends ever pressured me into transitioning, or asked me if I was going to, or tried to force any kind of identity on me. I started using male pronouns of my own accord. I have decided to go on hormones because it feels right to me. I get better treatment when people see me as a butch woman than as a boy/trans man, so I don't feel like there's any societal pressure to transition. I think it's making my life harder for now, but that it is still the right decision for me.

I still date butch women, and I don't necessarily identify as 100% male, but I need to transition. The dyke community hasn't lost a butch, though, because I never was one. I'm not a "woman who became a man", I'm just a man who happened to live as a woman for a while.

Those of you who blame trans men for "butch flight" or blame a society that makes it "easier" to transition than to be a butch woman made me question myself carefully when I decided that physical transition was the right thing to do. I went through months of soul searching before I came to this decision. And you know what? It is the right thing, and it isn't hurting me or hurting you. It is making me feel more at home in my body (notice I said not socially, but bodily). I have met a lot of butch women, and I have dated a lot of butch women, and I really don't see them as a dying breed. I've certainly dated more butch women than I have trans men (and they're certainly not the same thing). And if they are a dying breed, it's not the fault of people like me, and I'm certainly not trying to "recruit" any young dykes to my "cause". I'm just living as works best for me.

People used to (and still do sometimes) think that gay and lesbian people would try to "recruit" their children and make them gay, too. This claim is, as we all know, totally 100% ridiculous. So why do modern Lesbians seem to think that trans guys are trying to pressure young butch dykes to become trans? It's just as foolish, just as strange, and just as wrong as thinking that you can make someone gay who isn't already.

I am not a misguided butch dyke, and neither are any of the other trans men I've met in my life. It just doesn't work like that.

a letter on my gender

Mom,

when I came out to you as gay when I was fourteen years old, you said you worried that my life would be harder because I was out as queer. Now you're saying it when I try to come out to you as trans. You don't believe that I am really trans. You don't believe that starting hormones and living my life the way I need to is truly necessary. I understand your fears and concerns. I know that you think that asserting myself as male will make my life unnecessarily complicated, and that it won't do anything to improve my quality of life.

You are wrong. Being true to myself is only going to increase my happiness, my well being, my ability to succeed in life more than you can ever imagine. There are many things about me, which I cannot change, that make my life harder than the average bear's. I am short, and bipolar, and queer. But I don't let these things stop me. The one that has stopped me for the longest, being bipolar, I finally have under control. And I have it under control because I'm not ignoring it anymore; it's the same with my gender identity. I'm not ignoring it anymore, and I have to act on it. Being true to myself, asserting myself, telling people to use male pronouns, taking hormones, dressing in men's clothing, changing my name - it's all necessary. And it's all good. These changes, yes, they might make some people uncomfortable. But I can't live my life based on the fear that people will reject me for being who I am.

I hope you can understand that this is the right thing for me to do, that it is not a phase, that it is not based on some vague dissatisfaction with my life. This is who I am, and just because you never saw it doesn't mean that it wasn't there.

This is my decision, and I know that it's the right one.

Love, Rowan