In this interview, a butch-identified lesbian recounts her lifelong journey of gender exploration and the pivotal moments that led her to consider, then ultimately reject, medical transition. She describes how attending the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in her early twenties provided a visible, topless butch community that modeled a masculine presentation within a female body, offering her a sense of belonging. Reading the novel Stone Butch Blues deepened her identification with butch experiences and sparked curiosity about transition. A later encounter with a trans man who underwent top surgery triggered intense jealousy and shame, prompting her to research top surgery, bind her chest, and even adopt the name "Alex" while exploring masculine presentation. In Chicago she helped organize a trans‑men support group, forming close friendships with trans men and a supportive therapist. However, she realized she disliked being perceived as a man among men and missed connection with women, leading her to question the desirability of transition. Through continued reflection on butch role models, ongoing festival attendance, and support from both trans men and butch women, she made peace with her female body, embraced her breasts, and found sexual and emotional healing. She concludes that transition is a deeply personal decision, honoring both trans men who feel transition is right for them and her own choice to remain in her female body.
Chapters
So we were just talking about how pivotal it was for you to get to go to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.
Yeah, it radically altered my life.
For so many years, starting at age 21.
Yeah, and I think it was really important to be able to go to a place where there were a lot of butch women who were You know, topless, doing butch stuff, you know, like fire pit stuff, recycling. And they were cool, you know. It was a mirroring of who I wanted to be.
So it gave you a model of who you could be and how you could be. Masculine and have a female body.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And it was just everywhere at festival. You know, the people doing the recycling, the people doing the fire pits, they were extremely butched. There was just so many artists who were, you know, people running the sound. They were everywhere. And they were the mirroring. I looked at them and I wanted to be like them. And it was so healing.
Because then prior to that you just looked at—
I had never seen.
So you just looked at like women and you didn't want to be like them, and you looked at men and you couldn't be them at that point.
I would have wanted to be like a guy. I would have wanted that. But I was, you know, I think too the thing about Festival that's so, was so unique Is you were— there was a lot of like partial clothing, or it was summertime, and so you really do get to see people's bodies.
So you got to see the full butch gender expression with the female body.
It wasn't like, you know, the body wasn't prevalent, you know, or really on display. It really was. And so I got to see a lot of butch women topless, Doing butch shit, topless, you know. And—
And so you feel like that is part of what then enabled you to find a path as getting to remain masculine in your female body rather than choosing to gender transition?
Yeah, for me it was. And I did come close to transitioning. Even after years of festival.
Mm-hmm.
And when I read Stone Butch Blues, that was really pivotal for me. I mean, I read that book, I got that book and I just sat down and I read it cover to cover. I didn't go to work. I called in sick. I was like, I gotta read this book, y'all. I can't come in. I didn't say that. I said something like cold or something, but I just couldn't go to work.
Mm-hmm.
I stayed home until I finished that book. And I threw the book against the wall a couple times because it was just so sad. But I, I recognized, I was like, this is me. This person has gone through more stuff than I have, and they're from a different generation, but it's the same, uh, life. It's the same life. And, and I I really, at that time, I didn't know anything about transition or anything like that. I didn't learn about transitioning until later in Chicago when I met some— oh, I was friends with someone and they came to a party. It was all lesbians and they said that they were transitioning to become a man and that they couldn't come to the lesbian slumber party. It was a lesbian slumber party. And they couldn't. It was like every year. And they were like, I can't come anymore because I'm a man. And everybody was so angry.
Hmm.
Except me, because I was like, that's how I feel.
Hmm.
So I said, you know, to this person, Jacob, Jen at the time, I said, I think I feel the same way as you. And then everyone was like, no, you don't. No, you don't. And people were really upset. And I just really identified with that. I was like, I've always wanted to be, you know—
So what an incredible thing that all of a sudden somebody's telling you, like, here's this path to being what you always wanted to be. And then, you know, the idea that then you would get to feel congruent.
Yes. And it was after years of festival that this happened. And he had top surgery, and I had enormous jealousy. I had such jealousy.
Of what part of it?
I think there was a shame. I had shame about how I had these feelings, that I had wanted to be— I had, I had shame. I had jealousy about his body transitioning, you know, like the fact that he was claiming this for himself. It was kind of like a, how dare you claim this? Because it was making me question everything. And I was a little bit like discombobulated by it. Like, so there was a little bit of me that wanted to shut him down a little bit at some point. I never did, but it was a part of me. I had to really analyze that quickly because I was like, oh my gosh, why am I trying— why am I kind of angry at this idea?
