Click photo to go to Butch Voices LA

Apparently my love for all things butch has gotten around. *Thank God!* And Butch Voices LA recently sent me an email about the following, upcoming events. This looks  really cool and I’m about 100% sure there are going to be some smokin’ hot butches there, so any single femmes …. you might want to head on over there. Not to mention, butches, you’ll probably want to make an appearance to catch any of the fainting femmes I’m just sayin’…..

INVINCIBLE FASHION & SWAGGER HEATING UP BUTCH FEST WEST!

‘INVINCIBLE: A Night of Sartorial Radicality for Daggers, Dandies & Dapper Dudes’, is the kick-off event of the biggest butch/stud-fest ever to come to the Southland — Butch Voices LA Oct 8-10 (www.bvla2010.com). Come enjoy the queer models sporting fashionable wear….made by and for the queer masculinities in our communities.

INVINCIBLE Director Tania Hammidi says: “INVINCIBLE is a night of style! Not (just) glamour but also bravery, courage, and history—a reminder that we’ve always been here, that we persevere, and that we learned to dress ourselves handsomely.   Six designers, six stylists, and hot models will strut wear made by and for butch/stud/ag masculine of center peoples.  Celebrity strut with Cathy Opie, Kimberly Peirce, Jack Halberstam, Peggy Shaw, & Jeanne Cordova.  Plus more models and performers are being announced.

MC’d by Anna Margarita Albelo – brilliant director of ‘Hooters!’  Keynote by Parisa Parnian, the esteemed fashion diva and designer of Rigged OUT/Fitters.  Plus film Clips of ‘Butch Fashion’ by Lu.
And to top off a day of workshops and speakers on Saturday at Butch Voices LA – don’t miss the butch cabaret at: ‘SWAGGER:  One Night of Butch Bravado & Stud Service by Those That Live It and Those That Love It”.  Featuring Obie Award-winner Peggy Shaw of Split Britches, Phranc (like you’ve never seen her before), ‘jolt of comedic energy’ D’Lo, Latina performers Butchlalis de Panochtitlan, singer Angie Evans, ‘irregular MC‘ Skim, queer femme burlesque The Miracle Whips and performance artists Heather Cassils & Dawn Kaspar.   Curated by Raquel Gutierrez
INVINCIBLE: Plummer Park Great Hall, 7737 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, Ca.  Friday October 8th.  Doors open 8:30 pm.  Get here early to register and get seated by 8:15 pm to get your spot near the catwalk!  (Butch Voices LA Conference Registration opens Friday at 6pm at Plummer Park.  BVLA Art Lounge & vendor booths open at 6pm.  Hang out & enjoy the meet & greet before the Fashion show. Meet the artists, tastings and more! Dozens of artisans, fashion designers, books & sexy toys!)

SWAGGER:  Fairfax High Auditorium, 7850 Melrose Ave.  Sat. Oct 9th.  Doors open 7:00 pm.

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MORE INFO ABOUT BUTCH VOICES LA:

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Butch Voices LA Leads Stampede to Hollywood

Television may represent West Coast lesbians as glossy, straight-looking women in a soap-opera world, but this fall’s Butch Voices L.A. Conference promises a very different L -Word. Over 400 butches, genderqueers, and similarly identified lesbians are expected to attend Butch Voices L.A. in West Hollywood, California on October 8-10.  The conference will highlight the ever changing definitions of “butch” and explore the new politics of this spectrum of LBGT life. BVLA is a Southwest conference making special outreach to butches in California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico.

Boys Don’t Cry writer/director Kimberly Peirce will headline the panel discussion, “Butch in the Movies.”   Dr. Judith ‘Jack’ Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity and New York activist, Carmen Vazquez, will be featured keynote speakers.  The gathering of the butch tribes will center on twenty workshops and three performance events headlined by nationally known performers including Phranc, D’Lo, Sandra Valls and Latina performers Butchlalis de Panochtitlan. That the gathering takes place in Los Angeles is intentional: as conference chair Jeanne Cordova explains, “We particularly planned the Southwest Conference to be in LA, home of the ‘lipstick lesbian,’ as a rebellious act of butch reclamation.”

Opening night will present a fashion show called, “INVINCIBLE: A night of daggers, dandies, dapper dykes.” Saturday night’s performance is called, “SWAGGER: Butch Bravado by Those who live it and Those Who love it.” Sunday afternoon will showcase, “The Butch Revival” a butch standup comedy and spoken word show.

