Are the labels really necessary?
Understanding lesbian labels and their purpose. Are we conforming to heteronormativity?
The terms femme, butch, stud, stem, (along with many others) are continuously thrown around when it comes to the lesbian community, with these terms seeming much more prominent in the past few years. But why? Where did they even come from? The use of lesbian labels originated in the 1890s, with butch referring to a female butcher, “a hard-fisted woman of the people”. The term acting as a way to specifically identify homosexual women. As society assumed butch women were masculine, the labels acted as a way to highlight their lack of femininity, also deeming them outcasts within communities. Many of these assumptions about butch women are still upheld within the LGBTQ+ community. Such being that a but...
