So i apparently live my life a bit behind the times... i loved this prompt so much it took me 2 (?) months to write it and post it up, finally...

Some nights, femme feels like balancing on a razor blade—risk, danger and triumph in one.
Some nights, femme is the feeling of whiskey spilling on little cuts you’ve gathered through the week, a purging of ghosts, a reclaiming of a tried and battered self.
Some days, femme feels like a one-person pride parade of Outfits and Strut and most perfect sun.
some days, femme feels like a one-person coming out event… over and over again, as many times as it takes, as many times as you can.
Some days, femme feels like the tired feet and aching back of work well done.
Some days, femme feels like untangling,
Most days, femme feels like secret strength, a backbone of steel with the grace of flight.
Some nights, femme feels like bruised knees and a willing mouth, the clenching, the ready, the push and delight of desire.
Some nights, femme feels like the sigh of leaning into a bath, the full contented belly, the cool of pillows and the sweet stretch into sleep.
Some days, femme feels like a battle with fear and doubt, a challenge to yourself.
Some days, femme feels like a dare.
Some days, femme feels like the perfect poetry, the bass rhythm dancing under your step.
Some days, femme feels like an excessive metaphor to disguise a simple truth, the simplest truth:
Femme is the honest homecoming, the challenge and the victory of self.

It’s funny to me, when I hear the words “femme role model”… the first person I think of is actually a butch. The first butch I ever met, the first person who made me want to express myself in a way that made sense to myself, not to the androstandards that I had, that very night, been told by older lesbians who were supposed to be ‘taking care of me’.

Of course that was the night I met my first butch—a word I didn’t even know to use at the time, but that later I knew was the only way to describe the much older, chivalrous dyke. The only one who didn’t try to give me lessons on cutting my nails short to send ‘signals’, or to say that wearing clothes from the boy’s section was an excellent way to pick up the ladies, and, obviously, that my long hair needed to go. Granted, she didn’t tell me how to be femme, either, but at the time she was glimpse over the andro-dyke iron curtain I didn’t even know I’d been living behind. She obviously wasn’t a femme role model, but she’s the first person who cracked open the door to allowing myself to be femme.

The person who helped bring me out as femme, that came later. I had only met one other femme before her, and I’d always thought of that sparkly femme identity as something beyond my reach, that was just her.

Then I met the first femme I knew who used the word femme without fear. She and I went shopping together for things I never thought I’d wear… skirts, dresses, lace, heels. It took me a long time to go from helping her pick things to trying them on myself to actually buying them. It took a long time to give myself permission to want to buy those things, to want to look good in a way that made me feel good.

I remember the realization that it was ok to feel good about my body, to dress it in the way I wanted, fuck what other people saw. It’s an on-going battle, but that’s part of being femme for me—accepting my body and myself without apology or eating disorders. As time has gone on, there’s a lot that being femme has also taught be to grapple with, to figure out about my identity and my place in the world without hiding myself or allowing shame or other people’s opinions of what I ‘should’ do become more important than being honest about myself. And that’s what femme role models are to me, too.

The femmes that inspire me, my role models, are so varied. They are the femmes who are always fabulously done-up; the ones who ride motorcycles and love pitbulls best; the femmes who are so flamboyantly different it doesn’t matter if you know the word, they are clearly femmes. My role models are the older femmes who carry history in their veins, who have been doing this longer than I’ve been alive and defy what the few b-f history books would have you believe: that we die off when we get older, or disappear into hetero-normativity without a backward glance. They are the femmes who are tough as nails; unapologetic femmes who are brash but kind, too. Femmes who are strong. Femmes who can articulate their own power, their own identity, who need no shadow to have plenty of depth.

My femme role models are the ones that lick the proverbial razor blade, those femmes that just don’t quit. They’re the femmes who find their own ways of combating invisibility, of combating stereotype without combating themselves. They’re the femmes who are fat and proud, and remind me I can do that, too. They’re the femmes who build their own bridges, who are out in places other queers are scared to tread, the femmes who come out every day, the femmes who don’t police what that means, but live it for themselves fully, without fear. They are femmes who see the intersectionality of our lives—that being femme is part of the whole in a world that our race, class, language, sexuality, gender and other identities collide and define and re-work and exist even in contradiction or rarity.

