yehudisha:

there is a real danger in reducing butch / gender nonconforming womanhood to merely an aesthetic made up of certain brands and current styles instead of its full meaning. (by it’s full meaning I mean an ideology/mindset/way of presenting yourself that centers liberation from practices of compulsory femininity). there is a real danger in reducing it to a set of culturally recognizeable gnc/butch clothing or brands, haircuts, etc. 

as soon as butchness/gender nonconformity becomes reduced to only aesthetics and style trends, it starts to exclude certain categories of woman. there is a very real correlation between defining butchness merely by certain types of clothing and styles, and defining butchness by thin, white cis bodies. it also alienates poor butches/gnc women who can’t afford the latest butch trends ™, butches who wear a culturally specific type of clothing and won’t be as easily recognizable to more mainstream butch subculture, etc. the other part of the issue is that it also wraps up a concept that has the potential to be liberating in a suffocating package of capitalist marketing. 

gender nonconforming womanhood is first and foremost about rejecting performances of femininity that are forced on us, whether those coercive performances be shaving, makeup, certain feminine clothing or hairstyles styles, or something else entirely – there is no one way to be a gnc woman and defy compulsory femininity. of course there are and will continue to be trends, aesthetics, and styles, that surface in gnc circles, and that’s important because it makes us identifiable to each other and provides a common source of pride and viewable identity. I’m not denouncing that. but we can’t reduce gnc-ness entirely to that, we can’t completely aestheticize it, forgetting the core meaning of embracing gncness and replacing it with a set of style ideals, or else we run the risk of having a brand name commercial image of gnc-ness that forces out nonwhite women, fat women, trans women, poor women, any woman who do not fit the narrowed popular image of butchness that becomes celebrated. 

celebrate butch trends, celebrate gnc trends, but do not make the current trends of gnc presentation the be all end all of it. it at the very least renders the concept of gnc woman’s identity intimidating to newcomers, and at its most harmful it actively perpetuates racism, classism, transmisogyny and fatphobia. 

(credit for this post goes partially to  @mazeltoph for bringing up the issue of fatphobia wrt gnc-ness and aestheticized gnc-ness)