After being heckled by a 14 year old ("It's a hermaphrodite", which I surprisingly have not heard before), I thought I'd just feel lonesome and a bit disempowered. But there has been a surge of 'butch' media in lesbian cyber space, and the feeling was a little different. In the past week, Autostraddle ran this:
http://www.autostraddle.com/butch-please-butch-buys-a-drink-149798/
Which I quite empathised with, and then there was this too:
http://www.afterellen.com/content/2012/11/casey-legler-our-new-favorite-woman-working-male-model
As well as another one about African American butches in another online publications (ok, I lost that link).
And I know like it's not just me out there fucking with gender, so I didn't feel lonely like I usually do. But that's a double edged sword too, because in this regional high school four hours from my cosmopolitan lifestyle, my edgy butches comrades seemed as far away from me as . But I still had the knowledge that they might feel the things I do and, perhaps, they elicit the same reactions from people that I have. Sure, they do it elsewhere (on another continent, actually). But just like I was alone in the school that day, there is a butch somewhere bracing herself to go to a public bathroom. Or considering her clothing choice for that day and what that will mean for how her friends/strangers/colleagues will read her. Or some baby butch buying clothes from the menswear section for the first time.
So as I moved past lonesomeness I found a surprising roaring fire of rage. I was really pissed at this kid (and the one day before, and the one on the weekend), and pissed for other women in my shoes. The OUTRAGE was kind of liberating. And even if we're separated by distance and politeness (I wasn't going to start chatting to the cop in the street), we have a common bond. And just knowing that, not even acting on it, well, that's pretty powerful.
