I referred to someone idly as a dyke the other day and she said, "I'm no dyke!" although her Facebook profile intimated that she was into women.  I looked at a photo, saw long hair and light dawned.  "Oh HO!" quoth I to myself, "She is one of many lesbians who think that dyke equates to butch."  So I returned to the relevant chat window and said, "Dyke doesn't equal butch these days, we've reclaimed it from being a derogatory term applied by homophobes and have made it into a good, strong word we can all use."  Well alright I didn't say all that and certainly not so eloquently, but that was the gist of it.  Then I felt the need to define myself for some reason and so I said, "I, however, am butch."

Butch is a label I've only started applying to myself relatively recently.  My lesbian "career" was launched when I had hair well past my shoulders and dressed like a hippie - I was a novelty in those days, even in London.  Now I am nearer East London and my hair is closely cropped and sometimes shaved.  In the interceding years I have sported more than one of the Twelve Sacred Lesbian Hairstyles, decided I wasn't ugly after all, sneered like James Dean for dating site profile pictures and called myself a boi.  Despite the myriad ads that require queers to be "straight acting and looking" and all the lesbian ones who sternly declaim, "No butches!" as if we were dogs unwelcome in pubs, I (pardon my arrogance, but it's true) have never been short of a date.

When I was in my twenties, butch was a word I associated with bad haircuts, badly fitting jeans, enormously baggy t-shirts and cellphones clipped to waistbands.  I am still a style freak, although my clothes are almost invariably men's clothes, they're often Armani and in general, what I wear is designer, doll.  To restore some credibility though, remembering that we live in Africa, where those kinds of labels really are a ludicrous luxury, I have to tell you that most of my stuff was bought second hand off market stalls in the UK.  So there.  Back on track, I like to quote Kate Clinton, who calls herself, "A stylish butch."  Good clothes, good silver jewellery (preferably of Scandinavian design), old skool sneakers or expensive boots - that's me.  The only reason I've stopped using boi is that my hair is greying fast and my waist is thickening and well, I've grown up some.

Labels can be pretty fluid and while I wear boxers and walk like a man, I'm not much use at DIY unless you're talking about masturbation.  I can put a fence up, but have never hung a picture.  I can change lightbulbs, but not plugs.  I do laundry, wash up, cook - but I haven't ironed a thing since sometime back in the nineties.  I don't ever open car doors for dates, but sometimes I open normal doors for them.  I tend to carry the heavy stuff, but often end up looking like an idiot when my smoker's lungs cave in and I begin to resemble a wheezing beetroot.  As for that tired old "butch on the streets, femme in the sheets" adage - all I have to say about that is, "Pffft!" followed by a rant on the fluidity of roles and the endless, endless joys of sex without rules.

As a butch with a grin, I reckon we're all entitled to label ourselves, or not, however we want to.  I recognise the beauty of the word 'androgyne' and the strength of the word 'femme.'  I respect women who just want to be defined as women who love women - it's just that it takes so long to say.  Looking back at queer history, I salute every single butch who stood up there, out and proud and all of those who got bashed for it.  I think people in general need a little education on the difference between 'butch' and 'transgender.'  There is less than nothing wrong with either designation, but I am one and not the other, because I have absolutely no desire to be a man. 

We use the terms masculine and feminine to express so much more than the boringly binary gender system.  We use it, because we are conditioned by society to; to define how we are supposed to look and act and think.  You can call me masculine if that floats your boat, but what I am is a woman and I define my own terms.  I am a woman who dresses in clothes that shops and magazines have decided are for men.  I care more about my opinions than theirs, it's as simple as that.  I am female and a feminist and yet society would raise its collective eyebrows if I called myself feminine.