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They drive pick-ups, they know how to fix your sink, they pay for drinks and they could destroy you in a fight, writes Gail C. Bush. Representing half of the major lesbian dual-subtype, the butch is perhaps the better known, more talked about, and certainly more visible type of lesbian.

And certainly, there are butches who do none of the things listed above, but there are some who do some of them, and few who do all of them.

Taking the time to browse through the different manifestations of ‘typical’ butchness would fill a book (and has), since the range of behaviors of butch women is as varied and diverse as any could be.  But there are expectations for behavior, dress, and even mannerisms.  If there weren’t any, after all, the butch identity wouldn’t be identifiable at all.

On the other side of the social-constructivist identity spectrum is the femme.  Of course, members of the LGBT community are already familiar or gaining familiarity with the countless spaces in between.  But not every queer woman can cut it as butch.  Some of just don’t know much or care much about cars, or being handy.  But they insist they aren’t femme; they’re butch, kind of.

The dandy butch

But there’s another way.  Throughout time there have been men who aren’t really that manly, and it is from these men that another kind of butch identity can be developed.  This one takes pages from the aristocrats, the dandies, the partiers.  It takes pages from the kind of man who wears cufflinks and has literary and artistic pretensions, but no practical skills whatsoever.

This butch is well-dressed, but never streamlined, never minimalist.  Colors are vibrant, cuts are daring, and the appropriateness is questionable.  This butch plays cards while drinking scotch, she bets confidently and loses.  She buys her friends a round with money she just lost.

All the eccentricities allowed wealthy men will be allowed to this butch woman.  She goes out before dawn in a vain attempt to augment her bug collection, like some Victorian gent who read too much Darwin.  She gets up late, or very, very early, to cram as much time being elegant and eccentric into the day.

In short, she’s an extravagant, magnanimous and well-dressed failure. This kind of butch would allow queer women to simultaneously have a great deal of fun with few consequences, while they do it all with a butch identity that is different in flair and style than any of the previously seen femme or soft-butch identities.

It’s a throwback, of course, to the idle, partying aristocrat, or the dandy, the kind  that spend hard, drink hard, and live extravagantly.  If the individual is so inclined, there’s room for gentlemanly behavior and honor as well, but generally total debauchery should be aimed for.

Perhaps the most important feature of this new butch, however, is that the woman have no level of toughness of ability to do any physical labor whatsoever.  A natural inclination towards laziness is prized in this type.  Being handy is totally out, being able to fight her own fights is inconceivable.  Instead of discussing tools, cars, or working, the dandy butch can talk about cigars or Proust.

A new kind of queer

All frivolity aside, the real point is that ‘feminine’ men are still men.  The key to the dandy butch identity is to take elements of this kind of masculinity and incorporate it into individual queer woman’s identity, thus creating something new.  The dandy butch might or might not ultimately identify as female, even though elements of her behavior, mannerism and dress are inspired by the aristocratic man, bohemian or dandy mentioned above.

It’s always a challenge to talk about the manifestations of gender identity, since a one-size-fits-all approach is reductive and futile.  The conditional must be applied; without specific examples, everyone is dealing with abstractions and generalizations.

That being said, the dandy butch may approach something like androgyny, constructing parts or all of her gender identity from male aristocratic behavior. This behavior, as mentioned before, is not necessarily the first thing people think of in association with “maleness,” but at the same time is not female.

With the contemporary understanding of gender identity as constructed and not intrinsic, women have the power to be flexible.   Women have the power to create their gender identities, to follow their own inclinations in order to build the self in a way that works for the individual, without referencing a rigid standard.

The dandy butch represents a kind of butch identity drawn, in part, from other places than more common or visible butch identities..  It allows the queer woman to identify as butch even if she feels little connection to other current and past manifestations.  In the end, the proposal of  this butch identity is meant to offer more flexibility and more autonomy in the construction of gender identity.

So whether or not individual manifestations include gambling, debauchery and acute laziness is not important.  What is important is the power queer women have to construct their identity in a way that answers to them, and to give them the freedom to legitimately call it “butch,” even if it is a radically different and unconventional butch.

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