This time last week, hell even the morning of the conference I didn’t know what I was going to think about Butch Voices NYC (other than I was confident there would be tons of eye candy). As a general rule I’m not much of a conference person. In my private life I’m pretty quiet and a bit of a hermit so unless I’m teaching or reading it’s unlikely to find me at a conference. Butch voices was an exception and I am so glad that I was there.

I attended the conference on the arm of my partner, and honestly hadn’t anticipated there was a lot that * I * was going to take away from the day- WRONG!

I started my day with Corey Alexander’s ‘Doing Relationships With Emotional Armor: for stones and our partners. As someone who nearly exclusively partners with stone identified butches and trans masculine folks I was excited to see emotional armor being raised as a topic of conversation. I know that Corey also facilitates a workshop exploring sexuality for stone identified folks and their partners, which I would also be curious to check out someday.

The absolute highlight of the conference for me came as part of a DIY roundtable-taking place during the second workshop timeslot. The focus was on ‘Responsible Masculinity’ and it’s not an exaggeration to say that the strength and honesty and depth of that conversation absolutely blew me away. For perhaps the first time in my life I was sitting in a circle with 40+ butches and other masculine of center folks along with femmes talking about the pitfalls of misogyny and strategies for walking through the world holding and embodying a masculinity that feels responsible and doesn’t come at the expense of butch comrades or femmes.

Highlights of the conversation included ‘chivalry is hot, misogyny is not’ where the discussion focused in on how gendered exchanges when consensually negotiated can be sexy as hell (AMEN). The discussion also turned to the importance of fostering and building butch community without competition, posturing, or policing the boundaries of butch.

The downside of the conference for me unfortunately came from the ‘Ask A Femme Anything’ panel. Nearly all the panelists were committed to upholding the idea that all butches are women identified (I didn’t see that frame of reference anywhere else at the conference) and seemed set on constructing ‘femme’ as nothing more than cooking dinner and sex objects. When the femmes were asked to introduce themselves, one butch audience member shouted that they should also provide their measurements ---talk about a shift of gears from the responsible masculinity workshop I’d just left. I was so uncomfortable by what was being presented that I ended up leaving that workshop session early.

My partner was one of the readers at the Queer Memoir, Sideshow mashup reading event after the conference. That event was just about the best way I could have thought of to end the conference. I have never seen Bluestockings so crowded and the evening was filled with an incredible array of butch stories!

Butch Voices was truly an unbelievable conference filled with hot and important conversations. As a femme I felt very privileged to have the opportunity to be in that space as an ally and felt spoiled to feel *seen * in ways I so seldom am while out in the world. It was an absolute honor to spend the day there!

Latest posts by Sassafras

• Farewell - May 1st, 2011
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• Little Red Writing Dress - March 27th, 2011
• Unexpected Butch/Femme Poetry - March 22nd, 2011
• Tell-tale Signs a Queer Femme is Queer - March 4th, 2011