Stone butch

A stone butch is a lesbian displaying female masculinity. Stone butches usually do not like to be sexually touched genitally by their partners; however, they still provide their partners with sexual gratification, and often experience pleasure themselves in doing so.

The term was popularized by Leslie Feinberg in Stone Butch Blues, a 1993 novel describing the tribulations of being a stone butch woman. In the end of the novel the protagonist ultimately settles the battle between her gender identity and sexual orientation by claiming the autonomy to identify however she wishes. Atticus Lee, providing a scholarly point of view in contrast to Feinberg’s novel, argued that a stone butch is a pre-transition trans man who participates in sexual acts only to pleasure his partner(s). Jack Halberstam explores the stone butch identity in relation to transgender individuals, claiming that stone butchness is a compromise between being a lesbian and being a trans man. Both Lee and Halberstam assert that stone butch can be regarded as a gender expression/gender identity alongside sexual orientation.