“Misty? A butch named Misty?” Vernita Gray said in utter dismay. She leaned over the railing around the dance floor and stared incredulously at the seven women lined up to compete in this year’s Butchiest Dyke Contest.
Out under the hot lights Misty, long hair tied back, decked in leathers and flannel, was gamely getting ready to do the Walk. The Walk–a nonverbal part of the program–was designed to show coolness. A trio of judges–one fem and two androgynous types (lovers, actually)–kept score.
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Karen Hutt, a tall, sweet-faced woman in a sweater and dress pants, who at 35 was one of the oldest contestants, was next. She walked straight over to the judges and asked them individually if they cared to dance.
“That’s her, that’s my successor,” said Gray, smiling. “She might not make it with this crowd”–Hutt, like Gray, was black, and most of the audience was white–“but she’s the only one up there who gets it.”
Only Hutt and Rhonda Craven, the only other African American competitor, went out of their way to affirm their gender. “To me, being butch is being in touch with your masculine as well as your feminine side,” said Craven, who wore both a tie and a double-headed ax, a matriarchal lesbian symbol, “but to always be all woman.”
“Everybody in the bar knows her as a fem,” said Cindy, the third roommate. “We thought the contest gave her an opportunity to show off a part of her personality that had been closeted for a long time.”
Even Vernita Gray was laughing good-naturedly. “Man, I gotta teach these girls a thing or two,” she said, and walked across the floor with a combination sashay and pimp strut that drew thunderous applause.
