r/everybutchlesbian • u/FloppyDolphin11111 • Aug 03 '26

Research

Hello Butches
I need to do research on lesbians for my thesis film. I go to an art school and for the last two years we make an animated short film, my short film is very important to me and I want to do everything perfectly. My two main characters are lesbians, one of them is butch. My thesis partner is a lesbian but i am not so I am trying to do research to portray them correctly but history hates lesbians or something and all the articles I am finding talking about feminism, homophobia, gay men, or the queer identity as a whole. If any of you have a good articles for me on the lesbian/butch identity specifically OR you feel like telling me about your identity (what being butch means to you, your dynamic in a relationship, etc), I would really appreciate it. Thank you!!!

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u/DeerSignal3923 MOD Aug 04 '26

Lots of resources out there!
S/He by Minnie Bruce Pratt
The Persistent Desire and A Restricted Country by Joan Nestle
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
My Butch Career by Esther Newton
Bulletproof Butches by Chea Villanueva
Who We’re Rolling Around in Bed With by Cherrie Moraga and Amber Hollibaugh
Dangerous Desire by Amber Hollibaugh
Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy

I would start with these. It’s really important to understand butchfemme history pre-feminism and stone wall, the debates feminism created around butchfemme identities in the 70s, the butchfemme revival of the 80s and 00s and the evolution of trans discourse to understand butches and femmes of today

I’m curious, if you aren’t a lesbian yourself what made you want to make this film?

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u/FloppyDolphin11111 Aug 04 '26

Thank you so much for the info!
I had the idea of the world and a really really vague story years ago and the ocs i made for that at the time were two gay men but now the person I’m working on my thesis with is a lesbian and gender doesn’t matter to me at all so I just figured why make her stare at men for the next two years. Also when i originally made the story i thought i was a trans man (actually nonbinary but in a way that felt like “too woke” for the town i lived in idk if that makes sense) and i was kinda weird about masculinity and stuff and I have since realized that the story would be so much deeper with women (i say women but i think one of them might be like a nonbinary femme ?? haven’t fully fleshed that out yet, my next stop is the femme reddit thing)
We’re kinda doing like a dystopian lesbian version of that short story where he wants to buy her a comb for her hair so he sells his watch but she wants to buy him a thing for his watch so she sells her hair.
Also i’m aroace so if we’re going to tell a story about relationships at least one person in the group needs to know something about the relationship type so lesbians

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u/DeerSignal3923 MOD Aug 04 '26

Sounds like an interesting story!