Bergman - Butch is a Noun

PRAISE FOR BUTCH IS A NOUN

This book is illuminating, emotional, thought-provoking, and respectful. The authors not afraid to roll up hir sleeves and get in the muck of it all: the fear, the anger, the passion, the loss, the delight, the benefits, the grief, the discovery, the confusion, and the certainty. This is the book that had me crying, laughing, and reading aloud to friends and my lover.
Books to Watch Out For

Human beings, as a rule, are pack animals. We seek the comfort and safety found in the company of commonality, the relief at being recognized for who and what we are. For those of us who have strayed from or strain against the dominant two-party gender system, finding ones true people can be a whole lot more complicated. This book is tangible proof that I belong to a sacred brotherhood. A rogue nation, complete with its own customs, code of honor, proud history, and even the odd secret password. Bergmans butch identity is not an apologetic footnote found on the second to last page of an essay on womanhood, or a misogynist romp through the locker room of unexamined masculinity. Somehow, the hero of this story manages to tiptoe through the minefield of gender theory in steel-toed boots, dodging dogma and crushing clichs, pulling off pirouettes around political correctness and sidestepping all stereotypes. This book should be a standard part of every butchs survival kit, right beside a sharp pocketknife, a clean handkerchief, and Dads old Zippo lighter.
Ivan E. Coyote, author of Missed Her and Bow Grip

Butch is a Noun, and also a brave, whipsmart, and passionately human tour through a portion of the gender/cultural map normally marked Here Be Dragons, to which author S. Bear Bergman is a most insightful, funny, and gracious native guide.
Hanne Blank, author of Virgin: The Untouched History

Im not sure I can even begin to describe how good Butch isa Noun is: its funny, and charming, and substantialmuch as I suspect its author is as well. I found myself wishing that there were 365 of Bears stories so that I could read one every day as a kind of meditation The charm of Butch is a Noun is that it takes its subject both seriously and with humor, but a gallows kind of humor, one that helps you survive a difficult world. There is no mistaking the undercurrent of sadness and anger, but the humor and love overwhelm both, as they should in any book about being butch. I really cant recommend this book more highly: it made me laugh first, then cry some, think seriously about the world, and by the end I felt Id been given a great big Bear hug.
Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Lifewith a Crossdresser

Bears poetry of butchness lets us see into facets of gender that usually arent so transparent. And made me fall in love with butches all over again.
Carol Queen, author of The Leather Daddy and the Femme

BUTCH
is a NOUN

essays by S. Bear Bergman

Arsenal Pulp Press

Vancouver

BUTCH IS A NOUN
Copyright 2006, 2010 by S. Bear Bergman

First published 2006 by Suspect Thoughts Press. Second edition published
2010 by Arsenal Pulp Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form by any meansgraphic, electronic, or mechanicalwithout the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.

Book design by Shyla Seller
Photograph on front cover by David Wyse based on a concept by Zev Lowe

ARSENAL PULP PRESS
#101211 East Georgia St
Vancouver, BC V6A 1Z6
Canada
arsenalpulp.com

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, and the Government of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program for its publishing activities.

Printed and bound in Canada on 100% PCW recycled paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:

Bergman, S. Bear, 1974
Butch is a noun [electronic resource] / S. Bear Bergman.

Type of computer file: Electronic document in PDF format.
Also available in print format.
ISBN 978-1-55152-388-0

1. Bergman, S. Bear, 1974-. 2. Transsexualism.

3. Female-to-male transsexuals. 4. Gender identity. I. Title.

HQ77.9.B473 2010a 306.768 C2010-902976-3

For my beloved ocean-eyed girl, who gave me the courage to write
this all down, with love always from your George.

CONTENTS

This book took three years and also a lifetime to write, and I owe a great debt to the people who saw it, and me, through. I am grateful beyond measure to my familyespecially my parents and brother, who have supported all manner of endeavors about which they were deeply ambivalent. Heartfelt thanks are also due to Toni Amato, John Austin, Hanne Blank, Kate Bornstein, Sally Brown, SJ Cohen, Ivan Coyote, Malcolm Gin, Sasha Goldberg, Rabbi Jon Haddon, Andy Inkster, Mike Jenkins, Pamela Kimmel, Robert Lawrence, Sarah Katherine Lewis, Will Liberi, Zev Lowe, Skian McGuire, Zoe Medeiros, KJ Nichols, Cole Ouellet, Tori Paulman, Bobby Peck, Carol Queen, Coren Rau, Scott Turner Schofield, Gunner Scott, Peggy Shaw, Gwen Smith, Cole Thaler, and the Weiss family, all of whom have kept me going, kept me writing, kept me inspired, and kept me safe enough to do the hard parts. As much as I want to detail each of your individual invaluable contributions over the course of the last fifteen years, it would take another entire book. So, thanks for loving me so generously, for putting up with my nonsense, for kicking my ass when necessary, and for helping me walk through my fear with grace. I am both grateful and blessed to have such friends and mentors.

Thanks also to Leslie Feinberg for writing Stone Butch Blues (without which this book would not be possible), Greg and Ian at Suspect Thoughts for taking a chance on me, the Millay Colony, the Fund for Women Artists, anyone who ever emailed me to ask for a copy of that thing I read the night before, and to everyone who ever agreed to give me money in exchange for getting up and telling my stories.

Finally, thank you to Nicole, who has helped me to create so much possibility in my life. Im trying my best to honor it.

This book was three-and-a-half years in the making, beginning on a dark street in San Francisco and finishing on a sunny aftrenoon in my studio at Millay. While writing it, I imagined at every turn the outlaws and heroes and storytellers I have loved and been loved by in my life. This book is my love letter to them all.

Here on the cusp of publication, however, there are a few things I would like to mention. I didnt realize I wanted to mention them until I had two conversationsfirst with my beloved friend Skian, and then with my brother Jeffrey. During the course of those conversations I found myself giving context to three choices I made in the writing of this book. In due course, it seemed wise to also share them with you, the reader. In no order, they are:

1. This is only my experience. It is my book about butch identity; I dearly hope that it resonates for other butches, for transmasculine folks, for all manner of types of peoplebut it is my experience, nothing more and nothing less. I do not imagine even for a minute that I am speaking for everyone, or even for anyone else, though in my heart I hope that I am speaking to a lot of other people. So this book is firmly situated not just in my butchness, but also in my other locations on every possible axis: race, religion, class, education, gender, and body. I know that my experience of butch is profoundly affected by those things, and I dont want anyone else to imagine (even for a minute) that I think I have written down the One True Way. I have written down my way, as honestly and completely as I can, which is all I can do.