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Butchers my gender and female, my sex and submissive, my sexuality and lesbian. How I fall in love and trans masculine is equally my gender trans as in transgressive illegal not how most people want a female body to be embodied. I write these things with confidence, but don't ask me to explain the language has too many sharp corners and I don't want to back myself into one and long ago, making concrete conclusions ceased to be the purpose of thinking about this stuff. I don't like concrete anyway. [00:00:30] It deprives us of versatile space. I like fungi. Fungi are everywhere, sometimes invisible, sometimes visible, insistently living and vastly, wildly, unimaginably diverse. They remind me I have a right. We all do as queers to be an active participant in biodiversity. Not merely a frightened bystander. Greg. When we when we went to take your photo, we went into Wilton Bush and to that reserve, and we were [00:01:00] on a hunt for fun. Um, to go, uh, with your with your photo and just to have us, um, as as part of your how you wanted to be yourself. You've You've mentioned it in your narrative. Um, could you Could you go into that a little bit more for us? Sure. Um, I, I spend a lot of my spare time reading about or thinking about mushrooms and going out into the forest. Um, I guess ostensibly to look for them. [00:01:30] Um, sometimes I just go for walks anyway. But I My, my my vision has become quite acutely honed towards looking for mushrooms. Now I can spot them at 100 metres. Um uh, and I associate them with queerness because I guess we are living in a a consumer capitalist world that's heavily focused on homogenising us. And now our [00:02:00] our genders, our sexualities, our culture, um, trying to trying to package everyone into feminine female and, like, hyper feminine and highly hygienic and sterilised feminine female bodies. And likewise for male bodies. Um, and I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in biodiversity. Uh, and in the fungal kingdom is where I see that the the most strongly pronounced there are 1.5 million [00:02:30] species of mushroom. Probably. They have definitely more than two of what we would call sexes. They have, um I don't know how many some species have got, like, five different kinds of mating combinations that are required to produce mushrooms. And sometimes there are multiple parent species that parent a specific one organism of a fungus, and they they are [00:03:00] very persistent. They crop up everywhere, you can put asphalt over them, and sometimes the mushroom will still come up through that. And I think that speaks a lot about resistance and insistence and persistence. Um, so I admire them, and I find them very refreshing as well. They're surprising and colourful and good. So I've known you a little while now, and, um, hearing you speak about like that makes me think [00:03:30] of some of the people around you. That's right. That's right. I am surrounded by exciting mushrooms. Um, yeah, They like certain species, have got some quite queer names as well. There's one called called which is this great purple mushroom. Um, and, uh, I guess that, um my my husband and wife Shan is is quite a, um quite a rarity and [00:04:00] quite colourful. She's got bright pink hair at the moment. She can get it cut off soon, but anyway, she she could be a mushroom. I suppose, in that kind of exciting and colourful way I love it. Um, you you talk about Butch being your gender. Whe when did you When did you come to that? Um, I have a butch mentor who lives in Sydney. Um, I think she would be happy to have that that title of mentor, And, uh, [00:04:30] she was a friend of my previous partner. And so I've known her for maybe 10 years now, and I ever since 18 I was I was always sure about my sexuality. In fact, more sure about it, I think, than I am now, um, as a that was as a lesbian identified person. Um, but it didn't really crossed my mind to think about myself as well. Think about Butch and film very much until this person, we [00:05:00] were having a discussion about it, and we sort of said which I think happens to like, I've been asked this question subsequently. You know, we said to her as a couple Well, which of us is Butch and which of us is them? And she said, Well, you're Butch and and you're fem and and and that was, uh I was quite butch at the time, and my father always wanted me not to be, uh, what he always wanted me to be more lady like constant refrain. Um, so I think my heart sank a little bit, but at the same time, I definitely recognised that it was true. And [00:05:30] ever since then, I've been on a journey of becoming far less but phobic and in fact, but proud. Um, and kind of shaking off those that, uh, yoke of self hatred. I suppose that my father put upon me um and yeah, that does that Answer the question. How how How have you gone? About finding out, I guess more about Butch as as an identity. [00:06:00] Um, well, I I mean, I guess, Yeah. Tribute again to to Chris in Sydney, who just simply identifies as Butch and as Butch. And so, um, you know, looking around, I guess looking in the mainstream media, you don't see a lot of role models that only people who come to mind for me straight away are the top twins. I don't know if they are butch