“We want to pass things down. We want heirs, and if I cannot have heirs of blood then I want heirs of spirit; I want you, when you are grown, when I am gone, to have parts of me.” FamilyInheritanceMentorshipHeir Book:Butch is a Noun Source: Butch is a Noun
“I want to be seen in the world as safe instead of strong” SafeProtectionButch Book:Butch is a Noun Source: Butch is a Noun
“I am doing the best I can. I am hoping I am good enough. I am holding you close, as close as I can, hand cradling your head and breath on your hair, my whole body curved around yours, sheltering you as best I can, trying to remember that I cannot keep you safe, but I can keep you loved.” LoveSafeProtection Book:Butch is a Noun Source: Butch is a Noun
“I had great femme mentors, I had good role models of gentle men, I found ways to be a butch that did not require being an ass in public, ways of masculinity that were not misogyny - which is what I see more often than I used to these days, this way of butches distancing themselves from any and all things feminine by embodying the worst excesses of men, from relatively harmless ones like spitting on the street and wearing too much cheap cologne to behaving as though women were an entirely separate species of second-class citizen, the objects of jokes and derision.” MisogynyMasculinityFemmeButch Book:Butch is a Noun Source: Butch is a Noun
“One bright pansy popping through a sidewalk crack will get weeded or stepped on; it's not until twenty fabulous flowers bust through and the pavement is ruined anyway that someone decides maybe it isn't a sidewalk at all, but a flower garden. So please, for the love of gender--go bloom.” FlowerPleaseGardenTwentiesGenderCracksFabulousRuinedSidewalkPavementPoppingFlower GardenPansies Author:S. Bear Bergman
“Remember - the fault is in the garment, certainly not the girl. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the shape of her. Some designers cut their clothes for certain body types and others for others. Occasionally the pattern will make her ass look strangely square or the fabric will cling in an unflattering way, but Not Cut Well is always the answer, and it has the extremely delightful quality of saving your ass and being completely true at the same time. Use it wisely.” WayWellsLooksUseBodyRememberCertainGirlAnswersQualityCuttingTypeShapesClothesFaultsPatternsAssSavingDesignerSquaresFabricDelightfulGarmentsBody Types Author:S. Bear Bergman
“So please, for the love of gender- go bloom. Or water someone else while they do.” WaterPleaseGender Author:S. Bear Bergman
“When people speak admiringly of a butch, what I see is someone who has taken on the best gendered characteristics of both woman and man, left a lot of the stuff born of misogyny and heterosexism behind, and walked forward into the world without apology.” PeopleMenWorldLeftSpeakStuffBornBehindsTakenMen And WomenCharacteristicsApologyMisogyny Book:Butch is a Noun Source: Butch is a Noun