How did the Butch-Femme renaissance begin online? In the 1950's, Butches and Femmes met in dark bars and softball fields. Dismissed by popular lesbian feminist thought in the 60's and 70's, Butch-Femme expression was dismissed as outdated and unenlightened. But in our era, technology has allowed a beautiful renaissance. Because of computers, today is the golden age for Butch-Femme culture.

The earliest contemporary gatherings for Butches and Femmes started in the late 80's on UseNet message boards such as soc.women.lesbian-and-bi. Since AOL's infancy, there has always been an active Butch-Femme community, originally dubbed "The Porch". The first public B-F mailing list groups "Boychicks" and "Femmedykes" were created by a dynamic Femme named Dorsie Hathaway through QueerNet.org in 1994. Today Queernet.org hosts dozens of free Butch-Femme related mailing lists, as does Yahoo and MSN.

The first comprehensive online community Rhon and Chris founded in 1995 was originally called "Butch-Femme Heaven." Yes, it was butt-ugly, but the site had several mailing list groups ("Stonebutch", "Stonefemme", and "Club Heaven"). "Butch-Femme Heaven" was also home to the first Butch-Femme-specific personals. (We did them by hand back then!) Soon after, in September of 1998, Butch-Femme.com became the first registered domain dedicated to Butches and Femmes.

What a long, strange trip it has been!

Today, Butch-Femme.com is one of the largest and oldest queer sites on the Internet. This site houses the only active chat rooms dedicated soley to Butches and Femmes on the Internet, and the Newsletter has nearly 100,000 subscribers. Butch-Femme.com also hosts the only listserv devoted soley to Butches and Femmes with over 35+ mailing lists. Our Forum message boards have had to be rebuilt and upgraded several times, housing millions and millions of posts over the years! There have been an exhaustive amount of gatherings through the local tribes of FABU (Femmes and Butches United), countless weddings from folks who met in the personals, Slut Nights from coast-to-coast, and more drama than was probably necessary. <grin> B-F.com also hosts a huge Bash once a year where as many as 300 glorious Butches and Femmes take over a city for a long weekend. Butch-Femme.com has been mentioned in several books, and featured in the Advocate, Curve, and Girlfriends magazines.

Over the years, the owners Daddy Rhon and Miz Chris have watched their hobby grow into a real world community. We are still free and non-commericial, with no popups or banners. Still downhome and still homemade, run right out of our living room. Many smaller social groups dedicated to building Butch and Femme community have branched off from our efforts and the revival has grown across the web. Building community is what it is all about, and we salute you all.

Long live Butch-Femme!