By Way of Introduction…Specifically, The Femme Question

My identity has come under some scrutiny recently (not a bad thing), specifically around whether or not I claim “femme” as an identity.

What does it mean to claim femme as an identity? Sure, I’m a queer who presents as “feminine”. I like to wear dresses, skirts, fishnets and heels…not everyday of course. But femme is about more than clothing, obviously. I am no less a femme in jeans and a t-shirt than I am in a frilly summer dress. So what else is it? A large part of it is that I choose to be feminine, meaning it’s not a compulsory demand placed upon me to entice men or to fit neatly into a norm. There’s a questioning and a decision that takes place. For me, being a queer femme involves a sense of play and subversion. I dress the way I do because it feels powerful and I know it’s also to attract and complement my butch lovers, not for the male gaze, and that feels rebellious. I do get male attention, but I don’t return it; it’s not for them. I love the moment when I’m sitting in a bar waiting for a date and the people around me assume that date will be a man. Then a handsome butch comes in and deftly places a kiss upon my lips. I am now marked as other…and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

These characteristics would appear to make me a “femme”, so what’s the problem? The problem came not so much around individually identifying myself as femme…I already knew that part. It was more about thinking I didn’t have much in common with the femme community at large. I don’t have any friends who call themselves femme and in the communities I associate with, femme has even seemed like a dirty word at times- they’re conniving, superficial, bitchy, high maintenance, materialistic, pillow queens…I certainly don’t consider myself any of those things. In New York especially, femme can get wrapped up in all the consumer craziness- having the right labels, spending inordinate amounts of money on clothing and accessories. And I’m also a Buddhist and I find all of that to be complete nonsense.

But then I started remembering some other aspects of the queer femme identity. In Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Bluesfor example, the femmes are the ones who provide care and tenderness to their antagonized butch lovers. These femmes are strong, patient, kind and loving. Then it all started opening up for me. Sure, there are catty, materialistic femmes. There are catty, materialistic people of all gender identities. I had made an awful and unfair generalization, something I do my best to avoid, and quite simply, I was wrong. I think I’ve been doing myself a bit of a disservice by thinking I’m alone out here. Sure, I’m unique like everyone else, but community is a powerful tool and something I haven’t been taking advantage of. Many of my close friends dated women in college and now no longer do, and I’ve been feeling a bit abandoned lately. Most of my lesbian friends happen to be my exes and so don’t fall on the femme side of the scale. I love them all, but a community who understands some of the bullshit I deal with on a daily basis (like having to tell people I’m gay over and over because no one would ever suspect) could be quite lovely.

I’m now arriving at a place where I’m finding a claimed identity to be empowering, and that’s exciting. But I’ve also had some nervousness around labels being that I consider myself a Buddhist. Buddhism says that we’re all connected and interdependent, not separate from one another. So if I place a label on myself, is that saying that I’m not an entire list of other things? And isn’t everything in a constant state of flux anyway? It’s all impermanent. I think on the grand philosophical scale, these things are true. But if we use this reasoning to avoid interrogating the world around us, we can fall into utter laziness, and I don’t think that’s very Buddhist. We should examine our world, recognize injustice and fight against it. Community is an integral part of this process. I think identity is helpful as long as we don’t grasp onto it at the expense of not expanding ourselves and inviting new ideas. Claiming an identity also does not diminish my compassion and understanding of other communities. We’re all looking for the same thing- belonging and happiness and when you think about it that way, all of our happiness depends on each other.

For me, being femme has to do with the play and the power of subversion…using my aesthetic to combat all the heteronormative bullshit. For a while, my first year or two outside of the closet, feminine clothing, accessories, the makeup, the hair, all seemed really heterosexual to me and when I realized I was queer, I reacted against all of it. I cut my hair short, wore wife beaters, tried to fit in with the few lesbians I knew at my college. But I would always include a slight feminine twist here or there. As I grew up and realized that I was solely attracted to butches, and that that was ok, I began to reclaim my femininity. I found partners who appreciated it, and that was huge. They asked me to wear skirts and said I looked good and I felt good. I enjoyed (and still do) dressing up for the butch in my life. But it’s about more than that. It’s about laying claim to something that felt off limits and queering it.

For me, being femme is also about kindness and care. Sure, I can dress fierce and get off on that and be intelligent and fesity, but a huge part of it is also about being open and loving. And yes, again these are human characteristics, not exclusively femme, and I want my lovers to be open and loving as well. What I mean more specifically though is realizing that while I pass for hetero (which has its own problems), my lovers rarely do. They have to deal with the harrassment and dirty looks and I want them to know that I respect them for that and provide a place of comfort for them to come home to…to let them know that I think they’re brave and sexy and that they can lay their head on me and I can hold them while they rest.

I think this a good place to start, it’s something that’s been on my mind these last few weeks. Being that desire and intimacy are what I’m interested in studying, I think it’s key to name my queer femme identity and draw strength from it, as it shapes my (somewhat) unique perspective and informs all of my work in this area.

And PS- we need more queer perspectives on intimacy!