What's the difference between butch and masc?

What is a butch? What is a masc? Do butch and masc mean the same thing, or not? Has masc replaced butch? What are the similarities and differences between these terms?

Butch always seems to be either in decline or in resurgence, this has been going on for some time. Across the UK we seem to have cycled into another resurgent phase. There are hugely successful club nights and social networks like ButchPlease in London, Bristol Butch Bar, and Butch Revival in Manchester.

Butch is an older term than masc, often seen as global and timeless (Brodell, 2018; Halberstam, 2012). The popular origin story of butch goes back to 1940s and 1950s America in the relatively covert lesbian working-class bar scene in towns and cities. Books like: Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold (Kennedy and Davis, 1994), Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers (Faderman, 1992), The Persistent Desire (Nestle, 1992), and Persistence (Coyote & Sharman, 2011), all have good herstories on the butch identity and butch lives. A sacred text in butch communities is Stone Butch Blues, published in 1993 by revolutionary communist, Trade Unionist and academic, the late Leslie Feinberg. There is also Dagger: On Butch Women (Burana, Roxxie & Due, 1994), and The Drag King Book from Jack Halberstam and world-renowned photographer and scholar Del LaGrace Volcano (1999). From the UK there is Munt’s butch/femme: Inside lesbian gender (1997). Halberstam’s classic, Female Masculinities, has also become a definitive on butch identity, expression and representation in culture (1998).

Masc is a newer term. It was an Americanised term, although it is now widely used. Masc is simply short for the word masculine. It has perhaps developed from the term ‘masculine of centre’, or MOC, a term from the heyday of queer theory and politics, the 1990s. MOC was originally coined by activist B Cole in the US who founded the Brown Boi Project in 2010 for Black queers, namely female assigned masculine folx who might be seen as masculine, or as studs, or aggressives/AG – stud is a term for Black lesbians/queers, considered to be similar to the term butch, but not exactly the same, because butch is mainly associated with White queers and White communities and therefore has a particular raced, classed and geographic herstory. Masc is often said to be a more fluid, or less rigid category than butch is assumed to be.

WHAT IS BUTCH?

Although there are lots of classic books and loads of academic texts on butch, going back decades and keeping gender studies lecturers in jobs, there is still not one agreed definition of what the term even means. There may be as many different definitions of butch as there are people who would use the term. Today, in the clubs and social spaces we know and love, butch is often used as an open and expansive word, there is reticence to shut down the term or the borders of it. What’s most important is self-definition, and whether the term resonates with you or not.

The scholar Gayle Rubin, in a chapter in Nestle’s classic femme-butch book, boldly tries to come up with a broad definition. They define butch as a lesbian gender. “I will argue that the simplest definition of butch is the most helpful one. Butch is most usefully understood as a category of lesbian gender that is constituted through the deployment and manipulation of masculine gender codes and symbols” (Rubin, 1992:467). This definition contains the components of almost all other definitions that you will find if you are a nerd like me, because it roots the butch identity in lesbianism and masculinity. It emphasises three different but interrelated elements: sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression.

Butch masculinity is not the same as men’s masculinity, but then, men’s masculinity is not the same for all men. Masculinity can be as varied and creative for butches as it is for men, perhaps more so. Innes and Lloyd, scholars writing in a Women’s Studies journal about butches in twentieth century lesbian culture remind us all that: “masculinity is as fluid and changing as the society defining it. No one universal presentation of masculinity exists in our contemporary culture. A corporate lawyer presents a different image of masculinity than a rodeo bronco rider. A football player presents a different image of masculinity than President Clinton. An English professor presents a different style of masculinity than a punk rocker. Nor will all these men agree about the masculinity of the others. Class, race, ethnicity, and geography all shape how masculinity is perceived” (1995:5). Butch masculinity varies in degrees (there are undergrads and PhD’s) and it can go from what would be called softer or preppy masculinity, to more uncompromising or stereotypical masculine presentations. There are faggy butches, there are femmey butches, there are soft butches, there are mamma butches and pappa butches, there are diesel dykes and stone butches. But across all of the definitions of butch in the classic scholarship, it is acknowledged that the masculinity of the butch will be recognisable as masculine to others, in whatever their cultural context may be. Inness and Lloyd argue that masculinity “is generally accepted to be an essential foundational element of butchness. A woman who usually expresses herself in a traditionally feminine style is rarely, if ever, thought of as a butch by other lesbians” (1995:5).

Lots of scholars on the butch identity also emphasise not just outer gender expression, but inner gender identity, and an inner, or core, sense of self or essence. Two psychologists who have researched butch identities and sexualities, Levitt and Heistand, found in their research that most butches felt this way about their butch identity. “The most common response was that butchness is a certain energy or essence – one more commonly associated in our culture with masculinity. This energy expressed one’s gender and composed a core aspect of the self, which makes butch a primary identifier for some” (Levitt & Hiestand, 2004:610).

Butch is also defined in the classics in political terms, it is seen as a rebellious label, and a rebellious life to live. It is frequently linked to feminism as well. In the edited collection Dagger: On Butch Women, the scholar Carol A Queen defines butch as: “a giant fuck you to compulsory femininity” (Queen, 1994:15). In their introduction to their collection, editors Burana, Roxxie and Due state that: “For butches, being butch is about being yourself; for society, being butch is about slapping convention in the face” (Burana, Roxxie & Due, 1994:10). Butch is often seen as a form of resistance to patriarchy.

WHAT IS MASC?

