Lucy Dacus Let Me Down
Where are the butches?
As I’ve said before on here and in offline life, I understand that no famous people are my friend and no famous people are going to be who we want them to be. You can only maintain so many principles when you’re famous, it seems. And yet, here I am, still disappointed in one of my faves: Lucy Dacus.
I don’t think somebody like Lucy Dacus is famous in the same way that, say, Lady Gaga is famous. Generally, I think she has politics I agree with and I am a huge fan of her music and of course boygenius. But. But. Her music video for “Best Guess” (a song presumably about Julien Baker) was disappointing.
If you don’t know, a little bit ago Dacus took to social media to ask for “hot mascs” or people who are “suave and smooth or can pretend to be. Okay, great. As people started posting their “auditions” of sorts, I saw many that started with “I’m not masc but…” and I thought oh boy…okay…interesting….but you know, whatever, who am I but a silly little idiot?
HOWEVER.
Here we are. I pressed play on the music video and what was I confronted with but one Cara Delevingne!? I immediately texted my friend Meg saying wtf I thought this was a video of mascs?! Frankly, I wanted to turn it off right then, despite Dacus being one of my favourite artists. I soldiered on. There are some hot people there — including some of my famous crushes: Naomi McPherson, ER Fightmaster, and Towa Bird. Yet, I was still left wondering: where are the BUTCHES?
Predictably, the Big Outlets felt differently, which is part of my problem:
Here’s the thing, and maybe other Queer people can attest, there’s been an interesting shift in language from people using ‘masc’ over ‘butch’ and I think a lot of that boils down to….thinness. AT THE SAME TIME there is this weird loser behaviour that is very anti he/him lesbians, which just……come ON!!! Can we please read a BOOK!!! This is not a new thing. There have always been masculine lesbians, lesbians who got top surgery or took testosterone, who like being called ‘boyfriend’, etc. GROW UP!!!! Pick up a Leslie Feinberg book, my god. Don’t like reading? Weird but okay. Go back and watch Work in Progress (2019-2021). Butches were/are historically working class and often fat. It was and is an intentional choice (just like ‘femme’, which doesn’t just mean somebody who wears dresses). BUT I THINK THESE THINGS ARE CONNECTED! Because at the same time that there’s been this increase in being against he/him or transmasc lesbians, there’s been this shift away from ‘butch’ to ‘masc’ and a weird tendency to call any (thin, cisgender, normatively queer) woman in a suit ‘masc’. I’VE HAD ENOUGH!!!
I’m not trying to police anybody’s identity, I’m really not, but good grief!!! Butches are so fucking beautiful in this world. I aspire to be as cool as them. I really do. And Dacus really had the opportunity to select a variety of representations of being butch or masc. Where are the studs?? Where are the dark skinned Black lesbians?? Where are the fatter butches??? The older butches???
I have a hard time with Famous Gays. Often they are very much not Queer (which is political). And yet Dacus is very political, loudly and often. She is also not in the same category of Famous Gays as most Hollywood gays. But when it comes to lesbians in hollywood or bisexual women in hollywood or any queer women in hollywood….they put on one suit and they’re called masc. This video kind of exemplifies that—this is as masc or butch as people are allowed to be before Hollywood loses their minds. And I don’t say this to discredit the people in this video. I hope they feel good and that they had a great time, and I love to see hot queer people (I don’t love to see Cara Delevingne ever). But like I said, Dacus really had an opportunity and I’m disappointed to not see more than the usual straight sized, white and light-skinned ‘mascs’ and a butch or two.
I wish this would’ve been a true celebration of butches and studs and other mascs. I wish this opportunity was really seized and not just the same old handful of millennial queers in music/tv and a handful of ‘famous’ TikTok people. Again: I’m not trying to invalidate anybody, but rather point out how disappointing it is that a call-out on a MASSIVE public platform resulted in the same old thing.
Sigh. Good song, though.
that evergreen tweet “this is as butch as they can handle before they get scared”
I’ve also noticed this weird shift from butch to masc that also seems to just … completely erase butches? Like yes butches are “masc” but they’re also butch! And I feel like there’s some rejection of that term now in favour of the skinny white mascs, as you’ve said. I still enjoyed the video though, despite Cara Delevingne lmao, and thought it was nice to see masc queers in community and also kissing.