Butch Voices LA Leads Stampede to West Hollywood

Television may represent West Coast lesbians as glossy, straight-looking women in a soap-opera world, but this fall's Butch Voices L.A. Conference promises a very different L -Word.

Over 400 butches, genderqueers, and similarly identified lesbians are expected to attend Butch Voices L.A. in West Hollywood, California on October 8-10.

The conference will highlight the ever changing definitions of "butch" and explore the new politics of this spectrum of LBGT life. BVLA is a Southwest conference making special outreach to butches in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico.

Boys Don't Cry writer/director Kimberly Peirce will headline the panel discussion, "Butch in the Movies." Dr. Judith 'Jack' Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity and New York activist, Carmen Vazquez, will be featured keynote speakers.

The gathering of the butch tribes will center on twenty workshops and three performance events headlined by nationally known performers including Phranc, D'Lo, Sandra Valls and Latina performers Butchlalis de Panochtitlan. Opening night will present a fashion show called, "INVINCIBLE: A night of daggers, dandies, dapper dykes."

Saturday night's performance is called, "SWAGGER: Butch Bravado by Those who live it and Those Who love it." Sunday afternoon will showcase, "The Butch Revival" a butch comedic wit and spoken word show.

Workshops moderated by Kimberly Peirce, Jeanne Cordova (author and lesbian feminist activist), Joe LeBlanc (President of Butch Voices), filmmaker Cheryl Dunye and other well known butch community activists will address wide-ranging topics, including butch identities formed in the Western states melting pot that is Latina, African American, Asian and Anglo.

Lighter life dilemmas such as "How to Lead in Ballroom Dancing" and dressing up "To Windsor or Not" will juxtapose with serious fare like, "The Many Faces of Butch" and "Conversations in Butch Socio-Political Theory."

Overall, the organizers-L.A. based lesbian cultural guerilla group LEX-The Lesbian Exploratorium -promise an once-in-a-lifetime experience for masculine-identified women who are most often marginalized and persecuted by hetero-normative society.

The event will provide butches with the opportunity to connect with one another and their allies, and foster spirited discussion about identity and the struggle to find ways to make the world safer for masculine kinds of women, and trans-identified butches.

Thanks to a grant from the City of West Hollywood, conference registration fees are only $50 for all three days. Youth and limited-income folks are welcomed for as low as $25. Many ten-dollar scholarship registrations are offered as well.

The Conference will take place at Plummer Park Community Center, located in West Hollywood. For more info see www.BVLA2010.com or email [email protected]