identified, and Katie Lang, who I know is Butch identified. Um, but I've had to I've had to find it within [00:06:30] people within my own community, not celebrities to be role models. And, um, I've loved that process. Um, I would say it's only in recent three or four years or so that I've started to really actively cultivate friendships with other butchers and butch solidarity. Um, previously, I guess I just became friends with whoever I became friends with. But yeah, it's become more important. And how do I go about it? Just living in in our community and [00:07:00] yeah, spending more time in the queer community. And I don't know, just seeing how how choice it is to be butch and how what? Yeah. How? Um, be sure it is, um, is because, Yeah, I don't think this we're not the majority. Maybe I don't know. Um uh, has been has been good in terms of yeah, looking, looking to find out more about it. Yeah. [00:07:30] What? What does butch solidarity mean for you being mates with you, Jack? Um, yeah, just I think when When I was quite a bit young. Say two people meet each other who are both butchers, who both have a bit of butch like Internalised butch phobia in them. My experience of this has been that you sort of look at one another and you go. Hi. I hate you. Hi. I hate you too. And then that's your interaction with other butchers. Um, full stop. And, [00:08:00] uh, I see you nodding there, so I'm not alone. Um, and I really have been working to just not I. I don't hate other butchers. And I looked wherever I don't see that that reflected back to me as I will. I will gravitate towards that and strike, strike up a conversation or, you know, seek to socialise. If if that's, um, what's on offer, um and yeah, What does it mean? I it's It's [00:08:30] what does solidarity mean? Just being just being mates with and and not being high? I hate you, I. I think I wouldn't sort of extend it beyond that with words, because if you can use words, you get into too much territory of I don't know, say narrowing it down in some way. Some kind of nice vibe is what I would summarise it as Yeah, and in terms of the butch fem dynamic Um, um, can you tell me how that is in your life? [00:09:00] Yes. And I? I want to start with the disclaimer that I, I really am not seeking to render a strong opinion here because I, um, understand that it antagonises a lot of people When when people are militant about Butch and, um, But my own personal experience is that I, I guess, um am naturally attracted to films. Um, [00:09:30] I wouldn't say I was naturally attracted to other butchers. Um, sexually, that is or erotically, Eros exists between me and and S fairly often. I think, uh, and I feel comfortable about that. It it feels groovy. Um, I think it's been an important thing for me to learn that Butch does not exist because fem exists like fem doesn't like. Fem may be [00:10:00] maybe an opposite in an opposite attract kind of way or something, but it doesn't give rise to Butch. I am. But when I go to the bathroom and clean my teeth or I'm Butch when I go for a walk looking for mushrooms, I'm always butch. I am Butch and, um and I'm in a relationship with someone who is who identifies as them who I think identifies as them when she go to brush her teeth or go to look for mushrooms. Um, so they exist quite independently of one another. [00:10:30] Um, and that's just a bit of magical magics. Um, I don't know why. I don't know why. For me, there's a There's a natural, um, instinctive attraction towards the feminine. Um um, maybe just a yin yang yin yang thing. I don't know. Yeah, Greg, um, what's what's your background? What's your family background and where Where have you come from? [00:11:00] My my father is rural, working class, West Coast, south Island. Um, which is its own, like West Coast is, uh, quite particular. Quite eccentric, I think, um, and and and But was growing up in the early in the eighties and nineties was quite what's the word when you try to rise above your class roots or bitter yourself or something quite ambitious? Is it the word or something? [00:11:30] So anyway, he never really pulled that off. Um, but but I think in consequence, he had a lot of shame. Um, around various things. And so for me to be not a feminine female, um was quite shaming to him. And to be a lesbian also was quite shaming to him. Um, but he can get over it. And my mother? I don't really know my mother very well. She I I did grow up in the same house as her. Um, but that is about all [00:12:00] I can say. She came from a middle class background, and, um, they remain married. They now live in London. They have done since 2002. Um, yeah, I. I mean, I can't say that my mother put a heap of pressure on me to be any one way or another. She didn't give very much guidance at all. And that is OK, It's actually leaves a kind of a vacuum that I've been able to fill myself, which is, in some ways better than I think, what some people have had [00:12:30] from parents. So, yeah, I've been fortunate in being able to make my own way in that way. Yeah, and I was always I was always pinpointed as a as a tomboy, um, and always have been, but And that was hard sometimes in childhood. Um, yeah. Um but but here I am, And, um And then we had some quite Methodist values growing up. We [00:13:00] went to Methodist Church a little bit