I hadn’t intended to take so long to write my blog post about what femme community means to me, but it’s been a busy month and at points time has just gotten away from me. Also, if I am going to be honest I’d have to say that when I wrote this months writing prompt for Femmes Guide I had no idea how I personally was going to answer it because my relationship with femme community is complicated and fraught. With this topic, I’m a little bit nervous that my sentiments won’t be understood and that this post won’t be well received, but at the same time I don’t want to write something that isn’t true for me so….. That shall just have to be a risk that I take.

For me, femme friends are a decedent and incredibly sweet desert. They are bright frosting, and glitter, best when savored and treasured, like birthday cake. They are also (for me) best in small-ish doses so my teeth don’t start hurting. I am so blessed in that I have the absolute most wonderful group of femme friends I could have ever asked for, and they are really who I was thinking of when I began planning what I was going to write in this blog. I also thought about how (with a few notable exceptions) my femme friends are spread around the world- Vancouver, San Francisco, Vermont, Ireland, Atlanta, Sydney, Boston (and so many other places I don’t have room to list – but want to make sure folks don’t feel left out). and that very few are based in NYC- and I started to think constructively about why that is….

When folks hear how spread around the world my femme friends are I have been known to get looks of pity, or it’s assumed that our friendships are less intense or close or that I should make more effort to be part of the expansive femme community here in NYC. 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.

I came to this metaphor for my needs and desires around femme community by thinking really critically about the makeup of my community. I’ve come to realize in the past few months that outside of queerness one of the most important identities for my friends to have is connection to art. I’m finding more and more that I struggle to have strong in person friendships with folks femme or otherwise who aren’t in some way artistically creating something, doesn’t matter what medium they work in, so long as they are creating. I find that I struggle to relate to non-artists. But beyond that, I realize that most of my core community (again with a few important notable exceptions) is butches and boys, and transgender men, in keeping with my metaphor they are the (veggie) meat and potatoes of my circle of friends.

I used to think that this was some sort of leftover internalized femmephobia, but I really don’t think it is. For me, and maybe it’s because that was the first queer community I came out into, and even though my identity has shifted at points it’s never stopped feeling like home to me. Maybe it’s that I feel like more or all of my gender history is more seen or understood there, or maybe it’s that I can be more relaxed, but whatever the reason my meat and potatoes group is where I feel most comfortable, most seen, most safe, most at home. All that said, I might be more interested in savory, but everyone knows dinner also isn’t complete with a deliciously decedent desert to round out the meal ☺

I’m an author and artist and tour to colleges, conferences, and community groups to read and teach all about you guessted it queer stuff, to queer people. Even the job that pays my mortgage outs me pretty immediately I’m “gay for pay” by which I don’t mean a straight porn actor who will shoot gay scenes for money, I mean I work in the movement of LGBT nonprofits. Confession time: I’ve never even had a straight job! My entire resume is made up of art, and community organizing for local or national queer nonprofits.

Anyway, pride is a season that gets me a little more sentimental that I might normally be about gay stuff. For me it’s not that I feel especially hailed by rainbow balloons, or floats at this time in my life but it’s that when I’m honest with myself and sitting quietly, I think about how much these things meant to the seventeen year old me who was just coming out, just wandering haphazardly and nervously into this great big world of queerness. So, two weekends ago I wandered through Brooklyn pride. Money burned a hole in my purse and there I was buying a tacky (but admittedly pretty) woven rainbow anklet. I put it on and there it’s stayed on my right ankle for the past couple of weeks.

Choosing to wear it didn’t really feel so much like a need to advertise or come out, so much as a lovely little moment of nostalgia where I remember being covered in rainbows the few months after coming out, my backpack that looked like a pride parade threw up on it. All the buttons and patches proclaiming my queerness was the armor that I carried around my very conservative high school I commuted two hours by city/county bus to get to after I was kicked out of home in order to graduate.

