There are lots of different sorts of femmes, there are the birds in London I first learned about from the pages of Femmes of Power (such a good book, you can read my review of it here ), and the Fierce Femme Sharks, but now I present to you, The Femme Dinosaurs!

Last night I changed my status update as a joke to saying that I was a “dinosaur sort of femme.”  I’m pretty obsessed with dinosaurs and didn’t think much about it, until I got several responses from friends wanting a definition, which of course got me thinking about performance of gender and femmeness. Then, I had several friends say it resonated with them as well and that they also were dinosaur sort of femmes, which got me thinking even more about what this category meant.

I bring you the very rough beginnings of defining who we are as Dinosaur Femmes

The (very rough beginnings of) the Dinosaur Femme Definition:

Dinosaur femmes are the queerly feminine who have an affinity for the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous
Dinosaur femmes are big and stompy and don’t take shit from anyone.
Dinosaur femmes redefine the definition of beautiful.
Dinosaur femmes know that claws are important.
Dinosaur femmes aren’t afraid to eat whatever we want, whenever we want.
Dinosaur femmes bite the heads off people who accuse them of being outdated for their love of aprons, heels, and makeup
Dinosaur femmes know that their gender like everyone else’s is constructed, and performed.
Dinosaur femmes know they are something outside the gender binary, and that "woman" as a category can’t quite cover them.
Dinosaur femmes are ferocious, and fight for our communities.
Dinosaur femmes make their own families, and then guard them well
Dinosaur femmes can be hard to get to know, they are loaners who play at being extroverts
Dinosaur femmes keep their heart protected until they know they can trust you.
Dinosaur femmes are bigger than life.
Dinosaur femmes know where they come from and have a strong respect and appreciation for queer history, and make noise so it won’t be forgotten

is the femme dino identity something you could get behind? if so, what sort of dino would you be?

For example, my Australian Femme Friend Madeleine Lynch got into the idea and said"I like the idea of a velociraptor femme because I'm someone who flags black on the left dangerous and elegant and vicious appeals to me..."

Latest posts by Sassafras

• Farewell - May 1st, 2011
• Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme - April 16th, 2011
• Little Red Writing Dress - March 27th, 2011
• Unexpected Butch/Femme Poetry - March 22nd, 2011
• Tell-tale Signs a Queer Femme is Queer - March 4th, 2011