and that means social social justice focused. And I think I retained some of that while being definitely agnostic, if not atheist. Hm. Yeah. So when you left the West Coast, what sort of age were you then? And where did you go? I I'm sorry. I was born in Dunedin and raised there and left Dunedin when I was 30 to move to Wellington. Um, we spent most of our school holidays in is where my father is from. And [00:13:30] I feel quite a strong West Coast influence because that's the side of the family that I have most to do with. And there's more of them. So yeah, yeah. Um yeah. And then moved to Wellington at 30 just after a kind of a a bit of a life crisis in Dunedin, which was good, because it it again caused a period of renewal and myself in terms of gaining some self confidence and self esteem, including around gender, gender, identity stuff, and yeah, [00:14:00] and you came to Wellington cause you knew people here or no, Dunedin is a very celibate city. And I I had broken up, um, from a from a 10 year relationship, and and really, um It's not only quite a celibate city, it's quite not just but phobic, but quite queer phobic. Quite. What's the word? Quite con conservative in many ways. Um, and this, you know, the students. [00:14:30] I suppose you'd call them more quite liberal and progressive, but they're also 12 years old or whatever. So yeah, um, I moved to Wellington because Wellington is much more venal than Dunedin. Full stop and queer. It's got a bigger queer community. I wanted community at that point. Yeah. So how long have you been here, now? Two years now. I moved here at the very beginning of 2013. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Recently, Um, you got married, and I was very fortunate and honoured to be at that wedding. [00:15:00] And I did notice that you actually had family there, which was nice. Can you talk about, um, that aspect of it having those those folk come along too? Yeah. Yeah. Um, most of the family who were there were aunties and an uncle. And on my father's side, plus my father, um, and they they are the West Coast clan, and I think they their their direction or their in life [00:15:30] is to. I think it's fair to say they will accept you If you are, just be yourself And like, be yourself hard out Do not put on is and graces and don't be affected This with an A, um and, you know, don't try and be something you're not. And I'm quite strenuously trying not to be something I'm not not try, but not trying to be something I'm not. Have I got the double negative right now? That thing. I'm very strenuously trying to be myself now and [00:16:00] lead a really authentic life. And that has brought me closer to my family in recent years. And I, I think that they they would take up arms to defend me Now, Um, a lot of people who were at the wedding said, Oh, it was really good of your family to be there. You know, they're obviously sort of redneck as the implication, but they aren't in practise and I. I had an another, um, my aunt on my mother's side was there who's an academic, And I feel like academics are just as conservative in their own [00:16:30] ways or as or just as redneck in their own ways as um is country people are or can be. You find conservatives in all nooks and crannies. Academics? Yeah. Um, the wedding itself was was pretty special. Um, can you Are you OK about telling us a little bit about the wedding and how you, um, envisaged it and how it went for you on the day and so on? Yeah, [00:17:00] well, Shannon, I have got, I think, quite quite a lot of shared values. And one of our one of our most important values is being being authentic and being expressive. Um, that's two values and also being free. That's a third value. And so we we wanted to to and we love melodrama, So we wanted, like, a really melodramatic ceremony. Um and so we did. We [00:17:30] did that, um, we we we wanted to show all facets of our life together in the in the wedding. And so, for example, on the cake, we we decorated with drawings of ourselves going through a dark forest with holding torches, looking to one another. And at one end of the cake, we we're in a clearing, and it's happy and good. And then and then the other part of the cake. It's It's like, dark and scary. And it's The reason for that is [00:18:00] that relationships are not always, um, not always in clearings and and sunny and good. And sometimes you have dark patches together and rough patches, and you have to you have to pick up the torch and go and look for one another in the forest. Um, and and other times you are in a sunny clearing. So we wanted to be real about that, and that is not always sailing. Um, we wanted to to speak passionately [00:18:30] about our love for one another and our declarations, which we called clitus. Um, we didn't want to assimilate and be like heterosexuals in any kind of traditional heterosexual way. Um, we're not interested in that. We So we spoke about supporting one another, um, to to live our lives fully and supporting one another through any change or growth that we might need to do in the relationship and within the relationship. Um and, [00:19:00] um, yeah, not trying to control one another and buy into the normal, patriarchal structural ways of being together. I myself particularly have to watch that I think in what way? Well, I