The First Time I Heard the Word Butch

I remember the first time I heard the word 'butch.' 

Not just heard it. The first time someone called me butch.

It seared. 

My immediate reaction was knowing that I should not like it. But there was also this underlying hum that it fit.  

Butch Brenda. 

The way it was used was ... not quite condescending, but there was a negative undertone. It was pejorative. Sort of mocking.

"Just have butch Brenda change that tire." 

Butch Brenda.

Butch.

Brenda.

The word was like that first short spiky haircut. 

It was a little uncomfortable. Very visible. But my heart swelled with it.

Is that what I was? 

Butch?

I was 22 or 23 when this happened. Until that point, I had only thought of myself in the generic: I'm gay. 

But that word - tossed out carelessly, mockingly, casually - that word gave me a name for what I felt. 

Ever since, the name tag in my mind changed from "I'm gay" to "I am a butch lesbian." 

Hi. 

I'm Brenda. 

I'm a butch lesbian.

Butch is now the badge I wear. 

This word, too, announces my place in the family of things.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ the incomparable Mary Oliver