Meet A Butch: Salvador de la Torre
My name is Salvador de la Torre, it is the name I gave myself because of my deep connection to my grandparents and ancestors. Salvador was my maternal grandfather’s name and he was the most loving and tender soul of a man I’ve ever known. I didn’t come to this name overnight tho, I meditated and prayed about it asking for guidance from my ancestors and trans friends. A snake’s head appeared to me in a meditation, slitering sounds that became clearer and clearer to me “sssssssssaaallllllllvvvvvaaaaaa” the next day I knew Salvador was my name because I remembered I already had it tattooed on my chest years prior in honor of my grandfather whom I loved, and I realized that I have the answers within me already.
I currently live in Los Angeles, because it was a dream of mine as a kid. I grew up in Laredo, Texas, but spent my summers in southern California visiting my older siblings for I am one of 7 kids and the second to the youngest. My other sisters married when I was a kid and made a life in this area. Some of the best memories of my childhood are spending time with my siblings here, so I came here as soon as I was able to support myself and leave Laredo which was about 8 years ago in 2013. I arrived as a straight heterosexual woman because I never felt safe enough to come out while living in Texas, and for that I am grateful to this land for it brought me closer to myself. I’m a high school art teacher, where I am openly out a trans faculty because my school is pretty liberal and I want to been seen by my trans students and others around me that are potentially still closeted. For fun I like to tattoo my friends and other trans and queer community, and I fucking love to dance Cumbia with queers and my dog Vida.
What’s something you know now that you wish you’d known when you were 12?
I would want to tell them so much and protect them from so much harm from others and myself, but mostly I would want to hold them, soothe them, tell them how loved they are, and how eventually they would grow up and learn to love themselves.
I wish they knew what trans was and that being gay is not bad or sinful. My 12 year old self was living in Laredo, Texas, would go to every church, confession, and pray every time we went in the car with my family. My parents are from a small town in Jalisco Mexico there families are extremely traditional and even more catholic. I only had heard of 2 instances of queer folks in my childhood. One story was of these 2 señoras that lived together for a lifetime. Everyone in the town knew they were marimachas even though those women never told anyone that they lived where each other’s partner. The other story hit closer to home, this one was from my uncle that died when I was 5 from HIV Aids because he was a gay man. Thus, basically I learned it was not socially accepted to be gay, and if you were gay you had to live a secret life and die from it. I was petrified of my queer thoughts as a kid and would deflect them with all my might and energy. Eventually I would slip and allow myself to fantasize about women, only to later torture myself and punish myself with my negative thoughts that would manifest themselves as panic attacks, vomit, and diarrhea.
What’s the queer scene like where you live and what’s one thing you’d change about it if you could?
There are all types of queer scenes in LA, and I honestly try to avoid them all. I don’t like popular kids or popular queers in LA and don’t want to belong to cool queer spaces. My community of queers and trans friends are honestly pretty spread out and its really hard to make plans to hangout with people in this area because of how exhausted people are from work, traffic, parking, and how spread out folks can be. When I do have the time and energy to have intentional time with friends it is usually in small groups or just one on one with a friend. I do however really love pop up events and dance parties that are facilitated by bipoc folks like Cumbiaton and Van Dyke pop ups. I also love to throwing myself birthday parties to dance Cumbias and Reggeton with my gay ass friends.
What does the butch identity mean to you?
As a kid butch was the coolest thing ever. I really loved watching my dad dress up for church or for a party. He would wear cowboy boots and fancy belts with big buckles I even loved his work uniforms when he was a bus driver and a custodian, and as I young kid I was allowed to dress butch or like a tom boy. I would always love to wear sneakers with soccer shorts and graphic tees, in the fourth grade I got a pair of knock off tan timberland boots for Christmas. I also remember owning a pair of suspenders and thinking I was the fanciest ever. But when I was going to start middle school I was forced to grow my hair long and become feminine. Forced is a strong word tho because I was also open to the idea because I wanted to be loved and accepted by my pack which happened to be 4 high femme sisters and my mom. Growing up in a large family I was not seen by anyone like spiritually and quite literally because I was such a quiet, good kid, that always took honor classes. No one worried about me. I never got the attention I neeed and deserved, until I started to become more high femme, all of a sudden like a 90’s movie people noticed me and told me how attractive I was and how well I would dress. And I performed feminity even after coming out as a lesbian because I didn’t want to rock the boat that much and be both lesbian and butch.
It wasn’t until quarantine that I made the full commitment to aligning myself with butch because I was able to do it safely without any judgment from my family or outside world. I buzzed off my long-ass hair and dressed as masc and butch as my heart desired. I would post selfies or pictures of me in boxers and Carhartt overall on my Instagram, and my virtual community of gays all supported me and affirmed how hot I felt.
