#presentinglesbian

"Wait", I may hear you ask. "Aren't lesbians, you know, women?"

Well... often yes. (Though there are some who are not women, and identify as other genders, such as non-binary, like me.) However, there are also specific gender identities that lesbians may use to describe their identities in more detail, using gender markers unique to lesbians, most notably butch and femme.

In Western popular culture, butch and femme are held in opposition to one another and are often paired in romantic or sexual couplings, seen as a sort of gay version of a heteronormative man-woman pairing. But there is so much more nuance to these personas than these assumptions of butch and femme gender identities.

Multiple authors, like Lucy Jones, Alison Eves, and Don Kulick consider butch and femme identities to be subversive critiques of the hegemonic position of heterosexuality, created in specific contexts. These identities are distinct forms of gender presentation, play, and even erotic role-play, used in the mirroring of desire, approaches to emotional connection, and other aspects of gender and sexuality. They are spectrums of feminine identity, using conscious choices of styles, gender performance, and stereotypes to build distinctly lesbian personas.

Butch identity is not necessarily the acceptance of 'masculine' ways of doing and being, but instead a rejection of the 'feminine' ways. There may be a focus on the feminine stereotypes of dress (skirts, long hair), behaviour (polite, nurturing), posture (sitting upright, taking up little room), and so on, and a distinct choice to not follow those stereotyped behaviours. Rather than being an inversion of feminine gender to masculine gender, butch is instead a projection of a specifically lesbian gender identity, distinct from both normative femininity and masculinity.

Femme identity, on the other hand, is a different projection of lesbianism as gender. Feminine stereotypes, especially regarding style and beauty, are leaned into and subverted. Presentations of femininity or hyper-femininity are used to comment and critique heteronormative standards by emphasizing certain aspects of visual appearance and behaviour, while embodying other non-normative feminine practises, namely attraction to, and relationships with, other feminine people.

Both butch and femme lesbian genders are used as, "specific patterns of sexual practice and desire, as well as being subversive re-appropriations of masculinity and femininity". However, since there are so many different ways of presenting butch, femme, or otherwise, there is a bit of an issue with homogenizing so many different identities into two very general categories. Historically, lesbian gender identities (as well as queer people in general) have been grouped together for cultural, political, and academic purposes, despite there being a huge variation in identity, presentation, and community practises. While these identities all subvert the mainstream gender and sexual structures of Western society, they all have a range of different practises, ideologies, and performances. Additionally, butch and femme are lesbian genders used by relatively few people, and lesbian as a label also does not include other cultural perspectives on gender and sexual identity. In academic studies on lesbian identity, many do not take other WLW or other gendered attraction into account (whether that be those who are not women, who experience multiple gendered attraction, or otherwise do not identify as lesbian), and also do not note the other categories which play into identity-building, such as racialisation, class, age, (dis-)ability, and so on. Keep these issues in mind when reading my posts, or others' works on lesbian gender identity.

No, this is not the name of a B-film from the 1950s (although, that sounds like one of those films that would be so bad it's somehow good?). Instead, this is a post about how style and other visual elements are meaningful forms of discourse in creating and maintaining identity, such as, as is in the theme of this blog, lesbian gender.

Clothing and other visual identity markers are one way to communicate one's identity to the world. Style carries a lot of meaning in association, from cultural references and subcultural ties to stereotypical roles and ideologies. As such, clothing is a powerful form of discourse in the creation and maintenance of identity, community, and practise. Through the use of style, beauty, and other visual messages, "the body becomes part of a system of signification".

Style can also be used as a way to signify the characteristics that are important to a person or a community. Through the production of visual discourses of appearance, the connected meanings can be used in the construction of space, subcultural communities, and discourses that challenge hegemony. For example, in Lucy Jones' papers, there are frequent references to the Sapphic Stompers, a UK-based butch lesbian hiking group. Through the style of the members of the group and the stereotypes connected to their appearances, the group's collective identity as lesbians, feminists, hikers, and butches is projected.

Both butch (as with the Stompers) and femme are general identities that fall on a spectrum of different gender presentations and identities within the lesbian community. While these are the two most visible lesbian gender identities, there are many who do not identify as specifically femme or butch. However, similar discourses can be used to create other meanings regarding femininity, lesbianism, and the related roles, power dynamics, and agency associated with femininity, masculinity, and/or androgyny.

In the below videos by lesbian YouTubers Jessica Kellgren-Fozard and Stevie Boebi, there are a variety of different lesbian gender presentations explored and interpreted. The looks play off of different subcultures, stereotypes, and roles, and are all different expressions of femininity within lesbian gender identities.

As noted within this first video, different identity categories can be reflected through only clothing. For example, the first outfit ('dark cottagecore' - on the basis of the internet subculture of 'cottagecore') was first interpreted by Jessica as a 'Los Angeles witch' lesbian: a reflection of gender, sexual orientation, geography, and religion!

Each of the styles in these two videos is also a subversion of hegemonic and heteronormative femininity. The outfits are being worn by feminine people, commenting on different presentations of femininity, in a way that mirrors lesbian desire, power, and ideologies.

However, the meanings indexed by the visual styles are contextually based. Performance does not depend on the actions of the speaker (or wearer), but instead on the forms and meanings that exist elsewhere. If these outfits were worn in different places, or when interacting with different people, the interpretations of the styles may be different. However, in any case, these outfits will carry meaning to both the wearer, as well as the viewer.

What are the features of lesbian language? If I'm making a whole post (and, arguably, a whole blog) about the topic, there must be some pretty big differences that characterise lesbian speech, especially between different lesbian genders, right?

Nope.

There are zero (0) features that fully distinguish lesbian speech from other people's language.

Lesbian language technically doesn't exist.

So, what am I even writing about, right? Well, it is true that there are no features that make lesbian language unique. There are stereotypes about lesbian language, such as flat intonation and heavy cursing. However, any features that can be analysed as 'lesbian' or 'gay' features are also used by multiple other groups of people. For example, multiple multiple studies have been done on both gay male and lesbian intonation patterns, and none of them have been conclusive in determining specific intonation patterns as 'gay'. But, to answer my question at the beginning of this paragraph, I can write about history, and, more importantly, indexicality.

Historically, lavender linguistics - the study of Queer language - had primarily focussed on lexicon, especially in studies between approximately the 1940s and 1970s. Some specific words are used by queer people within queer communities, as quoted by Sonenschein in Kulick's "Gay and Lesbian Language", specific terminology can be used to "reflect the common interests, problems, and needs of the population", for example, in this video. This is true, that specific words may be used in Queer contexts, but words alone do not fully make a language - you need grammar, emotion, context, and so many other things to create meaning.

In more recent studies of lesbian language use, there is more of a focus on how context and indexicality are used to create lesbian language and identity, rather than just the words in use. Indexicality is defined as the ways that language is used which become connected to certain identities, such as 'lesbian', or a more specific lesbian gender, like 'butch'. The language used by people identifying as lesbians, depending on the context of its use, can index their membership with the lesbian community, or ideas important within specific lesbian communities of practise. Playing with linguistic styles, especially those which are associated with different groups can index other identities.

For example, a combination of stereotypically women's language (with the use of hypercorrect grammar or tag questions, you know?), stereotypically working-class men's speech (with features like cursing, @#$%^&!), stereotypically gay men's language (with the use of certain terminology, girl), and stereotypically lesbian language (with flat intonation) can be combined to create a form of language that is associated with lesbians and lesbian identity.

As such, associating with an identity and a specific form of language can be an active way to construct and perform gender and sexual identities, depending on the context of the person, speech community, and interaction.