My femme role models aren’t always the femmes I aspire to be—does that sound like a contradiction too far? Perhaps the best way to put it is that they are the femmes I admire, who inspire me to be more myself, as they are infinitely themselves. And isn’t that what being femme is all about?

I know this month’s topic is on femme community—I’m working on that one right now, but I heard the best story this weekend about a femme out in California and I had to share.
Someplace in California, there is a 6 ft 3 femme walking around in stilettos, prepared to kill.
Let me back up.
I was out shoe shopping for a wedding this weekend and I had dragged two of my friends with me. They do not care much for shoes, even less for heels, so their enthusiasm for a difficult project (finding silver heels not made for a 14-year-old mess going to Jr. prom) was waning. It got to the point that they were prancing through the store pretending to wear those ridiculous ‘shape up’s and commenting on their lack of firmed buttocks and suggesting that, as I was in heels at the time, there was nothing I could do to make them stop because they could run faster than me.
Not so, dear boys. I can run as fast in 3.5 inch heels as you can in sneakers (at least when I have to—who really wants to run?). I told them this, and later proved it to them when they kept bringing faux-snake-skin loafers in unnatural colors over for me to try on when I was involved in the real mission of the day.
When we were walking out of the store (4 inch silver peep-toe sling-backs in hand, thank you very much) one of them told me the story of a friend who was also always in big heels. He was concerned for her safety on more than one occasion, and finally one day asked her why she didn’t think about investing in some more ‘sensible’ shoes so she could run if she was ever harassed. He didn’t say this, but I get the feeling that the 6’3” femme fatal had probably had several scrapes before he was compelled to say something as silly as recommending sneakers to a heel-committed femme.
Anyway, he made the suggestion and got the best response I’ve ever heard. Apparently this femme, after assuring him that she could not only run in heels and fight in heels, told him she wasn’t really that worried about running anyway.
‘If anyone messes with me, I can always do this,’ she said. Removing one of her stilettos, she glanced around, found a wooden post a good 8 or 10 feet away, and, barely taking aim, she hurled her heel at it. Not only did she hit the post she aimed for, she had put the perfect spin on her sling-back defense mechanism, and it was stuck there, heel-in, right in the middle of the post.
That was the end of my friend’s story, but I can picture the part of it he didn’t say: the aftermath of this femme demonstration of ingenuity and strength. Him standing there, mouth hanging open, while she sauntered over to reclaim her stiletto from the heart of that poor post, the words “let them try me” written all over her walk, the tough and maybe vaguely-nostalgic smile creeping on the corners of her mouth. As a heel-wearing femme myself, I appreciate the lengths someone would have to push her before she’d relinquish a heel, even in self-defense. But even more than that, I appreciate a femme that won’t be compromised by what other people view as a ‘safe’ choice for her fashion.
And, of course, I’ve found an old heel that doesn’t fit me so well anymore and set it up with a post in the backyard of my head, ready to practice my own slinging talents at night, or after a particularly bad day out in the world. I figure part of being femme is learning each other’s tricks and keeping ourselves safer and more fabulous on the inventiveness of our fellow femmes.
So here’s to the femme whose name I don’t know and face I’ve never seen, who’s inspired me to new heights of heels and self-defense. Someday, let me make wooden posts (and potential femme destroyers) cringe as much when I sway past in a pair of bad-ass heels.