think it is because I think sometimes in Butch Fem dynamics there's a kind of commute from traditional sexism where the where the male so the masculine, traditionally masculine person is, is [00:19:30] controlling or, um has more of a privilege and abuses that privilege or something like that. And, um, we don't want to commute that to our relationship. Um, yeah, I. I mean, also, we we also brought to our wedding ceremony our sexual dynamic, which is that Sean is a top and I am a bottom which were a dominant, and I am a submissive and and that also is like a departure, I think, from reasonably [00:20:00] traditional traditional sexism. Um, yeah, we didn't want to transplant that onto our relationship and or on to our wedding. So I crawled alongside her for part of the walking up the aisle part and and that was symbolic of that. And after the ceremony, the celebrant said, You may now pick up the queen because I like to pick her up. So she rendered herself, I guess, vulnerable in that way as well. We vulnerability is really important to us, and but [00:20:30] yeah, both of us me as well in terms of I mean, I think that's the thing. Sometimes butchers sometimes get into a kind of bravado or march, not Marxism that thing. Um um, and I don't buy into that. I don't have enough energy. Um, so yeah. So we Yeah, we just We did our own thing very much, and we we wore what we wanted. I want to say on the record that I wore shorts [00:21:00] for my wedding. And I felt really proud about that. Because when I was when I was growing up, I guess it's one of the things that my peers would point out as being wrong was that I? I wore shorts, and that made me like a boy. And that's wrong. Um, but I really find it liberating. I recently started wearing shorts again, and it's so liberating. I love it. Um, well, the wedding is I guess the, um the start of, uh, marriage. So why marriage? [00:21:30] Yes. Why? Marriage. Um, for us, it's It's actually deeply personal. It's not, uh, it wasn't like, shall we get married to acquire the status of a married couple? It's more like I've felt like I'm in the lost and found for a certain portion of my life, and here's a person who who's willing to claim me like an old hoodie and hold me up and say, This is mine And, um, that feels really good for me. Um, just on [00:22:00] a personal level, it's not. Mm. I mean, it's not about ownership and that that's a metaphor of ownership. But it's not about ownership in any other way. We we have an open relationship, and it will stay that way until such a time as we change our minds about that. But it feels good. In fact, the idea of monogamy is very horrific to me, but anyway, um um, like it would be like a cage. But, um, that's just me. And I think it's Shan, too, Um, and for Sean, [00:22:30] I think a similar thing, similarly very deeply personal and very she's had a sense of being an orphan. I think at times as well, although she's got parents, obviously and I've got parents, but just that sense of being alone in the world and then not being alone in the world when when you find someone who you reckon you can spend uh, long, long years with And so we did that. It was healing. It felt good. And we know that we [00:23:00] have our detractors, and some of them are still our friends. That's good in terms of actually getting married. Um, yeah. And, you know, some of our detractors who don't believe in marriage were actually at the wedding, so that felt really good. Like Chris, my mentor in Sydney, came over for it, and she just thoroughly not believe in marriage. Um, I don't think you do either, do you? You're OK with it? Um, yeah. Was it What? Did I answer the question. I can't remember what it was. Yeah. Um, have things felt different since the wedding? [00:23:30] Um, I, I guess there's there is something momentous in someone saying to you, I trust you so much that I wanna spend. You know, You're saying I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I think we're both open to the notion of divorce. Uh, you dial Department of Internal Affairs and you push one for divorce. Um, if this is a divorce situation, press one. If it's an inquiry about getting married, press two. Interestingly, divorce comes first, but [00:24:00] it must be that. Yeah. It must be that divorce is more urgent or something. Um um so you know, there's there's that, but our wish, I think, is to spend the rest of our lives together and And so occasionally, Yeah, it it really strikes me that. Just that fact that I'm I'm I'm that much trusted. And I'm that much loved that, that whatever. Whatever dark forests we go through, we we our intention [00:24:30] is to find one another again. Um, yeah, we've We've only been together a year and a half, and we've already had some some strife earlier on, and we we got through it and we did so in a reasonably radically honest way. And that has been really emboldening to us, I think, as a as a as a coupling. Yeah. Thanks, Greg. I think we'll finish it there. And can I just check? Is there anything you'd like to add? Um, [00:25:00] no, I guess if you're listening and you're butch and you, you're, like, newly identified as Butch. Then then I send you my solidarity. I send you love quite unashamedly. And I wish you all the best. Thanks for listening.
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