So it might not come to much of a surprise to folks but I’m out, like really out. Out as queer, out as femme, out as leather, and transgender, and all manner of other lovely identities along the spectrum of queerness. I’m also really privileged in that even as a femme it’s not all that often I have to explicitly Come Out--- maybe it’s all the tattoos (a few of which are visibly queer themed), or perhaps it’s just that even “safe” questions like “where do you work” or “what do you do” tend to elicit a significantly queerer answer than most folks would anticipate.

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.

Back when I was still coming into myself as a non-butch women-loving woman, perhaps a “baby femme” if you will, I had deeply rooted reservations regarding being the aggressor in a relationship, or even just in flirtation. I passed up many a prime opportunity, maybe even missing out on what could have been great relationships, because I when I tried to be the person who does the pursuing, I felt somehow too masculine, too butch, and of course that didn’t sit right with me.

I think that underneath it all, I was struggling with the societal norms that had been ingrained in me for all of my life. It wasn’t that my parents forced a traditional outlook on me at all, but let’s face it: the media, literature and just people we see every day in our lives, whether or not we interact directly with them, reinforce the idea that the man or at the very least the more masculine party is always the aggressor, the pursuer. Of course there is nothing wrong with the more masculine person being the pursuer, but the idea that it must always be that way was a sad and outdated concept I essentially had to deprogram out of my brain.

Slowly but surely, I am getting the hang of it. I think it helped discovering that I am kinky and have a Top side that doesn’t sacrifice my femme identity, but what’s really doing it is just becoming more and more comfortable with my own brand of femme-ininity and thus, more comfortable in my own skin. As I have grown more comfortable, I’ve started flirting with those cute butches, or hell, even the cute fellow femmes, and every positive response is reinforcement that no, I do not have to be the wilting wallflower who always waits for the other party to initiate and that yes, I can pursue who I want and still be the femme I am.

Outside of cultural programming, there is nothing inherently masculine or butch about being the aggressor. Yeah, their sexy swaggers and cocked eyebrows certainly lend a little spice to the game of pursuit, but we femmes can absolutely add our own flair and come out on top. Or on bottom. Or however we like it!

If you are like me, or most of the femmes I know, you are busy. Non-stop, perhaps. You have work and/or school, projects, interests, hobbies, friends, groups, lovers, and all manner of fabulous things that take up all of your waking hours. Sure, you say, everyone is busy. Well, that's true, and this message isn't only reserved for femmes, it's valid for everyone who is busy, it's just my experience that femmes tend to be actively busy, always doing or creating something, taking part of something, actively using their time rather than passively passing it. This is probably not true for every femme everywhere, but from my experience the femmes I know are busy busy busy.

This is your reminder to breathe. It's hard for me to not have my awareness shift to my breath when someone tells me to breathe, I'm even doing so unconsciously while I'm writing this, so I hope that is the case for you too. Take in a few nice deep breaths as you continue to read this.

My point is not just about breath but also a reminder to take time for yourself, make sure your needs are being met, and tune in with your body. Taking a moment or many moments to check in with where you are, what you are doing, and where you are going.

Perhaps reading this blog is you taking time for yourself, reading the writings of other femmes in hope of finding out more about others and yourself, if so, fabulous, you're already doing what I'm trying to remind you of. For others it might be taking a bubble bath, reading a book, spending time with a lover (or more), or any sort of calming activity (though the last I mentioned may not be calming in the same sense).

I find that, while I love to be busy and to have a million and one projects going, have all of my time micromanaged to the point of near exhaustion, I also love being able to take time for myself, decompress, and remember why I'm doing all that stuff in the first place.

Like I said, you may be doing this already, but just in case you're not this is your reminder.

-Scarlet Lotus

Technorati Tags: breathe, busy, one step at a time, reminder, take time for yourself

My grandmother used to sew a new Easter dress every year, which inevitably turned out to be my favorite dress until the following Easter. There was a period of time when I was a little girl where despite climbing trees, running and playing, I refused to wear pants. It was not because girls shouldn't wear pants. It was because pants were hot and with skirts the breeze can cool your legs in the hot Florida sun. As I grew older I set aside skirts little by little. By the time high school came around, I almost never wore them except to church. My blossoming figure was getting me some unwanted attention so I started to hide my curves by wearing unflattering clothing. Even later still, from the end of 2005 until the end of 2007, I had a very masculine stride despite the feminine manner of dress that I picked up again during my former life as a missionary. Throughout all of these different configurations, I was still femme.

I did not feel comfortable and settled into my femmeininity until I started realizing how very much I adore female masculinity. Obviously not everyone who is femme is drawn toward butches and vice versa. Not all femmes were born female. Not all femmes are gay (although I do believe we are all queer, despite various sexual orientations). Masculine women did not make me feel threatened like most men did at the time. They supported my feminine side, did not make fun of me or force me into the cult of true womanhood. Maybe it was the type of butches with which I was associating at the time, but I felt encouraged and valued and seen... That's how I came out to myself. Little by little, as I became less and less afraid of the attention my femmeininity would attract. As I started learning about how femme and butch are radical rather than conformist (and what if they are? does it matter?). After that, every time I ever came out to anyone it was both at once: my mouth said "I'm gay" and my body, my grace, my curves said "I'm femme."

