By 1940, the term gained its lesbian meaning in addition to the general masculine LGBTQ+ meaning: essentially the term has more than one meaning and context, like most words.
Then the term is used and supported by trans men, trans women and cis lesbians as it goes on through time. In “Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit” by Marlon M Bailey (page 31), it also explicitly mentions cis and transgender men who may use the terms Butch or Butch Queen:Īs you can see here, the creation and use of butch is an effort consisting of many LGBTQ+ people- notably at first, cis gay men in the 1880s-1920s. The balls had different categories in which drag artists competed- the most notable are Butch Queen, Femme Queen, Butch and Women.īutch Queen describes a drag artist or gay man who is both masculine and feminine, or describes a drag queen who intentionally makes their drag masculine. Later, after racism from judges, the Black and Latino communities would go on to have their own balls.
Early balls were integrated, one of the few things that were not segregated at that time. Initially, balls were populated by drag queens, a mixture of cis gay men and trans women of colour before other members of the community began to get involved. Butch is thought to have originated in Ballroom Culture, a subculture in the US created by Black and Latino LGBTQ+ folks as far back as 1880, when the first balls were held. As promised, here is my gay men centred post (with support from trans men and women)Īs with a lot of term history, the origins of terms are clouded.