June Cleaver : Femme Friend or Femme Foe

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by princessbelle

<3 you too.

Maybe i'm not explaining it well enough....or maybe i am. LOL. But, here goes again...

The word femme to me is a dynamic that is near and dear to my heart. I found this word when i was new to the gay dynamic. I knew nothing about the gay world and was totally lost. I was more feminine than any of the gay people i knew and thought i was a freak. THEN i found BF. THEN i found the word femme. THEN i fit in. I hold that word as sacred. Still do.

My ONLY point with what i was saying is how can *we* say that in someone's heart they aren't a femme. In other words, when i was married to a bio guy i know NOW i was a femme. I was living a straight life. I was seen as straight, but in my HEART i was a femme, just didn't know it yet. If i had known that word, i would have claimed that identity. No one has the right to take that from me IMO. Therefore, how can i deny any woman that honor and tell them they are not.

But, as far as "us femmes" in the gay community, it is special and beautiful and there is no one in the straight world that could come close to how i feel with my femme sisters. I get that. I get that more than i can tell you. You know i get that. You know me. It is a special word and it is a special identity.

I'll just end my thoughts with this...

I would never view a straight woman with the same level of love i feel for other femmes either. No matter how they ID. Never meant to imply that i felt differently.

I went through this very same thought when I was married, I was a dyke, married to a bio man. I never thought that when I sat down and picked myself apart that a word could change me so much like Femme did. It made sense to me and I kept it a secret between me and those I was involved with at the time. I often questioned my gender because of the social markers that get imposed on Femme. I wasn't fitting them and I certainly couldn't fully live as Femme while in my marriage. Queer, Dyke, Poly, Gay fit well and I didn't feel I had to not claim them.

It was like my Femme was in the closet and well this closet burst. Then I met more women like me and then more and more. I knew a few Femme's but the online communities I belonged to started too bursting at the seams with Femme. I found myself wading and sorting through all things that people were assigning Femme and slipped comfortably into my Gender.

It's not easy when one as a Femme has to almost plan when it is ok to be you, it's oppressive and us being women it's a rough time self examining one's needs because we are brow beaten into x, y, z. For me if a woman, man, is having and experiencing queer feelings, queer thoughts, queer desires more likely than you will fit one of the many labels that we use.


Straight girls don't struggle with that. I asked and ask my friends and they are like um NO. Their choices in sex, love, politics, critical thinking is over ------------------------------------------------>

while mine is over there
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Opposite, maybe some similarities but not to many.