Breaking it down - describe the Femme that you are

[Esme nha Maire]

Originally Posted by Nat

I think maybe these days I don't feel like a femme anymore. I felt so solidly femme for a long while - even with my gender stuff which is sort of dual. But I cut my hair off a year ago and I feel weird lately if I wear something that feels too girly and I just kind of feel like that part of me has died. Every once in a while maybe I can still access that part of me, but less and less often. It's like one day I walked through a doorway and that part of me stayed behind.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to see how people identify like every 5 years. How static is identity, especially if you are lgbtq+? How often do people who identify as butch or femme find that one day they no longer are? I don't know. I only came back to post this because sometimes people like other things I have posted here and it makes me feel odd now, feeling less and less that femme is an identity I can rightly claim.

Maybe one day I will walk through some other doorway and find that part of me eagerly waiting. I do not know.

That sounds somewhat similar to my experience. Earlier today, I found my photo album, which had been AWOL for several months, which includes one of the best photos ever taken of me, nearly thirty years ago. In it, I have permed hair, gold earrings and a gold writswatch with a thin strap, and I'm wearing a simple strapless red dress that ended at the knee, and 1.5in heel court shoes, and I'm holding a maroon clutch bag. My nails back then were still extremely strong, and they were long, perfect ovals, and painted, and my face made up. I looked very much the femme, and felt perfectly happy so, although back then I was also very nervous, lacking the self confidence that I have today. Back then, at work I wore a nice grey skirt-suit from Long Tall Sally, with slightly flatter court shoes, and a white blouse. I was a size (UK) 14. 38-28-38 and 5ft 11 (175cm) tall.

Contrast today. I'm sat at my PC wearing camo leggings and a camo shirt/jacket (over a 'Strangers in Paradise' T-shirt), no makeup because I havent left the flat today, but if I do apply any makeup, it's foundation and lippy only. My most common attire is walking boots, black jeans, black tank-top and often a large, long thick grey buttonless waistcoat with deep pockets, topped off with a black brimmed hat. I do occasionally still wear skirts, but I don't do femme the way I used to partly because I haven't a good figure and it's hard to look good in form-fitting skirts or dresses if you have a bit of a pot belly (I went up to a size 22 at one point - down to an 18 now), partly because I can no longer see well enough without glasses to do more elaborate makeup, and partly because I can't be bothered to try to achieve a femme look when I can far more easily achieve a reasonable and distinctive tomboy look. (It's good enough that I still get straight guys making passes at me every few weeks. Sigh... - but hey it's still a compliment, right? :-})

I realised at some point that what matters to me most is not what my appearance is, but that I look reasonably good at whatever style I'm wearing. Also, I have lost that slight sense of otherness compared to cis-women that bedeviled me for many years, and no longer think of myself as trans-anything, my primary identity being, simply, lesbian. Being introvert, I've been a natural wallflower, but that was fiercely reinforced by a lot of personal paranoia due to life experiences. Recently, I've got over most of those, partially aided by chatting with a therapist. And I positively want to chase women and chat them up, I've just had few opportunities to do so since gaining the level of confidence I now have.

So what does that make me? Durned if I know - but I don't actually care except insofar as it's good to be both self-aware and aware of how others perceive onself. I've tried, just for the fun of it, comparing myself to lesbians on film or on YouTube. Am I more/less femme/butch than her? Who makes me swoon/melt? Would I be the butch to her femme or the femme to her butch or would we be kinda equals even if somewhat different? What I don't do is try to nail myself down with labels, because that way can lie madness if there is no label that clearly fits you well.

So yeah, I've had the startling experience of being thought to be butch when I started off as femme. But as well as my appearance having changed, so too have some of my attitudes, whilst others always were tomboyish. I'm not as pretty as I once was, but I still cry at the drop of a hat if something moves me sufficiently, and i love cats and bunnies and pretty stuff - and beautiful machinery, military history, etc. I can bake cakes and, at a pinch, fix stuff. IF I managed to regain something like a decent figure, I'd quite happily see if I could carry off a 'glamourous gran' look occasionally, just for the fun of seeing the reaction of folk who've seen me only looking tomboyish this last couple of years and a bit of a drab for several years previous. But I think the only label that approximates what I am now is tomboy.

All I know for certain is I'm being the best me I can be. If anyone doesn't like that, tough. Their problem, not mine! :-}

(added in edit - I've just remembered- the second best photo taken of me was at the end of 2016, one of only four ever taken of me on skates in my derby gear - despite which, with my hair falling forward across my shoulders, I look quite girly as well as slightly menacing!)