We Are All Subversives: Femme Strength and Queer Solidarity

Reblogged from repetition-is-holy

We Are All Subversives: Femme Strength and Queer Solidarity

IA completely with Bird. And, going off that, some word vomit: As a tomboy femme, I have so many thoughts about this and neither the time nor the patience to fully delve into the subject. It’s such a war, because every day, on top of defending my identities as a lesbian, a woman, and a feminine person, I also have to go into why aspects of my personality which seem “less feminine” are, in fact, very much so. If I’m wearing “masculine” (bullshit) attire, it’s not because I’m butch (no criticism labeled on that front, it simply isn’t my identity and not what I’m going for) or because I’m attempting to queer my gender - it’s because I have a woman’s body and I enjoy the way women (and feminine women, at that) look in those sorts of things. And I enjoy the feminine touches given to things - wingtip shoes in sizes for smaller feet, jackets with elbow patches fitted to women’s bodies, ‘boyfriend’ jeans (lol) which can be incredibly flattering on, again, feminine figures, and the list goes on.

To be a butch woman is to defy gender stereotypes on many levels and to be a femme woman is, generally, to embrace it, but for me, being femme and embracing my gender also means that I embrace the full depth of femininity. Being femme, for me, doesn’t simply mean embracing stereotypically feminine characteristics and accessories (although I certainly do that, I love me a pair of nice heels and a short, strappy dress), but also finding the feminine in what has previously been considered the masculine. If I’m opinionated, if I’m wearing pants from the men’s section, if I watch a football game, if I sit with my legs stretched out, it isn’t because I’m masculine, or because I’m ‘queering’ (sorry, I really do not i.d. as queer at all) my gender. It’s because it is my gender. I’m a lady and I’m frequently the boss and I think my boy pants go really fucking well with the cute red flats I thrifted a few weeks ago.

I am a woman, and I am a feminine woman, and I think it’s perfectly normal for a woman to be in charge, to enjoy sports, to wear boy’s pants (with lipstick, for that matter), to do whatever the fuck she wants to do. And you can be a woman and do all those those things and be butch, but it just so happens that I am not. I always liken it to an Anna Wintour comparison - being powerful and the head bitch in charge does not equate masculinity. It can. But it doesn’t have to. Would you call AW masculine? Would you call her butch? Would you call Katherine Hepburn butch or masculine? Perhaps you would, but I don’t see it that way. To be feminine and to have all of those characteristics is just as valid as being butch or being exclusively high femme. And I’m sick of having to act like it isn’t.

I would close this with #futchproblems (a shout-out to my bff, who really is heavily futch), but, like I said, I’m more aligned with the tomboy femmes of the world, so this rant is brought to you by Idigie.

repetition-is-holy

Both of us were struck by the fact that communities which are so focused on transgression could simultaneously place such great emphasis on masculinity and patriarchal structures of power. Both of us were saddened that we often felt disrespect and spite from the people whom we love and struggle alongside, simply because we identify in ways which we have all been taught to stigmatize.

There are other ways to be powerful. Our femme identities are so powerful, in the way we claim and embody them. I will not change my identity to fit what is seen as visibly queer. Instead, I will expect people to learn to see differently, to see that queer comes in a lot of different forms. I will transgress the expectations of what queer looks like and in so doing try to change those expectations.

Genderforkr

Notes