Femme Invisibility?

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

I don't identify as queer.

In the same way that a lot of younger folks (or older) do not identify as a lesbian for their own personal reasons, I just don't feel comfortable calling myself queer.

I am a lesbian.

I will always be a lesbian.

On occasion, I have been known to call myself a dyke but it doesn't roll off my tongue in the same way lesbian does, either.

I don't care if someone else ID's as queer because I have no right to impose my own identity on someone else.

I ask only for the same respect in turn and for others to understand how much my identity means to me.

I fought too hard, for too long, to own lesbian for myself and to develop a level of comfort with the fact that I am a lesbian.

I love women. I fall in love with women. I am only sexually attracted to women.

I wish that it were easier for butch lesbians to look at me and to know that I am a lesbian femme but whether the world sees me as such or not; it will never change that it is my identity.

I maintain it by living it, no matter how the world feels about me. I can't do or be anything else.

My feelings exactly. This bears repeating.

I'm emphatically a lesbian, a lesbian feminist, a dyke, a bad-ass biker, plus a lot more. But I'm not queer. Being called queer has come to really annoy me. I still think it's a fighting word, especially in the mouths of straight dudes.

Yes, I ardently maintain my femme lesbian identity.