“My metalsmithing gets my butch self to preen like a proud bird. The history of butches in the industrial workforce is long, with hundreds of us finding sanctuary in blue collar jobs and factories. Steel is precious to me for its strength and endurance, like the trailblazing lesbians before me. I feel close to my elders when I swing my hammer into the material which gives little, and grind metal to produce streams of bright sparks. Today I use steel to bind my chest flat in an androgynous presentation, with only my nipples breaking through. My large breasts are commonly and historically the glaring indicator of female sex to onlooking public. Chest binding has been a tool in male-passing for centuries. I resent hiding my body in order to be acknowledged as masculine when a man's flat chest can be bare in the sun. In Black Box Mammalian, I am vulnerable in toplessness while living with a flat steel chest- a 'real man's chest'- that features my two nipples in the awkward center. As strong as I am tender, like a real butch.”