When I’m honest, even now seeing a rainbow makes me feel safer. So In the honor of the seventeen year old scared gay teenager I was several years ago I’ve been wearing this anklet, and I’ve noticed the ways in which it’s impacted my visibility which on some level makes me uncomfortable- I don’t want to have to wear a rainbow for folks to get that I’m queer. But I’ve been paying attention to the people who are seeing me that weren’t before I’ve noticed something interesting.

It’s youth- teens who will now look and recognize and smile, and also folks who seem somehow newer and less sure of their safety that this is a beacon to. Last night coming home from work I was ready to get off the train and a gay man – who my highly tuned gaydar had noticed the moment he walked onto the train carrying a shopping bag and plopping down across from me also stood to get off. Quietly so the rest of our train couldn’t hear he said, “I like your bracelet.” I smiled and said thank you. He then asked if I was going to the parade on Sunday, I shook my head and said not this year, and asked if he was. He got a big grin on his face saying that yes, he’d moved here from Texas and that his was his first pride. I smiled and congratulated him as the doors opened and we went our separate ways, both feeling perhaps a little more seen, a little less alone.

I’m not sure where this post is going anymore, it’s about being explicitly out, and also about thinking about ways our community is built and seen and recognized and even though sometimes I can find myself becoming a little jaded about all things gay- criticizing the corporate takeover of pride festivities, wishing people would remember it’s roots- how it was homeless queer kids that started everything off at Stonewall, I cannot ever allow myself to forget how meaningful pride can be, and the way in which that rainbow can be thread that stitches our community together.

“It’s like femmes have their own weather systems in which they create lightning at will and decide where it lands.”

So longtime readers might have noticed that at points it’s gotten a little bit quiet around here, or that you’ve been seeing a lot of me and not a lot of the other fantastic Femmes Guide bloggers. We’re undergoing a little bit of restructuring around here— I’m going to be coming on and joining Scarlet as co-editor of the site, and we’ve got some ideas cooking to get all of us blogging more regularly and getting all of you wonderful readers more involved as well!

One thing we’re going to start is monthly themed posts where at the start of each month I will post a writing prompt/theme for the month.  That post will be open and we would love all of you who are interested to write your own response in the comments, and then of course keep checking back to see what everyone is writing!  The rest of us at Femmes Guide will then be crafting our own responses to the prompt and posting them over the course of the month!  This of course will be in addition to the regular postings y’all are used to and some other surprises in the works.

June Writing Prompt:

Thinking of pride and living openly, think about a time that you came out as femme, or alternately a time that you didn’t. This could be the first time you came out, a moment where you outed yourself to a lover, your boss, or a time that you didn’t.  talk about that moment, what was going through your mind? How did you feel right before? As the words were flowing out of your mouth? What happened for you right after that experience? How was coming out or not coming out the right decision for that moment? ….

Also— we may be looking for some new femmes to join our regular blogging team.  if you’re interested please send me an email at sassafras@pomofreakshow.com introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you would like to be blogging about, and what you think you could bring to Femmes Guide.

a friend of mine and fellow femme blogger posted the following this morning and immediately I realized it was something I wanted to post over here and got her permission to do so   It’s super fun to read, but beyond that also makes me think a lot about the different sorts of femme I am and is inspiring me to perhaps write my own at some point!  What about you? what sort of femmes are you and what does that look like?

Her Little Girl wrote:

I am…

A little girl femme: Carefree and truly adoring of rainbows… butterflies… rainbows… pink… unicorns… and eating lucky charms for breakfast at work much to the dismay of my special-k and kashi-crunching coworkers.

A professional femme: A would-be workaholic intent on maintaining work-life balance and mostly succeeding, an office mouse and not a corporate climber. I’m most content in the guts of the business, working the business not watching it and have no interest in stepping into middle (or upper) management.

A pagan femme: My spiritual path lies mostly on the shores of Avalon with my like-minded Sisters but it also is on my Yoga mat and in dharma and meditation and a good old fashioned full moon circle.

A believer femme: I believe. I believe in people, I believe in the people I love. I believe in things that people tell me I shouldn’t believe in – like Unicorns and fairies and dragons and true love. I’m not afraid to believe. I’ve been hurt like crazy for believing, and I will never stop.

