‘Why can’t you see me as a woman?’: Being butch has nothing to do with masculinity

Pink News:Being butch has “nothing to do with being masculine,” says Tabitha Benjamin.
Tabitha, or Tabs as she often goes by, founded Butch, Please! – a trans-inclusive night in London for butch women.
She spoke to PinkNews about butch identity, misogyny and rising levels of street harassment – including almost being run over by homophobes.“Butch, for me, is nothing to do with being masculine,” she explained.“It’s actually something about being really feminine, about identifying as a woman. Butch is also, for me, about how I am perceived as I walk through the world.”Tabs references Hannah Gadbsy’s Nanette as she explains she is “punished every single day for being an incorrect woman.”
“I’m punished every single day for that. So, for me, being butch is also about how I survive that in the world, how that makes me strong,” she added.“Lots of people think butch is synonymous with masculine. For me, it really isn’t.
“All our lives revolve around masculinity, we live in a patriarchy, we have no choice – whether we like it or not, everything is about masculinity. And I refuse to accept that. I refuse to say that my identity is also about masculinity, it’s not.
“When lots of people say to me: ‘Why do you want to look like a man?’ I really want to ask them the question: why is it so hard for you to see me as a woman?”Tabs is regularly and increasingly harassed in public for presenting as a “butch dyke” – and she’s not alone. There is a rising climate of homophobia following the Brexit vote, she points out.
“Over the past couple of years I would definitely say it’s got a lot worse,” she told PinkNews.
“I’ve had the usual things from ‘Oy, dyke’ and this kind of stuff, to when I was walking my dog in the park and a guy shouted ‘oy, you f***ing dyke,’ bent over and farted at me. Yeah, that was definitely a new low.
“I’m punished every day for being an incorrect woman, a butch woman, and a butch dyke.