Technorati Tags: clothing, coming into femme, coming out, identity, themes

Here is my contribution to the theme of defining femme. This is a poem I started many years ago. It's gone through countless edits and will probably never be fully finished. I welcome you all to add your own stanza(s) and see what magic can come from a collective effort!

I am femme like steel heels
Stiletto
Staccato
Pointed toes
Hard lines
Sharp edges
Acute angles
Punching out rhythm
Down the hall
Across the floor
On your chest.

Femme like sculpted nails
Painted baby-pink
Playing innocent
Stained dangerous
Fuck-me-red
Scoring
Sharp pain
Raged scratches
Ridges down your back.

Femme like complications
Constrictions
Corsets
Tightened
Cinched
Restrained
Holding me back from you.

Femme like perfection
Persuasion
Scarlet lips
Smoldering eyes
Hours spent
Pulling it together
Only to be dismantled.

I am femme like destruction
Disheveled
Disrupted
Smeared mascara
Hair falling damp and undone
Patterns of teeth
Glowing
Circled in lipstick.

I am femme like brevity
Breathless
Slurs
Sentences shortened:
Ma'am
Sweet
Diva
Bitch
Goddess
Cunt
Mistress
Girl
Princess
Dyke
Scorpio
Switch
Doll
Slut
Mommy
Whore.

Define Femme.

Now stop. Did you define YOUR femme-ness, what femme-ness looks like to you, and how you embody it? Or perhaps what femme looks like or is in those femmes that you happen to be attract to? Or did you happen to come up with a definition that embodies all Femme?

If you chose the latter, please tell me, because I'm having a hell of a time.

I feel a bit like Justice Stewart, when he spoke of obscenity and said "I know it when I see it." But it's true. Femme is just one of those terms that happens to be incredibly hard to pin down, incredibly hard to define, and I've been trying for years.

I hate when people define Femme and include clothing as part of it; lipstick, heels and pencil skirts do not a Femme make. Can a Femme WEAR lipstick, heels and a pencil skirt? But of course. But is it a requirement for the definition? Certainly not.

Then I got in the habit of defining it by attitude, by Femmitude if you will. There is just a certain fiesty-ness, a certain sass that Femmes possess. We give it out when we feel invisible, showing people that we have our own identity and please stop grouping me in with the other straight girls/women here, thank you very much. We have it in how we interact with our love interests, our partners, our lovers.

But how do you define that attitude? And what about people full of that sass and attitude and vitality that aren't Femme/femme-identified? How can attitude be the only definition of an entire identity.

Femme is so many things, and one of the best parts is that it is so many different things for so many different people. I find myself re-examining my own Femme identity all the time, and I've identifed as such for a good few years. I've identified as being part of a Butch/Femme dynamic, and as a Femme on my own, and as a Feisty Femme and a Kinky Femme, and an Invisible Femme, and a Disabled Femme and so much more. And if I can barely figure out and pin down my own identity, barely figure out out what Femme means to me, and define it for myself, how the heck could anyone ever try to define it as a whole, for all the Femme-identified people out there?

So you - yes you. How do YOU define Femme? For yourself, and for others. How do you definie it as an identity? What makes a Femme a Femme....or is it just the magic pixie dust covering all of us?

-Essin' Em

***I've already written a lot about finding my Femme identity and coming out as a Femme in various settings, so I've chosen to write about the struggles I have with the definitions of my own identities on a regular basis***

Technorati Tags: define femme, femme, femme dyke, femme identity, gender identity, how do you define femme, queer femme, queer identity, what does femme mean, what is femme, who am I

Oddly enough, I don't recall any huge instances where I had to come out to anyone else. Even coming out as non-straight to my parents was no big deal. I haven't had to deal with a huge amount of the "femme invisibility" issue that seems to plague many of us, for whatever reason. Back when I was employed, I just let my employers think I was straight for two reasons: they have no business knowing about my personal life, and my last two jobs were in fairly conservative offices, so I didn't want to open myself up to any kind of closeminded drama. (Sometimes, as much as it sucks, femme invisibility does come in handy. But that's a post for another day.)

My biggest issue in coming out? It was coming out to myself. Not because I was ashamed of what I was, but because I didn't know what I was. My impression of "femme" for the longest time was that best-known faction, the high femmes. It was red lipstick, spike heels and full-skirted dresses. And that certainly isn't me, at least, not most of the time. I am usually more of a lip balm, Converse and dark wash jeans kind of girl. So surely I didn't fit in with the femmes, right? But I knew I wasn't butch. There was no question about that.

I don't even remember where or how I heard of the idea of a "tomboy femme." I do remember the feeling I got when it dawned on me though. It was a dawning. A sun had risen in my head and suddenly the gloom was brightly lit and clear to me. That was me. "Tomboy femme" was me. I was no less femme because I preferred Chucks to heels, or because I was more comfortable in denim than silk. I was just a different kind of femme. I was - I am - the kind of femme who takes elements of a more masculine image and incorporates them into a femme identity, making them both into my own. I am the kind of femme who walks with a bit of a hip sashay and a bit of a swagger. I am the kind of femme who pairs a floral blouse with a leather motorcycle jacket. And above all, I am just me, which is something entirely beyond names and labels. And finally I am comfortable with that; I feel like I fit into my own skin just as well as I fit into those jeans that make my ass into a work of art.

This afternoon I found a fantastic new article about femme identity that was posted over at Xtra this week.  The whole piece is well worth the read, this is my favorite quote

"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.