Butch Lesbian/Playing With


 * Basic Trope: A woman who identifies as a lesbian, and (in terms of her behavior, speech, and appearance) comes across as "manly."
 * Played Straight: Alice wears her hair short, eschews makeup, is rarely (if ever) seen wearing a dress, likes playing and watching sports, and prefers beer to fruity cocktails.
 * Exaggerated: Alice's voice is very deep (and if Japanese, Alice uses the masculine dialect). She pumps iron so much she has biceps the size of tree trunks, has a fulfilling job involving manual labor and eschews anything pink, cute, or frilly (except of course her Lipstick Lesbian girlfriend, Betty.)
 * Downplayed: Alice has short hair and prefers jeans and boots to skirts and high-heels.
 * Justified:
 * Alice simply doesn't like "girly" things. She was probably like this from childhood.
 * Alice lives in a town with a sizeable lesbian population, among whom the butch look happens to be popular.
 * Inverted: Lipstick Lesbian
 * Subverted:
 * Alice has a few "girly" hobbies, like cooking, cross-stitching, and a love for babies and kittens.
 * Alternatively: Tough-as-nails biker chick Alice cuts her hair short, avoids makeup like the plague... And has an appetite for pretty boys.
 * Double Subverted: She keeps this side of her personality notoriously private, even from her girlfriend, and passes them off as the Butch Lesbian equivalent to Real Men Wear Pink if anyone ever sees her doing them.
 * Parodied:
 * Alice pees standing up. (Whether or not she has the "equipment" to do this well is another matter entirely...)
 * Alice is by far the most "manly" one of the cast - compared to her, the male characters are all complete wusses.
 * Alternatively, Alice is a Tomboy, but not necessarily "butch"; however, her guy-pals suspect she's gay, which quickly becomes a Running Gag in the series.
 * Or, Alice is a through-and-through Lipstick Lesbian, but the characters treat her like she's the manliest person they've ever met, solely on the basis that she's attracted to girls.
 * Deconstructed: Alice still has moments of insecurity; she hasn't quite figured out who she wants to be (and how to be that person) yet, and she worries what people will think of her. She has a habit of putting people down who like "girly" things.
 * Reconstructed: Alice figures herself out and pulls herself together. She is happy with how she chooses to express herself, and stops caring what people might (or might not) think. And she also learns that she doesn't have to put others down simply because their interests are not to her tastes.
 * Zig Zagged:
 * Some days, Alice wears a dress or skirt, some days she wears pants. Some days, she drinks beer. Other days, she drinks Sex on the Beach. On Monday nights, she watches football, weekday afternoons, she watches a Soap Opera.
 * Alice's friends tend to be guys, and when she's with them she tends to join in with the blokey atmosphere. But when she goes on the pull, She Cleans Up Nicely.
 * Averted: Alice is a very girly Yamato Nadeshiko, whether she's a lesbian or not.
 * Enforced: The author is a Butch Lesbian herself, and puts a sort of Author Avatar into the story.
 * The author wanted to include a lesbian character, and seems to think that's what all lesbians are like.
 * Lampshaded: Betty: "Being with Alice is like having a boyfriend and a girlfriend all in one! I love it!"
 * Invoked: Alice discovers her interest in other girls, and decides to cut her hair and donate all her dresses to charity and trade them for baggy jeans and flannel shirts.
 * Defied: Alice refuses to do or wear "manly" things. If other girls can't handle her girliness, that's *their* problem, not hers!
 * Discussed: "Gentlemen, we now know what Wilt Chamberlain would have been like if he were born female. Apparently, absolutely nothing else would have been different."
 * Conversed: "Every lesbian on TV I see either looks like a drill sergeant or Micky Rourke."
 * Played For Laughs: See "Parodied." Bonus points if Alice has Perma Stubble. Almost invariably Dead Baby Comedy.
 * Played For Drama: A Coming of Age story in which Alice is still trying to figure herself out.

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