Talking from a background in the US Navy, 1976-1990: Back in the 1970s/80s, Navy women had to keep their hair short during training. Like, above the bottom of the uniform shirt collar short. Once they finished basic or were commissioned, they could grow their hair any length as long as it was kept up above the collar by pinning/braiding/bunning/whatever.

This meant that family [code word back then for Navy lesbians — I had several Navy lesbian friends, one of whom I married, 'nother story] could be as butch as they wanted to be, pretty much, and still blend. (I saw estimates then that the lesbian population in the Navy was twice the percentage of the general US population.) My first wife, Linda, whom I would consider fairly fem, had short hair back then, but it was longer than Deb's, my current (very hetero) wife's hair.

And many straight Navy women kept a very butch appearance, because It Was Just Easier. Usually you could guess the rank of a Navy woman in civies by her hair length: she would let it grow once she could, then get more frustrated with it as it got longer, and trim it back when she got to the lieutenant/petty officer rank and nobody had time for this hair crap any longer.

For example, one of my female co-instructors at Officer Candidate School had lovely blond straight hair, which she enjoyed letting run down past her shoulder blades while in civies, then elaborately braided while in uniform. One morning she showed up to work with her hair chopped off. Why? "Because it's bad enough when HIS DAUGHTER [pointing at her husband, also an instructor, who attempted to look innocent] pukes all over my whites as I'm heading out the door, but when she got it in my hair ONE MORE TIME, I had enough." Yes, high correlation between motherhood and going butch, it turned out. 😁