In a world where gender is a strictly enforced binary of male or female, women’s masculinity causes discomfort for lots of people – who then make it uncomfortable and even dangerous for butch individuals to just be themselves.
In spite of the harassment and violence experienced by butch folk, butch is being reclaimed with pride to more accurately describe people who identify and present female masculinity.
BUTCH is a beautiful, intersectional, and eye-opening photo collection by Meg Allen featuring dozens of butch individuals who show the range, fluidity, and subjectivity of female masculinity.
As Meg Allen describes, “BUTCH is a celebration of those who choose to exist and identify outside of this binary that has never allowed any accepted crossover. BUTCH is inviting viewers into private lives of female masculinity and suggesting a resilience in nature’s insistence that there is more depth to masculinity and femininity than societal norms care to entertain.
Who is policing gender presentation, and why? The fashion world has been asking the same question for ages. Are we ready for the answers now? It is undeniable that we are born with the sex organs that we are born with, but why are so we threatened by what others choose to claim as their gender presentation? Are we ready for these explanations? Or are we more afraid of the question?”
We invite you to consider these questions as you check out these amazing portraits of bull-daggers, dykes, manly women, female husbands, baby butches, young studs, androgyny, and genderqueers.
To see even more photos in this amazing collection, visit Meg Allen’s website here.
With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism
Meg Allen was born in 1978 in San Francisco, California. Always the watchful observer, she became mesmerized by the amount of emotion shapes, line and texture could convey in everything from people to buildings to landscapes. In 1993, she began to photograph what she saw in order to investigate and document the enigmatic beauty of simple moments. Today she shoots whatever she can get her hands on. The variation allows her to hone her skill and creates a fusion of the regular with the unexpected. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter @megallenstudio.