A kinky femme: I am a submissive and a masochist but my masochism is never really just physical, there is always an emotional link or need or connection with the experience. I have had transformative experiences on the cross or over a bench or up on a rack and I continue to have transformative experiences every time I dive deeper into my submission and commitment to my Owner (who is also my Wife).

A shy femme: I’m an online socializer and am shy or timid (or ridiculously babbly and unfocused) in person. It’s hard for me to make friends in person because I feel awkward and I trust people too easily and am too invested in their opinion of me. I am raw and real and this makes me vulnerable. But I am authentic and so the friendships I do make are genuine ones.

A romantic femme: I know I am a walking stereotype in some ways. I like to be the nurturer and the cook and the homemaker and the child-rearer and the white-picket fence gazer. I love old fashioned chivalry. I love romantic gestures. I’m that girl that swoons over hand picked daisies and a surprise picnic and thinks romance isn’t about money but about heartfelt gestures that make me feel appreciated. I thrive on finding ways to let my one and only know how appreciated and adored she is as well, and this is part of the romantic thrill for me.

A mothering femme: Parenting is a part of my identity now, because it has – in so many ways – changed my outlook on life, my priorities, and my ability to deal with life and to accept responsibility for myself, my actions, and their consequences. Being a parent to these boys (young men now) has been and is one of the most rewarding things about my life.

A questioning, seeking femme: I’m always learning, growing, evolving and becoming. I fit best with others who are also on this path. Being on a growth path/journey in this life can be challenging… and it can be hard to make friends and then lose them as your paths go different directions or one moves on while the other has to stay a while. Growing hurts, but it’s worth it.

A silly femme: no explanation required.

Spectacular Glitter Explosions: On Femme as a Gender Problem
by: Miss Lola Sunshine

So here’s the thing about my gender identity: It’s simultaneously subversive and also really radical (in the true sense of the word). It is historical and traditional. It is constructed yet innate. It is both true and false, performance and person, art and self. This would seem like a paradox to some, but this is who I am everyday— this is marked on my body; etched into my brain. It comes out of my mouth in soft-structured sentences, high-pitched angry tones, low growls, and gasps of pleasure. At times I really wish I could be something else, other than, either look more queer or be more straight… or maybe I wish that I were born 50 years ago, when high femme was understood and accepted as a valid lesbian gender identity and came with a clear set of rules and boundaries, but for a myriad of reasons these fantasies are simply not a possibility (and not even actually desired, really they are just the product of exhausted escapism) and so I am to remain stuck in the liminal, possibly forever.

This is not how I meant to start off a description of my gender identity. I meant to say that high femme is fun and playful and colorful and fabulous… but honestly I’m just not there today. There are some days where I’m just not feeling grounded enough for the willful shallow cheerfulness that is needed to reduce myself to shopping, make-up, and shoes. For if gender is indeed a complex spectrum that cannot be easily explained or reduced, then I am so far over on the “feminine” side that I am about to fall right over the edge into uncharted waters. There are simply no maps for where I am going, so clearly this is dangerous territory. As James Baldwin once said, “Here there be dragons.” There is nothing but uncertainty ahead, the sort of thing that second and even third guessing yourself will not solve, so there is nothing to do but press on. Sometimes, I am very afraid.

Don’t get me wrong, I love reading gender theory, I love questioning things… but the more I question myself, admit that my gender is heavily performative, constructed around a societal idea, etc. the more I also feel that my high femme gender presentation is absolutely, in this and each moment, innate. By “innate” here, I do not mean that it is in any way connected to my birth sex, which is female. “Innate”, in this case, means that it is inextricably linked to my person and, beyond being inescapable, is something I have no desire to ever escape.  “Innate” means that the closest thing to a “self” that I know is high femme at all times. I am high femme from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep, and even in my subconscious while dreaming. It is not a costume, it is not drag, it is not a game that I’m playing, and I do not always make up all the rules.

