Do you know about these butch icons from history?

From drag kings to painters, here’s a list of some incredible sapphic trailblazers 

BY LUCY CHUNG, IMAGE BY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

It’s that time of year that we show butches all the love. Masculine-presenting lesbians have been with us since (probably) the dawn of time. Though butch is a 20th-century label, if you look closely enough, you will find them dotted through history long before the label was born. Butch writers, activists, and artists have always been trailblazers. Here’s a list of some butch history icons everyone should be celebrating. 

Mabel Hampton

Hampton was an iconic lesbian activist and a significant contributor to the Lesbian Herstory Archives. She was born on 2 May 1902 and died in 1989. 

Hampton grew up in North Carolina but eventually fled to Harlem to escape her abusive aunt and uncle. She ended up as a dancer during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, working alongside other queer icons like Gladys Bentley.

In this period, she figured out she was a lesbian, and in 1932, she met the love of her life, Lillian Foster. They remained together until Foster’s death in 1978.

Romaine Brooks

Born Beatrice Romaine Goddard, Romaine Brooks was an “out” lesbian in the first half of the twentieth century. She was an artist known for her portraits of women, which reflected her view on gender expectations. She challenged social norms about how women should look and act in her pieces. 

She was friends with Hannah “Gluck” Gluckstein, another artist who challenged gender norms in her work. The two were supposed to paint portraits of one another, but Gluck never finished Brooks’ portrait due to an apparent argument. 

Brooks fell in love with American playwright and novelist Natalie Clifford Barney. The pair met at a garden party Barney hosted in Paris.

Gladys Bentley 

Bentley was born in 1907 and died in 1960. She was an American blues singer, pianist, and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance.

She performed as a Black, lesbian, cross-dressing performer and found major success at Harry Hansberry’s Clam House, a well-known gay speakeasy in New York in the 1920s. 

In the early 1930s, Bentley headlined at Harlem’s Ubangi Club, alongside a chorus line of drag queens. As a drag king, she was known for her signature tailcoat and top hat. She played piano in style and was known for singing suggestive lyrics to women she would flirt with in the audience.

Jeanne Córdova 

Cordova was born in 1948 and passed away in 2016. She was a self-described butch lesbian, writer and former Catholic nun. She founded The Lesbian Tide, one of the first national lesbian periodicals. 

She was an activist who helped defeat an anti-gay ballot in 1978, which sought to remove lesbian and gay teachers from Catholic public schools.

Esther Eng (1914–1970)

Eng was born in 1914 and passed away in 1970. She was a Chinese-American film director and the first female director to direct Chinese-language films in the United States. 

She crossed boundaries of class, gender and race and was often pictured in men’s suits. She lived openly as a lesbian in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1930s-50s.

A documentary about her life and career was shown at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2013, titled Golden Gate Silver Light.

Rosa Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur was a 19th-century French sculptor and painter. She was awarded the Grand Cross of the French Legion of Honour and was famous for her paintings of animals. She was extremely popular during her lifetime.

Because of her short hair and strong features, Bonheur was often mistaken for a man. She was granted permission by the police commissioner to wear men’s attire whilst she painted. 

She married her childhood sweetheart, Natalie Micas, in private; the ceremony was officiated by Micas’ father. Following Micas’ death, Bonheur married American artist Anna Klumpke.

Bonheur’s story has been preserved in Ria Brodell’s book Butch Heroes, which sheds light on the lives of people who didn’t conform to gender norms from the 15th to the 20th century.

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