Being butch has transformed my life, and exponentially improve my overall mental health and experience on this earth. I now for the first time in 30 + years like to look at the mirror, I like the reflection I see. I no longer feel like the clown I had to dress up as and perform as. I feel so hot as butch, and I’ve allowed myself to feel as fancy and cool as I did wearing dickies, boxers, and suspenders a kid. But that has come at a price, my mom no longer calls me beautiful, my dad can barely look at me, and I have a strained relationship with most of my siblings. But the people that truly see me know I’m happy and that I am finally me.
What’s something you know now that you wish you’d known when you were 12?
I would want to tell them so much and protect them from so much harm from others and myself, but mostly I would want to hold them, soothe them, tell them how loved they are, and how eventually they would grow up and learn to love themselves.
I wish they knew what trans was and that being gay is not bad or sinful. My 12 year old self was living in Laredo, Texas, would go to every church, confession, and pray every time we went in the car with my family. My parents are from a small town in Jalisco Mexico there families are extremely traditional and even more catholic. I only had heard of 2 instances of queer folks in my childhood. One story was of these 2 señoras that lived together for a lifetime. Everyone in the town knew they were marimachas even though those women never told anyone that they lived where each other’s partner. The other story hit closer to home, this one was from my uncle that died when I was 5 from HIV Aids because he was a gay man. Thus, basically I learned it was not socially accepted to be gay, and if you were gay you had to live a secret life and die from it. I was petrified of my queer thoughts as a kid and would deflect them with all my might and energy. Eventually I would slip and allow myself to fantasize about women, only to later torture myself and punish myself with my negative thoughts that would manifest themselves as panic attacks, vomit, and diarrhea.
What’s the queer scene like where you live and what’s one thing you’d change about it if you could?
There are all types of queer scenes in LA, and I honestly try to avoid them all. I don’t like popular kids or popular queers in LA and don’t want to belong to cool queer spaces. My community of queers and trans friends are honestly pretty spread out and its really hard to make plans to hangout with people in this area because of how exhausted people are from work, traffic, parking, and how spread out folks can be. When I do have the time and energy to have intentional time with friends it is usually in small groups or just one on one with a friend. I do however really love pop up events and dance parties that are facilitated by bipoc folks like Cumbiaton and Van Dyke pop ups. I also love to throwing myself birthday parties to dance Cumbias and Reggeton with my gay ass friends.
What does the butch identity mean to you?
As a kid butch was the coolest thing ever. I really loved watching my dad dress up for church or for a party. He would wear cowboy boots and fancy belts with big buckles I even loved his work uniforms when he was a bus driver and a custodian, and as I young kid I was allowed to dress butch or like a tom boy. I would always love to wear sneakers with soccer shorts and graphic tees, in the fourth grade I got a pair of knock off tan timberland boots for Christmas. I also remember owning a pair of suspenders and thinking I was the fanciest ever. But when I was going to start middle school I was forced to grow my hair long and become feminine. Forced is a strong word tho because I was also open to the idea because I wanted to be loved and accepted by my pack which happened to be 4 high femme sisters and my mom. Growing up in a large family I was not seen by anyone like spiritually and quite literally because I was such a quiet, good kid, that always took honor classes. No one worried about me. I never got the attention I neeed and deserved, until I started to become more high femme, all of a sudden like a 90’s movie people noticed me and told me how attractive I was and how well I would dress. And I performed feminity even after coming out as a lesbian because I didn’t want to rock the boat that much and be both lesbian and butch.
It wasn’t until quarantine that I made the full commitment to aligning myself with butch because I was able to do it safely without any judgment from my family or outside world. I buzzed off my long-ass hair and dressed as masc and butch as my heart desired. I would post selfies or pictures of me in boxers and Carhartt overall on my Instagram, and my virtual community of gays all supported me and affirmed how hot I felt.
Being butch has transformed my life, and exponentially improve my overall mental health and experience on this earth. I now for the first time in 30 + years like to look at the mirror, I like the reflection I see. I no longer feel like the clown I had to dress up as and perform as. I feel so hot as butch, and I’ve allowed myself to feel as fancy and cool as I did wearing dickies, boxers, and suspenders a kid. But that has come at a price, my mom no longer calls me beautiful, my dad can barely look at me, and I have a strained relationship with most of my siblings. But the people that truly see me know I’m happy and that I am finally me.
Being butch has transformed my life, and exponentially improve my overall mental health and experience on this earth. I now for the first time in 30 + years like to look at the mirror, I like the reflection I see. I no longer feel like the clown I had to dress up as and perform as. I feel so hot as butch, and I've allowed myself to feel as fancy and cool as I did wearing dickies, boxers, and suspenders a kid. But that has come at a price, my mom no longer calls me beautiful, my dad can barely look at me, and I have a strained relationship with most of my siblings.