For example, on a snowy night in Chicago several years ago, I had to borrow a pair of Doc Martens boots from a butch friend of mine to walk several blocks from her house to a party in icy weather. Obviously it was dangerously impractical to do anything other than accept the boots and carry my strappy black heels, but I was really quite upset about having to wear them—and not on a “these don’t match my outfit!” level, but on a deeply terrifying internal level that I really didn’t feel I could express without sounding somewhat insane. As often I’ve told several of my friends and lovers, the only time I ever encounter any of the sorts of body and gender dysphoria that some of my transgender friends describe feeling so deeply is when I am in drag. Having to wear those boots was a form of drag to me, and it was drag I didn’t choose or prepare myself to encounter and therefore I could not remove them quickly enough.

This seems to go against every theoretical example I’ve read by authors and academics like Borenstein, Butler, and Halberstam that gender and all its trappings is something that is fun to put on and take off—it goes against decades of feminist teachings that women are not meant to wear shoes that pinch their feet and clothes that truss them up to uncomfortable levels, so where does this leave me? It creates me as a wrench in the queer and feminist gears. It makes me into an overly-educated Barbie-girl that cannot be explained away and refuses to let herself be covered up, dismissed, and ignored. Do you want to know why so many femmes are so incredibly strong? It’s because we have to be. Nobody has our backs. Not straight people, not queer people, nobody. Half the time, due to femme-competition, we don’t even have each other. You want to know how we all learned to fight in those shoes? Go out to a lesbian bar in heels someday and then take the public transit alone at two o’clock in the morning to get yourself back home.

I am not in any way claiming that gender is innate for everyone, or even the majority of people. In fact, most femmes would probably not agree with all the “I” statements I just made. However, also I don’t feel like I should sit here and write a theoretically rich and masterfully dishonest piece about my gender identity as wholly constructed when this is now how I feel. It is constructed, of course, by myself, by society, by how I was raised, etc., and it is also chosen—but it isn’t at the same time. I don’t really care how others select, construct, and perform or present their gender, but when it comes down to me, I feel bound, quite literally. But the thing I’m trying to get at, what I’m trying to articulate with all these words, is that I enjoy being bound. You can take that statement literally if you wish, as it would still be true in my case, but metaphysically it is absolutely the most correct word for describing how I feel. My version of high femme is restrained and full of fancy knots that are often uncomfortable or outright painful. I find myself struggling against it sometimes, but I don’t know if it is because I want to be released or because I just enjoy the friction—I suspect it’s the latter. I’ve always been a big fan of friction.

In fact, I deliberately readjust my bindings every day, make sure the knots are still tight, change the color of the ropes, play with the tensions. I do this through hair, make-up, fashion, accessories, and, yes, shoes. I create an aesthetic that I feel matches who I am inside. It is intentional and I leave very little to chance. As a line in the film American Beauty says, “See the way the handle on her pruning shears matches her gardening clogs? That’s not an accident.” I am relentless. These character traits that some call unstable, neurotic, or high maintenance are actually valuable tools for which I have great respect and find absolutely necessary.

While I often appear to be caricature of a heterosexual American female, I do not consider myself as such. A wide chasm of difference is created by awareness and intent. My style of being is not meant to perpetuate classism, racism, or heteronormativity although it often does. It is not meant attract attention from straight men. In fact, unless I deliberately consent to step into a specific gaze, it’s not actually meant to attract queer individuals, either. These are all just side effects of my high femme presentation. Some are unfortunate or unpleasant, and some can occasionally be enjoyed in a shot-reverse-shot sort of fashion, but none are directly intentional on my part. So, once again, where does this leave me? When I am seen at all, I am perceived as a female object of desire regardless of whether or not I have consented and without necessarily being fully understood. What does one do with this knowledge? I feel that I subvert gender and sexuality every day by merely existing in the form in which I am most comfortable and refusing to conform to its expectations.

It is my experience that high femmes are dually invisible in both queer and heterosexual spaces. We are like spies in worlds that never expect us, never see us coming, and don’t notice us when we’re already there. While hiding in plain sight, we have brilliant opportunities for subversion, disruption, sabotage, and general queer mayhem. I believe that if we are invisible, then we should have no expectations and cannot be held accountable for our actions. Conversely, if we are visible and yet constantly mystified or misinterpreted, then, again, all bets are off.  We can and should do whatever we please and thus force the communities around us to adjust and adapt to a new reality that sees us in it.