So the jealousy was him Getting to not have breasts anymore, or just getting to—
Not have breasts, be a man, buy a suit, you know, go to work, say he's he, you know, he's gonna change his name, he's gonna do all these things, he's gonna become a man. And I was, I was a little bit like, you can't, you know, we can't do that, that's not an option. You know, I didn't know, I had never heard of this as an option, and I was a little bit scared of the option.
Sure, of course.
So it was really threatening to me. Um, I was a little bit more comfortable with the butch, you know, I was like, okay, let's stay butches, y'all, you know, like, this is scary, you know. And I had jealousy and I decided, you know, I decided to kind of dive into it and really try it on because I was like, maybe I need to do this, maybe I need to transition. So I got some magazines. They came like some magazines or brochures from people who did top surgery, and there was lots of pictures, and I so desired the pictures.
Wow.
I so desired to look like that.
Wow.
And I started, um, binding and kind of going around with the binding stuff, and it was so easy for me to pass at that time, you know, with the binding. So I had all these—
Oh, you were passing now?
Yeah, it was so much easier even then. And, um, I don't know, it was just a really interesting experience. I tried it on and I thought, you know what, I changed my name to Alex and My middle name, and I started kind of trying it on.
Mm-hmm.
But then something happened, and I made all sorts of friends in the trans men community and started a support group together in Chicago for, you know, we did it together. And mostly it was the person that we found, a social, a therapist who was willing, she donated her time. So I mean, all props to her, you know, for she's the one who did the hard work. We just kind of organized it, but she actually gave her time. And, um, so I made all these friends. I was hanging out with trans guys, and— but something happened that was different for me than happened for them. And that's— I think ultimately it just started out where I wasn't really enjoying passing.
Hmm.
There was something about it that I didn't like. I didn't like being a man amongst men, and I didn't like being separated from women.
Mm.
And I didn't like the idea of not being with more— with the women. I just didn't like that. I didn't want to be a man with men, with men, and I didn't enjoy that. And, and then I, you know, really started working on my remembering a festival, and I kept— was going to— kept going to festival, and I just kept thinking about women, you know, butch women, and just more looking towards that and making peace with my body at a different level. And ultimately I decided not to transition, but to really kind of dive in. But the, the, the analysis of it did help me start to love my body more.
Oh.
As it was. And it also healed some sexual stuff because I was having trouble with, um, sex and being masculine. And just how, you know—
How to make that work.
How to make that work.
In your female body.
Exactly, exactly. So it really was good for me. But yeah, I came really close to transitioning, but it turned out not to be the right thing for me.
Mm-hmm.
And I did ask my therapist at the time, because there was then a part where I was like, well, if it's not right for me, it's not right for anybody. And then my therapist was like, no, you know, it's really different for everybody. And I've come to realize that it is really a personal journey. Everyone has to make their own decision, you know, for themselves. And everyone's a little, you know, we're all like snowflakes, and there's lots of inputs, and everybody has a different way, you know.
And that's what I love about, you know, this conversation with you, because there's several trans men in my life that I'm close to who are so glad to have transitioned and feel like it was absolutely the right thing for them.
Yeah.
And then I think it's so important to, to both honor that and then honor this, your experience.
Yes.
That, you know, because I have heard you say you're really glad to have The body you have and the ability to have pleasure that you have in the body you have. And I really appreciate the body you have. So we're talking about how, you know—
Yeah, and breasts. We're talking about breasts.
We were talking about breasts.
Because I've come to really enjoy them and make peace with them. And I, I don't know. Is that what we were doing today? Making peace?
We were doing something with those breasts.
Exactly. I've really come to make peace with them and enjoy them, and I am glad.
It was so peaceful. It was very, very peaceful.
You know, and there's a lot of my life where I wouldn't have been able to do that. So, you know, it's really— and if not for trans men, I wouldn't be here because Uh, with such peace either, because I wouldn't have really had the, the chance to dive in deep and really do the healing that I needed to do if not for the trans men that I was friends with that helped me.
So it's— so it— you've been helped by both trans men and butch women.
Yeah, to find myself.
Butches, butch women, however they identify.
Yeah, butches.
And then you've been helped by Your lovers.
Yeah, absolutely.
Who are whatever it is we are, femme or femme-ish or more femme-presenting or—
Oh, well, that's the most help I've ever gotten because that's— I mean, femme or people, lovers, they, you know, that's where I've always felt that I could be myself the most.
