Butch Heroes

Against Erasure of
Queerly Gendered Lives

As I sit to write this review, the Trump administration has just asked the Supreme Court to rule on the proposed banning of transgender people from serving in the military . This is just the latest assault on transgender and nonbinary Americans under this administration. One of the most insidious attacks has been attempts at erasing transgender people by defining gender as immutable and determined by genitalia at birth. In this moment, more than ever, we as queer readers, as genderqueer readers, as transgender readers need queer histories. We need beautiful books that show us that we are not alone, and that we never have been. Ria Brodell’s Butch Heroes is a salve for queer readers during these troubling times.

Butch Heroes is more than a book, it’s also a portable art exhibit. This book pairs brief historical information about different individual butches through history with original portraits of the individuals featured painted by Brodell themself. In the Introduction to the book Brodell explains the distinction they used to determine which people to include: “For this project, I was looking for people in history with whom I can personally identify — people who were assigned female at birth, had documented relationships with women, and whose gender presentation was more masculine than feminine. I searched for people from diverse ethnic, societal, and geographic backgrounds, and who were born before or around the turn of the twentieth century.”

Importantly, Brodell addresses the complication of ascribing contemporary queer identities to individuals who lived and died generations before contemporary identity labels and distinctions began being used. They explain: “Some of my subjects identified as women, others as men; some shifted between gender presentations throughout their lives, while others embodied this project. Though some could be identified today with the terms ‘lesbian,’ ‘transgender,’ ‘nonbinary,’ ‘genderqueer,’ ‘intersex,’ etc., these myriad LGBTQIA terms were not available to them during their lifetimes. Since it is impossible to know exactly how each person would self-identify using today’s terminology, I view this project as an ongoing effort to document a shared history within the LGBTQIA community.”

The writing briefly explores different butches in history, what their lives were like and (when possible) how they understood themselves. For example, Brodell introduces readers to Jeanne or Jean Bonnet, born in Paris but living in San Francisco in the mid-1800s, who was quoted as saying: “The police might arrest me as often as they wish—I will never discard male attire as long as I live.”

In this moment, more than ever, we as queer readers, as genderqueer readers, as transgender readers need queer histories.

Trading names and pronouns to be aligned with what is best understood of how the historical figures spoke of themselves, Brodell sketches a brief window into the lives of these individuals who transgressed gender norms of their time to live authentic lives finding love, careers, and fulfilling lives within cultural backdrops that did not have understanding or acceptance of gender variant/expansive lives. Many (though not all) of the historical figures Brodell includes in the book are punished or prosecuted by the church or government for their transgressions—some receiving death sentences.

Other butches had happier lives, like Rosa Bonheur, a 19th-century painter and sculptor in France. Brodell explains that after living a long and open life dressing in gender-affirming ways, often being mistaken for a man, Bonheur “used her last will and testament to force legal recognition of her right to transfer her property to another woman.”

My one main critique of the book is that I wanted more storytelling. The anecdotes of Butch Heroes are unfortunately very limited in scope, and more biographical snippets than stories. Though the brief vignettes are interesting, the focus of Butch Heroes revolves around Brodell’s art, which is stunning.

Overall, though, I was really pleased with the diversity of the historical figures included in the text and I loved that most of the people featured were strangers to me. This was the kind of book that had a lot to teach me and left me hungry for more. Butch Heroes is a small coffee-table book, a resource, and honestly a queer treasure. Amidst the backdrop of a terrifying social/cultural/political landscape, Brodell assures readers that we cannot, we will not be erased.

Against Erasure of​Queerly Gendered Lives

Against Erasure of
Queerly Gendered Lives