Workshops moderated by Kimberly Peirce, Jeanne Cordova (author and lesbian feminist activist), Joe LeBlanc (President of Butch Voices), filmmaker Cheryl Dunye and other well known butch community activists will address wide-ranging topics, including butch identities formed in the Western states melting pot that is Latina, African American, Asian and Anglo.  Lighter life dilemmas such as

“Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Butches and Femmes But Were Afraid to Ask” and “Baby, You Are My Religion: Butch Femme Bar Culture 1940’s to 1980s” will juxtapose with serious fare like, “The Many Faces of Butch” and “Bromance, Kinships and Mandates: Unveiling Butch Taboos.”

The organizers—L.A. based lesbian cultural guerilla group LEX-The Lesbian Exploratorium —promise an once-in-a-lifetime experience for masculine-identified women who are most often marginalized and persecuted by hetero-normative society. The event will provide butches with the opportunity to connect with one another and their allies, and foster spirited discussion about identity and the struggle to find ways to make the world safer for masculine kinds of women, and trans-identified butches.

Thanks to a grant from the City of West Hollywood, conference registration fees are only $50 for all three days. Many ten-dollar scholarship registrations are offered as well. The Conference will take place at Plummer Park Community Center, located at 7377 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood. Participants should register now at the Butch Voices Los Angeles website at www.bvla2010.com.  Or email BVLA at bvla2010@gmail.com.  For the most up-to-date news and information, become a friend of the group’s Facebook page at http://tiny.cc/BVLA  and follow the conference on Twitter at http://twitter.com/butchvoicesla.

For a generation of butches and studs that may have only seen itself reflected online, this is a chance to see each other in real life. At the Conference, butches will be coming together to bond, organize, strategize, be inspired, entertained and educated.  Beyond labels and stereotypes, masculine-identified lesbians and trans folk who identify as butch are reclaiming a rich history.  Workshops such as “1950s Bar Life as Church” will speak to butch history, and others like, “Everything you ever wanted to know about Butch & Femme …” will address femme concerns as well.

Crossing race and class barriers, the Conference sees “butch” as a unifying umbrella identity that will bring together all those “who identify as butch, boi, genderqueer, tomboy, stud, aggressive, butcha, macha, drag king, jock, dyke, two-spirit, androgynous-with-a-butch twist, and transmasculine.”  Femmes, divas, MtFs, FtMs, and other allies who partner with any of the above, are also welcome.

According to Conference Chair Jeanne Cordova, “The definition of butch is being revived and expanded by a younger generation of lesbians and queers who are comfortable playing with gender and embracing their masculinity or boyishness. We need to address this re-definition of ourselves.” LEX and Butch Voices also see the L.A. conference as a space for butches to bond and overcome stereotypes from both the heterosexual and the LBGTQ world toward each other. Los Angeles was asked by Butch Voices, along with Portland, Dallas, and New York City, to present regional conferences during 2010.  As Cordova explains, “We particularly planned the Southwest Conference to be in LA, home of the ‘lipstick lesbian,’ as a rebellious act of butch reclamation.” Labels like butch, femme, stud, and genderqueer don’t have to be exclusive or restricting, said the organizers. They see labels and identities as a source of pleasure and community, desire and presentation.

The Los Angeles conference was inspired by 2009’s inaugural Butch Voices gathering in Oakland, which also drew over 400 participants. According to many, the Oakland event marked the birth of the butch renaissance movement currently building in the US. National Butch Voices Board member, Krys Freeman, who identifies as genderqueer, notes, “A lot of masculine-identified women are victims of hate crimes and harassment and all sorts of things that don’t get the media’s attention. Butch Voices is about a sense of community and a space where they can share their experiences, good or bad.” To that end, Butch Voices L.A. welcomes, “Queer, feminist, lesbian, trans…whatever kind of butch you are!”

Sponsors of the Los Angeles Conference include: Host LEX-The Lesbian Exploratorium, producers of the history/art exhibit “GenderPlay in Lesbian Culture” and creators of the Lesbian Legacy Wall (a floor-to-ceiling collage of historic lesbian publications permanently installed at the ONE Archives /USC);  Butch Voices national, an organization of Butches, Studs, Machas and similar identities, whose main initiatives are health, community building and social/economic justice; the City of West Hollywood; the Lesbian & Gay Advisory Board of West Hollywood; the Conference’s fiscal sponsor, The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Project; and Christopher Street West/L.A. Gay Pride.

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