Years ago, when I first heard the popular feminist axiom quoted from Audre Lorde, “The master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house,” I felt immediately uncomfortable.  It took a long cycle of self-reflection to fully discover why.  The truth is, I actually do believe that you can take up the master’s tools if you are first and always aware that you are using them. I feel that if you use the master’s tools to completely subvert, and in many ways thoroughly pervert, his original intentions, then his house will come crashing down in a spectacular, glittery explosion. It is also possible that the house itself doesn’t need to be destroyed. Maybe it would be just as exciting to repaint it hot pink with lavender edge-work. This would also clearly upset the balance of power. Perhaps it’s that I actually somewhat like living in the house—however I will only reside there under my terms and I would prefer it be filled with my friends, family, lovers, and allies. So, in essence, as a high femme I have stolen the master’s house. Maybe I’m squatting, maybe I’ve outright purchased it, or maybe the master is in pieces under the floorboards. The point is, I plan to reside in my refurbished hot pink house, which is full of silk chaise lounges, full length mirrors, walk-in closets, full sets of vintage glassware and, hopefully, some really sexy radical queers—and I’m going to blast girlie pop music out of all the bay windows for as long as I so choose. I invite all of you to come over and join me. There will be cookies. Come on. You know you love cookies.

so the potentially unthinkable has occurred….. my parter and i are…. wait for it…… going camping. it’s in July so I have lots of time to prepare (which is where all of you come in )

now to clarify it’s camping designed for new yorkers—— they supply all the equipment (except for sleeping bags), they meet us at the metro north take our bags and then we can hike into camp w/o being loaded down (does this mean i get to bring more shoes???? ) but still it’s camping.  now i should clarify that while i grew up in rural-ish Oregon i never went camping as a kid—the closest i came was sleeping in a tent at dog shows in high school, and then one night spent in a tent at the beach with this girl i dated for all of three weeks when i was barely 18.  Needless to say I have very little to no camping experience—– Kestryl on the other hand grew up camping for weeks every summer, and promises that I will have loads of fun and is thrilled that ze gets to have a new pocket knife.

We’re going to celebrate Kestryl’s birthday and our 6th anniversary and I think it will be just the sort of relaxing break (in a summer that is quickly filling up with touring for Kicked Out) that I need.  I’ve already been told I’m not permitted to bring my cellphone, laptop, or ipod — i tried to argue that music would be fun, but Kestryl knew that was a ploy to use it to search for wifi (internet addicted femme that I am).  I’m planning to spend a lot of time just chilling with Kestryl, writing, reading, napping etc.

Anyway I know that there are many femmes much more rugged than I will ever be so I thought I’d ask some advice from y’all— things I should know?  Femme camping essentials I shouldn’t forget to bring??????????

p.s. don’t worry I’ve already been schooled that sensible shoes are a must so I’ll be breaking out the sexy sneakers

The past week I have been thinking a lot about how blessed I feel to have a community of femmes from all over the world in my life and mailbox.  I’m a big penpall person and just in the last month I’ve had wonderful package swap with a dear Irish Femme friend of mine and the sweetest typewritten letter from a Femme friend in Canada.

Last week I had the exciting experience of getting to meet a femme friend who I’ve known online for years and years but who I’d never met in person.  She was visiting NYC from Australia and was able to make time in her schedule to come over for dinner! We had a wonderful wonderful time chatting about community, and all sorts of fun things.  Before leaving she told me she had some gifts for me! One of them was the fantastic bag you see me carrying above (which has turned into my current favorite purse) it’s a bag from the Sydney Femme Guild whose logo I’m absolutly in love with (notice the fisted proper lady glove?!?!?!) which I have since been carrying everywhere with me

I’m now thinking of ways to pull together an Australian tour in the next few years because the Femmes Guild sounds like a fantstic group of folks I’d love to collaborate with!