Masc is accepted to be a newer term than butch. It’s chronologically newer, but it’s also newer in that it’s often described as a more modern term, and more free and flexible than the term butch is understood to be. The magazine for UK LBTQ+ communities, DIVA, clarified in 2025 that in “contemporary queer culture, in online and offline spaces, “masc” is often used in place of “butch”, though the underlying expressions of masculinity remain similar” (Moyce). So masc is obviously still associated with masculinity, but there seems little or no policing of the label, and often when people talk about the difference between masc and butch they see masc as more of an open term, one that is more flexible. The term masc does not have roots in lesbian culture and herstory, so it can be used by anyone of whatever sexuality who orientates their presentation, or style, or identity, as masculine of centre. The term masc doesn’t make assumptions about anyone’s inner gender identity and is certainly not limited or prescribed by whatever someone’s gender identity might be. The definition of ‘masc’ from the University of California San Francisco LGBTQ Resource Centre says that while the term was in the past used mainly in the lesbian community, now “it is being increasingly used by other LGBTQIA+ people to describe gender expressions that reclaim and disrupt traditional constructs of masculinity” (UCSF, 2026).

On social media the term ‘masc’ is often found on style blogs, fashion influencer accounts and nonbinary clothing brands. Currently TikTok shows that the tag #masc has 1.9million posts. The tag #mascfashion records more engagement with 62.3 million recorded views to date (2026). The term masc appears to be less about gender identity, compared to the term butch. At least, be less concerned with a fixed or presumed fixed gender identity. Masc is viewed as being more about freedom and creativity in gender expression for those who want to present and/or feel more comfortable in a more masculine than feminine style and fashion.

The classic scholarly definitions of butch meanwhile, nearly always highlight the significance of inner gender identity, as well as outward gendered expression/s. According to these definitions, butch requires a masculine gender identity, masculine gender expression, and lesbian or queer sexuality. Masc identification does not, it refers mainly to masculine gender expression and does not specify any sexuality, nor require any fixed gender identity. Going back to Gayle Rubin’s spotters’ guide to butches, Rubin defines butch as: “butches identify primarily as masculine or prefer masculine signals, personal appearance and styles” (Rubin, 1992:467). Perhaps, for some people who take on the label of butch, this quote actually contains the key difference between butch and masc.

For many butches there is no “or”, there is only “and”. Rubin’s scholarly quotation would become instead: butches identify primarily as masculine, and prefer masculine signals, personal appearance and styles. A definition of masc, therefore, could become: mascs identify primarily as masculine or prefer masculine signals, personal appearance and styles. The overlap is obvious, the factor of differentiation is the self-identification of gender identity as consistently masculine. But who knows! Only you know if you are butch or masc, or something completely different.

As terms and understandings of identity change and grow, perhaps there will be no need for glossaries like this in the nonbinary future. However, for now, there are still many people negotiating a stubbornly, perhaps resurgently, sex and gender conservative world as butches, owning and embodying a gender they were never meant to. The will to persist under this flag, despite and to spite societal penalty and punishment, speaks to a deeply held, core identity. It is an identity that has survived through stark global political and cultural changes across at least the last eighty years and is yet, arguably, still always recognisable when we see it. That is the strength and politics of the butch identity.

REFERENCES

Brodell Ria (2018) Butch Heroes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Brown Boi Project http://www.brownboiproject.org/

Burana Lily, Due Linnea & Roxxie (1994) (eds.) Dagger: On Butch Women. San Francisco: Cleiss Press.

Cole, B (2011) ‘Masculine of Centre, Seeks Her Refined Femme’ in: Coyote, Ivan E. & Sharman, Zena (eds.) Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, pp. 127-137.

Coyote, Ivan E. & Sharman, Zena (2011) (eds.) Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

Crosara Nic (2026) ‘What’s it really like to be butch in 2026?’. DIVA. Aug-September.

Faderman, Lillian (1991) Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America. Columbia, NY: Columbia University Press.

Feinberg, Leslie (1993) Stone Butch Blues. New York: Firebrand Books.

Gibson Michelle & Meem Deborah T. (eds) (2002) Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go. London: Harrington Park Press.

Halberstam, J. (2012). Global female masculinities. Sexualities, 15(3–4), 336–354. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460712436480

Halberstam, J. Jack (1998) Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Inness, Sherrie A. & Lloyd, Michelle (1995) ‘GI Joes in Barbie Land: Recontextualising Butch in Twentieth-Century Lesbian Culture’. NWSA Journal. Vol. 7(3), (Autumn), pp. 1-23.

Kennedy Elizabeth. Lapovsky & Davis Madeline D. (1993) Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. London: Penguin.

Levitt Heidi M. & Hiestand Katherine R. (2004) ‘Gender Within Lesbian Sexuality: Butch and Femme Perspectives’. Journal of Constructivist Psychology. Vol. 18, pp. 39-51.

Moyce Shannon (2025) ‘Masc and femme: where did these terms come from?’. DIVA. 25th April. Available at: https://diva-magazine.com/2025/04/25/masc-and-femme-where-did-these-terms-come-from/

Munt, Sally (1998) Butch/Femme: Inside Lesbian Gender. London: Cassell.

Nestle, Joan (Ed). The Persistent Desire: a Femme-Butch Reader. Boston, MA: Alyson Publications Inc.

Queen Carol A. (1994) ‘Why I Love Butch Women’ in Burana Lily, Due Linnea & Roxxie (1994) (eds.) Dagger: On Butch Women. San Francisco: Cleiss Press, pp. 15-23.

Rubin, Gayle (1992) ‘Of Catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries’ in: Nestle, Joan (ed). The Persistent Desire: a Femme-Butch Reader. Boston, MA: Alyson Publications Inc, pp. 466-482.

UCSF (2026) LGBTQIA+ Glossary. Available at: https://lgbtq.ucsf.edu/glossary-terms