The femme capital of the world made famous by Showtime's The L-Word and Girlbar will get a shot of masculinity in October when the City of Angels will be turned into the city of butches for a weekend for the Butch Voices' Southwest edition of its conference.
"Why not blow open the [butch] closet door in a big sort of way right in the heart of lipstick lesbianville?" asked Jeanne Cordova, co-chair Los Angeles Butch Voices, who said butch women are often marginalized in both straight and LGBTQ society.
"Butches have long felt like we are in the closet in the gay movement," said Cordova. Butch Voices represents a "coming out of the closet" to show that masculine-identified individuals are "an active part of the queer community" and are proud, she added.
The Los Angeles conference, scheduled October 8-10 in West Hollywood, is the final installment of this year's regional gatherings of butch- and genderqueer-identified women. The first conference kicked off at the beginning of the summer in Dallas, followed by New York City (September 25). A conference in Portland, Oregon takes place October 2.
"We are united by the butch umbrella, being visible in the world, being visible in the gay and lesbian community," said Cordova, pointing out the power of attending an event where there are hundreds of "people like you" ranging in age from 19 to 84.
"It's a really super-charged experience," she said.
Inspired by the first conference last year in Oakland, Butch Voices organizers decided to spread their message throughout the U.S. rather than wait another year to produce another national conference. It was also their intention to be economically conscious and more grassroots, said Cordova, who organized the conference with 10 committee members.
More than 400 masculine-identified lesbian and genderqueer individuals from California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico are anticipated to descend upon West Hollywood. Attendees will discuss the ever-changing definitions of "butch" and explore the new politics of this spectrum of LGBT life, according to Cordova, 61, a butch lesbian, who is also a national board member of Butch Voices.
Cordova is also co-founder of the Lesbian Exploratorium, also known as LEX, a lesbian cultural guerilla group and conference co-sponsor.
Attendees will hear speeches from veteran butch feminist activist keynote speakers Carmen Vazquez and genderqueer academic Judith "Jack" Halberstam, Ph.D., author of Female Masculinity.
Twenty workshops and three performance events headlined by nationally known performers including: Phranc, D'Lo, Sandra Valls, and Latina performers Butchlalis de Panochtitlan are planned during the three day gathering, according to a news release .
Butch power
"I'm thrilled there is such a conference," said Vasquez. "[It's] not something that I imagined ever happening."
Vasquez, 61, a suit-wearing butch feminist activist for nearly 40 years and a former San Francisco resident who is now the coordinator of LGBT health and human services unit of the AIDS Institute of the New York Department of Health, plans to address two topics in her speech. She will provide a historical perspective of what butch �" in particular in relation to class and race �" means and maintaining a butch identity.
"We have the right to present as we want to present ... we should be free to do what we want with our bodies," said Vasquez, concerned about new pressures placed upon butch women to adopt an androgynous identity or to transition into a transman. She recalled a time during the lesbian-feminist movement of the 1970s when it was a "struggle" to identify as butch.
Vasquez hopes that the conference will boost butch women's confidence to be "respected in the gender identity of [their] choice" and to continue the feminist dialogue in relation to butch.
Carolyn Wysinger, a presenter at the conference, couldn't agree more with Vasquez about the necessity for butch women to be respected in the gender-identity of their choice. An educator and writer, she said that many masculine-identified teens she works with are looking for acceptance, but often only find it in gangs or as "dope boys" distributing drugs.
"They don't necessarily see role models in front of them who are intellectual butches, who see that it's okay to be a smart," said Wysinger, a 31-year-old soft-butch, who will be presenting a workshop, "Conversations in Butch Socio-Political Theory," but what she has unofficially titled "The Crisis of the Butch Intellectual." The former Richmond, California native who now makes southern California her home will address the importance of developing butch theory and its significance to the LGBT community and movement, she said.
Wysinger cheered the fact that the most recent publicly visible butch identified women: MSBC political pundit Rachel Maddow and Bay Area political candidates Rebecca Kaplan, who is running for mayor of Oakland, and Rebecca Prozan, who is running for supervisor in District 8 in San Francisco, hail from the Bay Area. She hopes they will "foster more positivity in our community," she said.
Butch evolution
Halberstam, the keynote speaker, will address the "shifting meanings of gender in the 21st century" within the LGBT community and examining how heterosexuality has changed as well, she wrote in an e-mail. Halberstam, 48, a genderqueer professor of gender studies, English and American studies, and ethnicity at the University of Southern California, was a panelist at the first Butch Voices conference. She plans to include "pregnant men, unmarried women, butchness and capitalism and the popular acceptance of 'butchness' outside of lesbian circles," in the discussion.
"It's about our voices being heard," said Richelle Donigan, an East Bay yoga teacher and health educator who is a co-presenter of the "Strong Women: Building a Healthy Mind, Body and Spirit" workshop at Butch Voices. She finds it interesting to hear statements from people that, "There are no butches" and butch is "passe," she said.
"As with anything, we are always evolving," said Donigan, pointing out that the importance of Butch Voices is having a space to see how butch is evolving, examine where butch came from historically, and see what butch looks like today.
In addition to the national Butch Voices organization, the conference is co-sponsored by the city of West Hollywood, the Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board of West Hollywood, Los Angeles Women's Theatre Project, and Christopher Street West/L.A. Gay Pride.
Discounted registration fees and scholarships were made available by a $4,000 grant from the city of West Hollywood. Three-day passes are only $50. Youth, unemployed, and limited-income individuals can purchase discounted tickets for $25. Many $10 scholarship registrations are offered as well.
The Conference will take place at Plummer Park Community Center, located at 7377 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. To register or for more information, visit www.bvla2010.com, e-mail [email protected], or phone 626-55 BVLA1, friend BVLA on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/butchvoices?ref=ts, or follow the conference on Twitter at http://twitter.com/butchvoicesla .