No, I do think that this reeks of ingrained femme-phobia and wanting to keep other femmes as far as possible. I’m sorry, but if you are privileged enough to have femme community in your area (as many of us do not)and choose not to have it in your life because other femmes are “too much,” then that is all about your own hangups.

@ Jenny – maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t from my perspective looking at my own life, my community, my friends and my history i don’t think that it is. it’s not that i don’t have femme community in my life – i do, in very real and present ways, it’s just for me the femme community I’m part of takes a different form – perhaps this is also connected to that while I tour a lot I’m a very private and quiet person when i’m not “performing.”

I lived as a trans man for many years. To a certain level that’s the community that I feel very at home within to this day, although I present my gender differently than I did at that time so I think that also plays a role.

I don’t know how to react to this post. I won’t say that you shouldn’t feel the way that you feel, I don’t have that right. BUT this really reads as femme-phobia. Maybe it’s because of the dessert analogy. Dessert is fun and delicious but it’s not important, it’s not something you need to stay alive. It feels like you’re saying that femme friends are insubstantial, an afterthought to your real relationships.

@Yaya- desert is a very important part of my food pyramid. I have a very profound love of cupcakes (it’s the pet name my partner uses for me ) i do not believe that life can be sustained without a very generous helping of dessert— clearly my food pyramid doesn’t align w/ the ones we see on the back of cereal boxes

Sassafras,

I don’t know what kind of front you are putting up right now. I happen to know that you are not actually fond of cupcakes or sweet treats. I know that because you wrote spoke about it at an event that I was present at in NYC. You said that you didn’t like to eat cupcakes and appreciated them aesthetically (maybe you perceive them as being a trapping of fat femme identity?).

So maybe you like the idea of femmes in your life, but don’t actually like them?

Femme Community, for me, are the fresh veggies (that I grew myself). I need them to stay alive and sustain myself.

@Jenny
I really have no idea what you’re talking about with putting up a front- i’m pretty honest to the point of posting and saying unpopular things (clearly, given the response to this post).

i’m flattered that my words from an event ( i’m assuming the femme family’s first speaking of femme event a year and a half ago? i can think of no other where cupcakes were a topic of conversation) made such an impression that you committed them to memory. I don’t remember exactly what was said that night, but am confident that you misunderstood me.

It’s true that when asked to pick between sweet and savory i will, almost always pick savory but that certainly does not mean I don’t love sweet things such as cupcakes. I’m picky about which ones I enjoy since don’t like the filling on some of them here in new york

I’m really not sure where your coming from re: trappings of fat femme identity. My love and commitment to cupcakes was strong when i was a fat femme, and as i negotiate the space outside of being one, my love of cupcakes has never deminished.

hey sass
a lot of what you’ve said here resonates with me… i hope we can talk about it more in person! especially thinking about communities we come out to and how that shapes the communities we are (most) comfortable in even many years later…
thanks for being honest (if unpopular) in how you feel.

hey darlin,
yes yes yes i would love to talk with you about it in person– maybe over cupcakes….. or french fries :p

thanks for the support too- i’ve been a bit…. conflicted over having posted this to begin with, much of the well this just proves my point to myself about where i do and don’t feel at home community wise lol. your comment made my night though.

xoxo

“In many ways I have stronger or better friendships with my femme friends who I have the privilege of sharing wonderful long handwritten letters with and who I keep connected with online in between letters and the occasions where we might be physically together, than I would if we lived full time in the same city.”

Letters and Internet communiques and the excitement of occasional in person visits are nice, but they really do not compare to the lived intimacy when you are in the same physical space. I say this as someone who has experienced the thrill and intimacy of online romance only to find that it’s a whole different story when you are face to face with someone, and can’t project your fantasies and own constructed image via text on the page or screen.

Sure, the relationships through letters and the Internet are real, but I just don’t think such relationships that depend primarily on written correspondence have the same dimensions and (more importantly) the raw messiness as full time in person day to day friendships. Maybe it’s internalized femmephobia and/or maybe just because someone is femme or (insert another ID here) doesn’t mean our most intimate and fulfilling connections are going to be with like ID…

I would say that not respecting another femme’s description of hir femme-ninity and/or choice of friends/family, is rather femme-phobic.

I dont find Sassafrass’ post offensive, but read it as a brave and honest tale on life lived queerly.
I see no need for my social circle to consist of femmes in my area just for the sake of it. I believe chosing company that I am comfortable with, the lowest common denomenator not being femme or queer but human.
It is true my best friend is a straigt cis-girl BUT it’s also true that she respects my lifechoice as a queer crip-femme identified woman, and what I do with that. As I respect her!

Building a wider and more including community starts with just that, respect and altruism.
I love my femme friends just as much as my non-femme ones, the bois and the cis-men around me just as much..and it has nothing to do with lables or standing up for my community.

What matters is that I respect them, their gender, their lives, their ways of loving and caring..and they respect me.