Butch and Femme - obselete term or handy handle

The topic for discussion on Tuesday 6 October 2015 was

“Butch and Femme” – do those terms still resonate? And a smattering of our responses: “Don’t find it useful as a term, some labels are handy such as lesbian or gay woman because it can demarcate the group you want to relax with or find a partner within but butch and femme is unnecessary, always identified as femme and felt really annoyed when people in a gay bar ask if you’re straight because of the way you look, find it a bit uncomfortable being around really butch groups like Dykes on Bikes, has some level of importance, it oversimplifies and is not a useful stereotype, it’s hard to be butch when you’re small with a bad back, in Singapore there was a lot of butch-femme stuff going on, I’m attracted to people’s personalities, the 50s and 60s in US and UK found it quite important, I’m just me, people only see butch ones as lesbians, can’t relate to those labels, belongs to history, you can’t be gay if you wear a skirt – not”. Next week the lovely Sharon has put up her hand to facilitate. Sort of. It could be a communal effort – which is really rather nice isn’t it.