From Lesbos to Futch…

Here we go again…

I was hanging out at one of the alternative lifestyle forums I frequent and the post titled FUTCH popped up…and it didn’t make me thrilled…and I wasn’t even one of the ones asking WTF? Maybe you, as I was, watched when Dani Campbell, one of the contestants on MTV’s Shot at Love with Tila Tequila said “Futch.” She explained it meant someone who is neither feminine nor butch, but a cross between. My eyes rolled.

Maybe you love the word…maybe you hate the word. My question is, “Do we as a community not have enough labels to describe ourselves? Lesbian, Butch, Femme, Stem, Stone Butch, Lipstick Lesbian…I could go on. Okay, one more: Gayelle.  (Why anyone would want a change of label to this happy, pleasant sounding word is beyond me, since Lesbian has history. Lesbian the word coming from the Greek island Lesbos where the first recognized “homosexual woman” was presumed to live…and where she wrote her many love poems to other women from. Perhaps you’ve heard of her: Sappho. Maybe not, since she lived about 600 B.C.

So, as much as I’d love to turn this into a label rant…I won’t…I will go back to the forum discussion that ensued wherein someone claimed that a Dominant Femme was an Oxymoron. Seriously. Forget eye roll, I laughed out loud! Then I laughed some more.

When did Femme come to mean soft and cuddly and vulnerable and submissive? When did someone add to the label rule book that Femme meant a woman who couldn’t be strong, capable, independent? Assertive? Demanding? Dominating?

Either I’m confused or the label creators are…

The Femme history that I know is one of a powerful woman, willing to stand out from the norm. Consider the era. Lesbianism first became very public in the 1940′s (yes, there were obviously lesbians pre-1940 but for the sake of this post…I want to keep it semi-current.) If you were a woman in 1940, you were a housewife, a nun, a spinster. Or you were a rebel. An outsider. Someone who could be beaten or killed for being Different. Someone who had to be willing to be Tough. Hardcore. In Order To Survive The Times.

Why 1940? In Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, Lillian Faderman recognized that this was when women were first admitted to bars (in the U.S.) without a male escort. As a consequence, the outsiders developed ways to recognize each other. Some (Butch/Dyke) women women adopted male styled clothes and short hair which conflicted starkly with their feminine peers, others (Femme) women exaggerated their femininity with daring red lipstick and seductive dress. Paired as Butch/Femme couples, they resembled their heterosexual counterparts but because of their exaggerated representations brought attention for the first time to the Lesbian Subculture.

In Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, Elizabeth Lapvsky-Kennedy and Madeline Davis wrote that gender identities “were the key structure for organizing against heterosexual dominance.” Gender identities born from their heterosexual models: if Butch equalled Aggressor and Protector then Femme found importance as Seducer and Pillars of Strength.

By the 1950′s the Lesbian Subculture was firmly rooted making it possible for women like Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon to come out as a committed homosexual couple even though harassment and arrest were still common.

During the 1960′s and 70′s Lesbianism was under attack but by a new source: Feminists. With Butches accused of chauvinism and oppression and Femmes accused of enabling…the feminist lesbian strove for androgyny.

However, by the 1980′s Butch-Femme came into being as post-feminist lesbians reclaimed their right to have gender. A quote from Butch-Femme.com (one of the original genderqueer websites) says it better than I ever could: “A Butch without a Femme is still a Butch, just as a Femme without a Butch is still a Femme. But how we compliment one another. And it’s hot! We are about…passion!”

The 1990′s brought the recognition of transgender, changing the face of the community forever…

October is officially LGBT History Month and so the past as well as the future of Femme has been on my mind. And so looking for inspiration for today’s post, I went looking for Femme and found instead Futch. Why did I cringe so hard when I was reading the Forum’s comments? Was it because I see myself in the term Futch? Is it because I have such a fierce aversion to any label that tries to fit me into a nice tidy category…

Or maybe it is because I fear what this new century is bringing to the table as our future’s history. Are we really so confused that we have to coin a new term seemingly every day to define ourselves…or by creating new labels are we enabling ourselves to truly live our lives authentically? I sincerely hope it is the latter … for me, I’m just happy that today I am able to say I am Bisexual. I am Femme. And no one is going to throw a brick at my head.

So, as much as I would have loved to have ranted about labels, I hope instead that this post encourages at least one to do some research into the history of our roots. And in writing this post I am given the opportunity to say thank you to all of those beautiful Femmes and Butches who came before me…for their Strength and Courage and Determination to make the path I walk one that is easier than the one they walked.

Thank You.

Other posts by Roxy Harte

• On The TOP TEN LIST! - March 29th, 2010
• The Bitchin’ and Moanin’ Is OVER… - February 17th, 2010
• Lesbian Erotica Rejection Letters - June 10th, 2009
• Writing Lesbian Erotica... - March 16th, 2009
• Woman Prime Minister Is Also An Outspoken Lesbian - January 29th, 2009

Technorati Tags: butch/femme, femme, lebian history, lgbt, LGBT Month

Tags: butch/femme, femme, lebian history, lgbt, LGBT Month