大象传媒

Let me start by saying: Watching Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA, be eviscerated by Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-TX, brought me a certain kind of Black Feminist Joy that I didn鈥檛 know I needed. The knowledge that Greene will never un-live the moment聽when she realized she couldn鈥檛 comment on a Black woman鈥檚 鈥溾�� without getting a clapback continues to live in my mind rent-free since it occurred on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on May 16. This was a moment when Greene thought she could disrespect a Black woman鈥攁 trained lawyer, nonetheless鈥攊n the House chambers, and instead, she received her reading papers.聽

Now it seems the moment will live on for everyone else too, because Crockett has not only started selling merchandise adorned with the phrase 鈥�,鈥� sometimes shortened to 鈥淏6,鈥� but she has also recently purchased the trademark. When I first read about this whole altercation and watched the 17 times, my first concern was about a sitting House member using their position to sell merch. But, as the story settled in my body, I realized it wasn鈥檛 just the merchandise itself that bothered me. It is the message it sends about all the supposedly 鈥渂ad built butch bodies鈥� of the world.聽

Six days after the viral moment, Crockett announced on social media that proceeds from her new 鈥溾�� would support her campaign. In follow-up interviews about the confrontation, Crockett rightly noted that Greene鈥檚 attack likely stemmed from tropes about her appearance. Crockett called out MAGA trolls who frequently use stereotypes and other slurs about her hair and nails to single her out. For these reasons, and so many others, it makes sense that Crockett felt inclined to respond to Greene鈥檚 inappropriate and disrespectful comments. My concern is that whenever there is a debate between cisgender, heterosexual-appearing people, there is always a risk that queer and trans people will become the collateral damage when the insults take on the homophobic and transphobic attitudes held so widely in society. That is precisely what happened in this case.

Butch culture has long existed. For many queer and trans people, butch gender expression represents a homeplace, one that they鈥檝e worked hard to locate. What is important about butch identity is that many people assigned female at birth have for generations, often shifting between lesbian identity, transmasculinity, and/or nonbinary gender expression. For example, Leslie Feinberg鈥檚 1993 loosely autobiographical fiction book tells the story of a true 鈥渟tone butch,鈥� a lesbian who will not allow her partner to touch her sexually. This term, for many, has been a critical and freeing site of self-naming and self-reclamation. But for many lesbians and trans people, it remains an intimate reminder of the violence and discrimination they鈥檝e faced during their lives. 

In many lesbian and nonbinary communities, the term 鈥渂utch鈥� often refers to masculine-presenting people and body types. These are usually individuals whose physical presentation rebuffs traditional gender norms and standards of expression. Rather than leaning into cultural expectations centering the cisgender heterosexual male gaze, these folks express gender in more androgynous and masculine ways, which frequently lean away from what mainstream culture regularly associates with people assigned female at birth. But these are not rules of butch identity. Rather, they are just a few of the ways butch folks express their gender and sexuality. For example, has played with the terms 鈥渂utch鈥� and 鈥渇emme,鈥� blurring the lines between trans women and gay men. In these spaces, butch may mean masculine, manly, or mannish, but it never has to mean only one thing. All bodies are self-defined and expansive. No rules have to apply across every case. 

Butchness allows space for a diversity of body shapes and types that don鈥檛 have to fit into anyone else鈥檚 standard. There is absolutely nothing wrong with butch bodies. In fact, for many of us queer people, butchness is an aesthetic we find ourselves romantically and sexually drawn to. Butch bodies are beautiful.

The normalization of insults like those shared by Crockett desensitize the broader public to violence against LGBTQ people. Many LGBTQ women experience than other groups of women. Many of these women were harmed by cisgender men with whom they had started families, gotten married, or once cohabitated. The risks to their personal security and health, and the safety of their children, often impels these individuals to stay in abusive dynamics without revealing truths about their gender and sexuality. For many of these women and nonbinary people, identifying with butch culture has allowed them to step more actively into their full selves, only to have heteronormative and cisgender folks turn that into the butt of a joke on a global scale. 

Many butch folks who had absolutely nothing to do with this confrontation have now become collateral damage in a battle of wits between two normatively gendered women. Not only that, the insult will now be immortalized on t-shirts, stationery, and other paraphernalia for the foreseeable future. Since the release of the now-viral video of the argument between Crockett and Greene, the phrase has been by Reading Rainbow鈥檚 LeVar Burton on Twitter (now known as X) and plastered across videos and social media messages across the world. All the while, very little has been said about the 鈥渂utch鈥� in Crockett鈥檚 clever alliterative phrase. It seems most people have simply accepted the word as a slur for cisgender, gender-normative white women, so much that they barely notice how disrespectful it is to whole communities of queer and trans people.

This is how cis women openly participate in harm against their queer and trans peers. The same women who demand solidarity at the ballot box from queer and trans people are the ones who subtly (and overtly) reveal their lack of community and regard for those more vulnerable than themselves.

So, this is for all the butch bodies. You are all built perfectly. And we see you. 

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Jenn M. Jackson is a queer androgynous Black woman, abolitionist, lover of all Black people, and assistant professor at Syracuse University鈥檚 Department of Political Science. Their books include Black Women Taught Us (Penguin Random House, 2024) and the forthcoming Policing Blackness (University of Chicago Press, 2025). Connect:

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