Butchness/selfness

I used to hate the word butch.

When I was younger, it was always such a taunt. As I've posted before, I was often teased for being masculine and as I'd been brought up with society's views of how little girls should think, act and look, I thought being masculine - being butch- was an awful thing.

I also rebelled at being feminine. I hated wearing dresses, I refused to shave my legs for a long time and whenever we played pretend, I was a boy.

When I got to be about 21 or so, I began to come to terms with my butchness. I was getting fatter, I had my head half shaved and I really, really loved being male to my partner. I don't present as male most of the time. It's not something I'm ready to do. But if I couldn't be my masculine, butch self with my boy, I doubt I'd be as sane as I am. I've been a boy in my relationships since I was sixteen, which is part of the reason I started dating girls. None of the boys I was interested in understood that, but girls, especially 16 year old bi or curious ones, tended not to care what gender I presented as in private.

Still, I've only just started to realize how much my image of myself is of this butch person. When my hair was long, I was pretty. And I appreciated it. But it felt like I was appreciating someone else. 'Oh, she's pretty. Definitely not me, but pretty,' was about all I felt about it.

Now that my hair is buzzed on the sides again, I feel so much more at home. Which is an odd feeling. Apparently I need to be able to see my scalp in order to feel like myself.

I would be sad if I were not the fat, butch, hairy, half-shaved head person that I am.

Fuck labels, really. I'm a lot of things. Several of them are contradictions. That's okay. I'm me.