TopHotButches.com is live!
Here it is, folks – the project we’ve been talking up on twitter for weeks now: Top Hot Butches 2009. I have SO much to say about the project, how it impacted me, the dozens of artists and activists that I have now been exposed to who I didn’t know about before, the act of putting a list together (and choosing an order!), what it’s like to see images of myself reflected, the shock of looking at real grown-up butches and transmasculine folks and how that gives me a specific, personal vision for how I might continue to grow up and grow older in my own gender. I forget how little I see myself reflected, and it’s so important to feel represented in culture.
I’ve been working on this for at least a week straight now, solidly, for hours a day, and it’s taken over a bit, so I’m really ready to let it go and let it have it’s own life.
Thank you, sincerely, to so many people who have helped with this project: the panel of judges: Leo, Fimg, Geekporngirl, Kristen, and Rodger; thanks to Alisha for compiling most of the photographs, thanks to Femme Fluff and to DJ Haha for consulting on the content of the list, thanks to the fifty or so commenters who left suggestions for who might be on the list, thanks to the people who have been proofreading the site over the last few days (I’m still incorporating your feedback, thank you!).
Here’s the press release:
For immediate release – June 22, 2009
Sinclair Sexsmith, the “kinky queer butch top” behind Sugarbutch Chronicles and the editor of Queer Eye Candy, has launched TopHotButches.com, a top 100 list in the spirit of AfterEllen.com’s Hot 100 and GO Magazine’s Women We Love, focusing on transmasculine queer people of all kinds – butch, tomboy, androgynous, masculine, AG, stud, dykes, queers, and transmen.
“There is a serious lack of transmasculine representation in mainstream lesbian culture,” Sexsmith said. “Even in queer-focused top 100 lists, masculine women and transguys are rarely included. This does damage in two ways: 1. it implies that the attractiveness and desirability of lesbians is based on the heteronormative gender role assumptions of femininity, and 2. it excludes two large groups – dykes who are attracted to transmasculine women and trans men, and the transmasculine women and transmen ourselves. Where are our desires on these lists? Once again we are rendered other, strange, deviant, not attractive. This list attempts to fill in that hole.”
The project features photographs and links for all the 100 people on the list, and profiles for the top 10. There is even an “honorable mention” category, with more than a dozen more names.
“I thought it would be hard to get 100,” Sexsmith said, “I thought, maybe we can get 50. But I had so many suggestions, and I had more names than I could fit on the list. There are more of us out there in culture than one might think.”
The list includes predominantly musicians, comics, actors, and writers, but there is a wide variety of professions represented, from athletes and tattoo artists to political activists, radio show hosts, and porn stars.
“Diversity was important in picking the final list, and in the order of the list. Not just profession, but also ethnicity, age, geography, and body size. I wanted a wide range of masculinities in this project, to show how many various ways female masculinity and trans masculinity manifest,” said Sexsmith. “It was also important to me to include trans men, as much as it might seem to be in conflict with the title of the project, because trans men are a significant part of this community, and have been a serious force behind the re-visioning the gender and masculinity in gender activism in recent years.”
The Top Hot Butches project may continue annually. Visit TopHotButches.com to see the full list, photographs, profiles, links, and further information about the project. Sinclair Sexsmith can be reached at aspiringstud[at]gmail.com for interviews and further comment.
Head on over there to see the complete list … there is a page for you to comment on the site, or you can leave comments here. Thanks for all the feedback, and for being a part of this!
Yay! It's finally here! <3
how exciting!
Yippees!
Hooray! Congratulations!
(PS: the links that point to http://www.tophotbutches.com/name end up at a 404 page — feel free to erase this comment once you read it)
Oh my this is so exciting!
Oh wow, you did such a great job!!
#6 is so damn sexy.
Thank you, Slick! I love it! The underrepresented get a chance to shine and they sure do! mmmmmmm……. i love butches :-)
Oh I'm so excited! I did not know this was coming :D
Strange the main title is "top hot butches" yet not even a single percent of the women shown are actually Butch women. Butch invisibility and miosgyny win again.
dirt
Sinclair, you didn't put yourself on the list? We voted for you!
Thanks for the site though – awesome work!
Sin, thanks for doing this. How fuckin exciting!
While most of this list reads like a dream and I am grateful to you and the others who have compiled it (and yes, Sinclair, you should be on here,) it bothers me so, so, so, so much that one of the top 100 hottest butches we could find is also a person accused of serially raping femmes. No, said person was never prosecuted – he fled the country before that could happen. Yes, the situation was blurry and he said/she said. And yes, after he fled lots more femmes came forward with the exact same story as the original femme.
Maybe it's like the Kobe Bryant thing? Stay quiet about your bad deeds for a while and then everything's good as new and the endorsements start flowing back in.
Actually – maybe I should be glad that out of the hundred I was only able to identify 3 active misogynists.
I know this is an incredible under-taking and I really don't mean to critique *you* who did the work to make this list – my guess is that you didn't know certain things while you were considering who was included.
But it stings…to have have three such people listed among the other amazing 97 who do so much to make our community a better place.
Sinclair,
I love most of the list but I have to point out, if the point was to highlight LGBTQ people, I think that at least one person on the list is straight. Chantal Hébert. She was married to a man (whose name she took) and has two grown sons. There is not much info on her personal life out there even though she is in the public eye (which is true of nearly all Canadian journalists.) In any case, if she is gay she is so discreet about it that there isn't even any gossip.
spectacular site! excellent work!
I'm with Fran. I saw that and almost threw up.
fran and nikki: care to be a little more specific?
dirt: ditto?
Oh my! *fans self*
Thank YOU Sinclair!
I can't believe you left Kathy "Dipstick" Belge off the list!
I must say how extremely disappointed I am to see that you have taken the transmen originally on the list off the list. I know how the lesbian community tries to differ themselves from the transmen community because we/they often feel that transmen are simply butch lesbians and in their transition abandon the lesbian community and enter a world of "straight male" and gain all the privileges granted to them in our heterosexist society. However, I feel the only way to rid the community of this absurd notion is to create a safe space for transmen in the lesbian community (trans, gender-bending, gender queer, etc. etc.). I look forward to seeing the statement you release, but I felt it necessary to express to you my deep concern at your post facto exclusion of transmen in the top 100.