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I’m not a girl, I just look like one: femme identity, gender and queerness

12/9/2012

7 Comments

 
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Image: Melanie Tata
Recently I attended a workshop on non-binary gender identities where we were talking about agender identity. I identify strongly as agender and/or trans, because I feel that I don’t have a gender. I don’t feel any kind of innate gender, and genders as they apply to me personally feel like arbitrary social constructions. The whole thing feels irrelevant to me, and being referred to as a woman makes me feel dysphoric and sad.

At the workshop someone asked how agender people present, as most people’s gender expression stems from their gender identity. Some people answered that they tried to look as androgynous or as genderqueer as possible. I’ve taken a different approach by using the space where my gender expression would be to parody the construct of femininity and reveal it to be performative - created through collective repeated iterations, a copy without an original. I call this femme.  

For me, femme has nothing to do with being a woman, being interested in fashion, or being the matching set to a butch. Often in the UK femme is used to mean any feminine woman who sleeps with women. That’s fine for anyone who wants to use it like that, but that’s not my meaning here. I’m talking about something which queers femininity. Femme shows femininity as independent from woman, so shows femininity as a biological product to be false. Because femme disassociates femininity from woman, femmes are people of all genders and sexual orientations.

Broadly there seem to be two main types of femme, queers who use ultra-feminine expressions to denote that they’re queer, and genderfuckers who use ultra-feminine expressions to parody femininity. You might hear the phrase ‘high femme’ used to describe femmes than embrace this type of parody. This has caused friction within the femme community at times as it appears to create a hierarchy, so I prefer to use ‘drag femme’.

The key part of femme identity is intentionality. I think you’re unlikely to be a femme if you haven’t decided to be. The reason that women who happen to be feminine and sleep with women don’t queer femininity in the same way is because their femininity is by default rather than actively chosen. Femme considers feminine trappings, claims those that are useful and rejects the problematic parts.

Femme says it doesn’t matter what bits you were born with or how society expects you to get dressed, wear rainbow glitter to the office anyway. It’s inclusive, and in breaking the trappings of femininity from woman, allows everyone to play with ‘girly things’.

Femme says just because I’m wearing heels and makeup, don’t assume I’m a girl. It says yes, putting this much effort into dressing like this is ridiculous, isn’t it, so why are you expecting it from half the population? It says this (and Dolly, Katie, Jodie, Jocelyn, Pete, Jackie and Joan) is the logical conclusion of what you’ve asked me to do, why you are calling me slut, freak, whore now?

Femme says I’m not dressing like this for your pleasure. It says my artificial dollface tells you nothing about my personality, my talents or what I like to do in bed, so check your assumptions. It says fuck your patriarchal, capitalist, racist, cis-sexist, fatphobic, ableist, ageist, heteronormative beauty standards.

MilitantBarbie

For anyone interested in reading more about femme identity Militant Barbie has put together a reading/resource list. 
Femme reading and resource list 

Individual blog posts on defining femme


FemmeGalaxy.com How Does Femme Queer Femininity?
TheScavenger.net
InOurWordsBlog.com
GaucheSinister.wordpress.com
FemmeGalaxy.com How I Define Femme
SublimeFemme.wordpress.com
QueerFatFemme.com
Femme2012.com

Femme blogs
http://queerfatfemme.com/ 
http://www.femmegalaxy.com/ 
http://femmedagger.com/ 

Multimedia

http://beyondlipstick.ca/index.html - femme self-portraiture project
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/femmecollectivemedia# - streamed talks from FemmeCon 2012
https://www.evernote.com/pub/jessrgold/queerfemmearchiveportfolio#b=3b6e0d65-31e2-41d3-8659-b99a053408df&n=d547bb60-3e81-478c-8e86-218b5e98f18d – ton of femme resources including PDFs of femme zines
http://fuckyeahfemmes.com/
http://fuckyeahhardfemme.tumblr.com/
http://fuckyeahtransfemmes.tumblr.com/

Books

Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity
Ed. Chloe Brushwood Rose and Anna Camilleri

Visible: A Femmethology, volumes one and two. 
Ed. Jennifer Clare Burke

Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities
Del LaGrace Volcano and Ulrika Dahl

http://pittqueertheoryf11.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/queer-femme-archive/ - has a good bibliography if you want to read further
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7 Comments
Squeamish Kate link
12/9/2012 06:34:27 pm

Great piece. I wrote a thesis on drag kings and came across women who were drag queens, how would you say drag femme differs from that?

Before I knew about the femme scene and a feminism outside of radfem I tried to start a movement called effeminism... it didn't work out!

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Sharon link
12/9/2012 10:01:45 pm

Great article - thanks for posting it. I will be linking to this all over. I am very definitely not-femme, but there's still a lot of stuff in here that chimes with things in my head.

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Brij
28/9/2012 06:09:41 pm

I've waited to comment on this article, because I first read it while faced with a weekend of having to be properly girly in an alien environment; I'm more of a Vans-and-plaid person normally. Inspired by this piece, I embraced the ideology (reluctantly) and enlisted the help of a beautician aunt. I now feel I understand enough to comment...

It's quite nice to present one's gender in a way that doesn't invite the usual questions - because of course *all* women *totally* need to dress like barbies, or they're not *real* women. So much so, I've decided to adopt the uniform for the trip to my brother's wedding (in a small, conservative town in Africa where I'm considered "a woman of a certain age" for being single and childless at the ripe old age of 28) to blend in with the real girls. I know that's not why you do it, but if wearing a dress and make-up will save me an interrogation about gender identity I'll take one for the team.

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Jonathan link
6/1/2013 10:57:10 pm

Nice post :)

"Femme shows femininity as independent from woman, so shows femininity as a biological product to be false. Because femme disassociates femininity from woman, femmes are people of all genders and sexual orientations." – I agree with this completely.

"Broadly there seem to be two main types of femme, queers who use ultra-feminine expressions to denote that they’re queer, and genderfuckers who use ultra-feminine expressions to parody femininity." – but not so much with this.

Speaking personally, I use feminine expression simply to denote that my gender is femme, rather than to signify queerness or to parody femininity. But perhaps this is possible because my sex is male, and hence any femininity for me is to some extent queer and subversive.

As a definition of femme, can I offer this one by Elizabeth Marston (from the anthology "Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme"):
http://malefemme.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/so-what-is-femme-2.html

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launch microsoft office outlook link
15/7/2013 06:50:50 pm

Modern society has learned to accept people foe what they are; for their abilities rather than how they look like or based on gender. Many companies have started to respect their employees preferences in gender disclaimer too. These are positive signs for the world at large.

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Heina link
15/10/2014 11:44:22 am

This resonates with me very deeply.

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transgayboywithfemmefriend
7/2/2015 03:37:28 pm

From what I've seen, anyone assigned female at birth who identifies as femme is assumed to sleep with butch afab women, or else they are not considered femme. This is enraging to me. One of my friends is a femme cis woman who exclusively dates femme or transfeminine people, including femme amab non binary people, femme trans women, femme queer cis boys, or femme cis women like herself. You can't imagine (or maybe you can!) The cold shoulder she gets in queer environments, particularly from butch dykes as well as afab transmasculine people who exclusively date femme cis women. As a gay trans man who dates a very fem queer cis boy, I get treated like crap too. Fem/me needs to be recognized as its own gender expression, separate from being afab, separate from being a lesbian, separate from being cis, separate from binary gender identity, and separate from butches!

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