Each month here on the Femme's Guide we are all encouraged to respond to a prompt. This month it's about femme community and I've realized that my thoughts on the issue are pretty scattered so I'm just going to answer these questions as best I can.
Sassafras writes:
Talk about your relationship to femme community. What does it mean to you? What does it look like? How has it it changed your life? How have you struggled with it? What are your dreams for what it could be?
I think that my real introduction to the femme community was when I started reading Sinclair's thoughts about butch and femme... I think it has been almost four years since then, since I stopped denying my femmeininity. Even for a long time after that, I had little true communion with other femmes. I had plenty of androgynous/butch friends. I'm not sure why I never made better friends with other femmes. One reason may be that folks around here aren't too concerned with intentional, conscious gender. Even now, four years out as femme, the majority of my femme oriented friends are scattered across the country and the world because I met them through this group beautiful sex/work/gender/survival/power/erotica bloggers. I have met almost none of them, although I feel like close friends with some... Curvaceous Dee, who has seen me through a number of hardships. My local femmes don't all get along, due to disparate value systems and lifestyles and it's disappointing... but each of them brings unique blessings and dilemmas to my life.
To me, femme community means: having someone to make sure you look ok when you leave the house. Or if you don't look ok, they'll muss the bun on their head and crimp some wrinkles into their shirt so the two of you match. being able to talk to another femme about shared struggles in life and relationships that stem from your queer femininity. Maybe femme community is about having your own personal gender posse who will defend you from the judgments of outsiders. Knowing that you're unique, but you're not alone.
Maybe femme community is not comprised of femmes only, but also any who identify differently but still support and affirm the power and legitimacy of a queer femme identity. Maybe femme community also means having friends and lovers provide opportunities for us to shine... by thanking you for being an excellent hostess, or acknowledging the effort you put into your appearance, holding you in the way you like most of all, or simply exhibiting chivalry so that you can behave in a courtly manner... if you're that type of gal. Ivan Coyote gifts femmes with this beautiful poem, a very tender expression of femme community from someone who does not identify this way.
I know that this glittering femme community has affected me because I feel its lack of influence in my life so dramatically right now. I know that I flourish and thrive when I'm deep in femme-affirming territory. I sometimes dream of moving to a place with more intentional femmes and butches, to a place where it's a little easier to be queer, where I could start over anew. But I cannot, and if I were to do that I think I would be giving up the chance to find the femmes who live right here. I would miss the out on being the voice of a Floridian Femme at the upcoming femme conference. Perhaps I underestimate the quality of community that I have, since I get to contribute to the conversation about intentional, queer femmeininity right her on Femme's Guide. Although my comments may not be the most eloquent ones here, I'm not afraid to stand up and speak my mind. Maybe that's what femme community is: a place where you can stand up and speak your mind about femmeininity without fear of judgment or retribution. Can we all agree to disagree and affirm each other despite our differences? When that happens, I can stop searching.
Latest posts by missavarice
- Femme in the Kitchen #4 - Sweet Shaped Ice Cubes - April 3rd, 2011
- Femme in the Kitchen #3 - February 16th, 2011
- Keeping Warm in the Sunshine State - December 10th, 2010
- Femme in the Kitchen #2: Sugar - August 31st, 2010
- My Femme Role Models - August 22nd, 2010
Yay, femmes in Florida! I'm a Floridian ex-pat now living in the Pac NW, and I'll be at the conference too! I'd love to hear your story, to hear about the culture in Florida now. Are you presenting?
[...] the only option. I now realize that wasn’t the only evidence of femmeness before I came out. Femme Community: Scattered: In this post I talk about my relationship to the femme community, but it’s a bit complicated [...]