Take this Am I Femme Or Butch quiz to find out which one. We update the quiz regularly and it’s the most accurate among the other quizzes.
Butch/Femme culture in the lesbian community is intricate and ever-changing. It has changed since its inception in the 1950s, and it has always been a dynamic that many have battled to effectively explain to others who don’t understand or are new to the community.
As a woman who adores butches in all their strength and tenderness, I wrote this post to provide basic background and understanding of the relationships. It is critical to remember:
(a) Because we are part of an ever-changing, tremendously diverse community, no single piece of writing can speak for all butches and femmes.
(b) Not every lesbian identifies as a Butch/Femme. Lesbians, like any other group within the LGBT2Q+ community, are an extremely diverse set of people. We live in various facets and conflicting identities, and no one should be forced to wear labels. Also, you must try to play this Am I Femme Or Butch quiz.
Am I Femme Or Butch quiz
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “butch” as a “lesbian of masculine appearance or behavior,” while “femme” is a “lesbian of feminine appearance or behavior,” but there is more to it than that. This subculture has an interesting and deep hidden history, dating back to its inception among working-class lesbian bar culture in the 1940s and its resurrection in the 1990s.
The butch/femme culture evolved in the 1940s and 1950s as a set of sexual and emotional identities among lesbians, but accurate records of when it became regular use in the gay community are difficult to come by. Butch women, according to Heidi Levitt, “extended the notion of what being female may mean by appropriating signals of masculinity—but without being awarded the social and economic power normally afforded to masculine males.” They continue to do so today. As they exhibited interest for butch lesbians rather than men, femme lesbians were “adopting a posture of active social revolt rather than one of weakness or passivity, femme-ininity took on a new form.”
With the rise in popularity of online dating, homosexual men continue to have their own butch/femme dynamics and are chastised for favoring “masc” guys.
While “butch” is still largely used by lesbians, the term is also used by nonbinary and genderqueer people. Other adjectives denoting masculinity, such as “stud” and “tomboy,” have gained popularity in some areas, while “masc” is more commonly used by homosexual men and trans individuals.
About the quiz
But “butch” has refused to be relegated to the past.
Fun Home, based on Alison Bechdel’s memoir, was the first Broadway musical to feature a butch lesbian protagonist. It’s particularly known for the moving ballad “Ring of Keys,” in which a young Allison understands her own identity for the first time when she encounters a masculine delivery woman and her enormous ring of keys. Allison describes the woman in the flashback as an “old school butch.”
When working-class bars provided safe havens for women to explore their gender presentation away from prying eyes in the 1940s, many middle and upper-class lesbians avoided interacting with the bar scene, thinking the association would tarnish their ‘respectable’ image. Furthermore, they frequently pressured butches to be more feminine to fit in and appear less threatening to mainstream society. As a result, female manual laborers dominated the bars; it was far simpler for butch women to dodge oppressive dress regulations as cab drivers or factory workers. Butches and femmes were simple to distinguish at queer bars from the 1940s through the 1960s: the butches could be identified by their men’s clothing, short hairstyles, and suave, chivalrous demeanor, whereas their femme counterparts, were more traditionally fashioned in dresses, high heels, and cosmetics.
For more personality quizzes check this: Kakashi Love Quiz.