You will find long been feminine. But only prior to now number of years have actually I called myself personally “femme.” The difference appears not in acronym, however in queer coding. Sadly, many people outside the queer world never fully understand
just what femme means
or accept the specific distinctions from feminine. But the differences tend to be why your message femme must occur to begin with.

To put it simply,
“femme” is actually a descriptor
for a queer individual who provides and works in a typically female manner, as discussed by feminist mass media website Autostraddle. This could be a cis
pillow princess
, like me, an asexual trans lady, or a gay non-binary person, but all femmes hit upon two essential visual and identity-related traits: getting female and falling somewhere throughout the LGBTQ spectrum.

There’s also a feeling of reclamation about the femme descriptor. For several, it’s about getting the stereotypes and expectations so frequently put on women and making them our own. As Evan Urquhart typed for Slate in 2015, “Intentionality is the vital thing to
identifying a femme identity
from a traditionally female one.”

Urquhart’s point is getting femme is not about acting girly or “girly” in the steps mainstream culture typically seems that female-presenting men and women “should” work. Alternatively, it is more about subverting the expectations that ladies face solely to be females. For this reason you will typically see femme-identifying folks presenting
exaggerated versions of womanliness
over conventional, cookie-cutter, or preppy people.

For me, utilising the term “femme” over the descriptor “feminine” is a key component in claiming my personal queerness. It is a queerness that features usually, due to my personal bisexuality, been erased. This knowledge is one lived by many queer ladies and it has arguably been talked about progressively with all the increase of net, such as a-twitter venture by Huffington Post in 2014 that lead to the hashtag
#WhatFemmeLooksLike
.

In 2012, queer and relationships writer
Sinclair Sexmith
described
femme invisibility
succinctly in an article, without any conquering regarding the bush, noting:

“Femme invisibility is actually a genuine thing. It occurs always. Queer women who are elegant enjoy viewed as right — by straight folks, different queer folks, and sometimes even queer femmes on their own — as this tradition expects dykes to decline sex roles automatically whenever rejecting a heterosexual orientation. Like those a couple of things go with each other inseparably.”

What exactly is vital that you conceptualize about any of it quote in addition to narrative that it is battling against is the division between gender and sex definitely, actually, an important any. Although gender and sex may be undoubtedly and intrinsically connected, they are not one and also the same. That which we identify as and exactly who the audience is interested in are a couple of different constructs, and just how we present our selves literally usually has bit regarding whom our company is attracted to.

In Urquhart’s exact same Slate article, a pal summarized the comparison to be enthusiastic about females and being feminine completely: “Being femme is all about getting real as to what I actually like and exactly how I really wish to show up, despite what my personal sexuality leads people to count on.”

Whenever we expect ladies who like women to present as butch and men that like guys presenting as feminine, we inadvertently reinforce
gender binaries
. It is not a little against butch ladies, elegant guys, or anyone in between, but alternatively a critique of the hope a lot of people believe to satisfy these roles based on their unique sex.

In a
comic for Everyday Feminism
, artist Anna Bongiovanni demonstrated the privilege contained in this binary: “We inhabit a tradition that celebrates manliness and demonizes and shames womanliness and those practices never go-away in the queer society.”

This promotion of
heteronormativity
is harmful, however. It erases identities and declines the reality that our identities tend to be complex.

Pertaining to anyone explanations, it is necessary to remember that a butch lesbian is not generally playing into stereotypes of sexuality more than a femme lesbian is actually playing into stereotypes of sex: Our identities are far more superimposed than that.

So when you are looking at feminine and 100 percent right people contemplating whether or not they should self-describe as femme, i would recommend steering clear from a phrase meaning such within a residential district they are certainly not a part of. Ultimately, “femme” is approximately stopping binaries. It’s about subverting social expectations. It’s about becoming several thing. It is more about queerness.

Images: Georgina Jones