Gender Troubles: The Butches – The Lesbian Documentary We All Needed in 2016 (and Still Do)
Hey sisters, mascs, baby dykes, and everyone who’s ever felt that little spark when a handsome butch walks into the room – let’s talk about a gem that flew way too under the radar: Gender Troubles: The Butches (2016) directed by Lisa Plaxco. If you haven’t seen it yet, pause everything, grab your favorite flannel, and queue it up. This short documentary (only 30 minutes!) is pure lesbian gold.
This film is basically a love letter to butch lesbians, studs, and every flavor of masculine-of-center queer woman you can think of. It follows a group of butches – some legends, some everyday heroes – talking about their lives, their style, their heartbreak, their joy, and yeah, the constant “are you a boy or a girl?” question we’ve all gotten a million times. But it’s not preachy or academic. It’s raw, funny, tender, and sometimes makes you tear up in the best way.
What hit me hardest? The intergenerational vibe. You’ve got older butches who came up in the bar days, who survived the AIDS era watching their friends disappear, who had to hide their identity to keep jobs… and then younger butches and studs who grew up with Tumblr and Instagram and still feel like outsiders in both straight and gay spaces. That tension between generations? Chef’s kiss. It’s real lesbian history in motion.
There’s this one moment where a butch in her 60s talks about how she used to bind with Ace bandages and wear three sports bras just to feel right in her skin, and then a 20-something stud talks about getting her first custom binder in the mail and crying in her dorm room. I felt that in my soul.
The film doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff either – the fetishization, the invisibility in mainstream lesbian media (hello, every show suddenly being femme4femme), the way some queer women still throw butches under the bus to seem more “palatable.” But it also celebrates the hell out of us. The swagger. The chivalry. The way butches love – fiercely, protectively, often quietly carrying the weight of the world because we’ve been taught to “take it like a man.”
Visually? It’s simple but gorgeous. Lots of close-ups on hands (those strong, calloused, beautiful butch hands), boots, leather jackets, faded tattoos, the way a tie sits just right. The soundtrack is perfect too – classic lesbian anthems mixed with newer queer artists. It feels like sitting in a dyke bar at 1 a.m. having the deepest conversation of your life with someone you just met.
At only 30 minutes, it’s criminal this didn’t blow up bigger. Maybe because back in 2016, the mainstream lesbian conversation was obsessed with pretty lipstick lesbians and marriage equality photo ops. Butch visibility? Not so much. Thank the goddess for indie filmmakers who said “nah, we’re documenting OUR people.”
If you’re a baby butch trying to figure out who you are, watch this. If you’re an old-school dyke who thinks “kids these days have it easy,” watch this. If you’re femme and want to understand your butch partner better, watch this. If you just love lesbians being unapologetically themselves – watch this.
Gender Troubles: The Butches isn’t just a documentary. It’s a mirror. It’s a hug from your older self. It’s proof that we’ve always been here, looking sharp, breaking hearts, and holding the community together whether we get credit or not.
Stream it, buy it, gift it to every lesbian you know. We deserve to see ourselves on screen – not as a stereotype or a joke, but as the complicated, gorgeous, necessary humans we are.
And to every butch reading this right now – thank you. You make the world gayer, braver, and infinitely hotter.
Forever butch, forever proud
Post a Comment