i've been having a hard time writing about femme stuff lately.  actually, i've just been having a hard time writing in general.  something about Major Life Changes that make me feel so full of words and totally incapable of putting them together in a way that's worth much to myself.
i've been wanting to write about balancing being femme and being "work appropriate" and it started out full of fun and clever ways of avoiding body dysphoria while shopping  for clothes (i really do have a 5-point checklist and none of it involves waiting to be wee before shopping, which was my success-proof method before).  that one is actually almost done so it may be wandering out into the internets sometime soon.
still, it's not quite ready to venture out yet.  so while wandering through the mental checklist of things you gotta do to make it through, i got sidetracked into the 'how to deal with disapproval from people who hate themselves and take it out on you' brainstorm, inspired by a co-worker who keeps telling me my clothes are "obscene" because they are above my knee.  ABOVE MY KNEE.  yeah.
of course that got me going on a love letter to a femme i've tried to write a thousand times and can't seem to word right.  how do you properly thank the femme who brought you out and told you it was ok to want to feel good about your body?  i know there's words there, but so far i'm not finding the right ones.
now, this is all really connected.  how i deal with my body and my style is all about how i'm femme.  but talking about it doesn't always come so easy, especially when i have too little contact with other femmes and an overflow of contact with people who don't get it and don't want to.
but all of this has got me thinking on a little project i want to do, to help myself remember myself on days that just aren't going well.  i'm going to make a little femme box and put wee things in it that remind me of everything that is good and powerful about being femme.  on days that make me want to destroy my body and reject being femme, i can pull out my femme reminders and get my head back together.  'cause when it comes down to it, i can't reject being femme without rejecting myself, can't destroy my body without hating myself first, and those aren't things i'm willing to do again.
and that way, on days i don't have words, i can find things that make sense anyway.  and the days i do have words, i can add them into the mix and hopefully even get it together enough to write them here, too.

i've been thinking a lot lately about the way that femmes are so often defined and recognized by proximity to their relationship to a “more visible” partner or date.  now, this is not new: we femmes spend a lot of time talking about invisibility, how to be and show off femme without a partner who "outs" us, what it means to “pass” when you don’t want to, how femme is not the "opposite of butch" but a thing all of it's glorious own.
but lately i've been thinking about it even more and in a more complicated circumstance than what i'm personally accustomed to: my current partner is a straight, 'factory direct' man, and we live in a place where queer folks are very, very, very under represented.

now, negotiating my femme self, and my queer self, in this situation is something that has been difficult in ways that are at times crushing and at times very freeing.  certainly not having a community present makes things more difficult because there are very few places i feel that i am accepted and recognized as a queer femme.  however, more than this, i have found that the community i *do* have has a really hard time negotiating my relationship and my identity, to the point of people (some I know, some I don’t) questioning my queer femme identity.

now from some people i expected this.  i've been out as queer to my family since i was 16 and this is the first straight person i've ever dated (of any gender).
my grandparents: so happy! (he's catholic, but you know, no one's perfect).
my parents: while not as openly jubilant, it was the first time anyone i've dated has been invited to spend holidays with us.  i don't think they've made such an effort to like someone i'm dating since... well, ever.  i always thought they'd be glad i'd never get pregnant on accident (like they did) but apparently birth control and potential abortions are far less scary than diesel dykes.

but from some people in my community in which queer has always meant "do it loud and with glitter" i have found a certain amount of resistance.
ok, not resistance.  outright non-acceptance of both me and my partner.  I’m not sure if it’s because my partner is straight, if it’s because he doesn’t speak fluent English, if it’s because we live so far away that daily or even weekly familiarity with our relationship isn’t possible, or if it’s simply because there’s no gossip like queer femme actually  (gasp) dating a straight guy.  maybe it’s all of this or maybe it’s none.  I’m honestly not sure.

i do know i should have seen this coming.  i have seen bisexual folks treated like the bastard at a family reunion enough times to know that, for some in the big gay rainbow, anything resembling or approaching bi = traitor, confused, trying-to-pass, newly out, etc.  ironically, all things i have heard said about femmes (in general) as well.  but i can't speak to a bi-femme experience, i only realise now what a lot more i've got to learn as a queer femme experiencing what i'm sure is only small slice of bi-hating-heaven.  not only because of the relationship i'm in myself, but also in general: in the past i was *so* sure i would never date a person that would call my queerness into question that i think i allowed myself to largely pay lip service (instead of real, concentrated thought and respect) to the experiences i heard bi folks talking about.

the frailties of youth.  maybe i thought, well, i'm not bi, i'm queer, and i've always said love comes from where it comes.  i was, i admit, thinking that might be more in the way of me falling for a femme than a straight man, but what can you do?  the fact is, when someone lights you up and makes you feel like your heart can grow wings and trail fairy dust, you don't ignore that (or i don't, anyway).  likely it was my own way of trying to protect myself, too, from a lot of bi-phobia that is always around.  i admit i was never really an outspoken defender of bi-femmes in the past, and that is something i regret and have changed.

now, i said that in reference to bi-femmes and this is where i get to my real point.  i have known a few butches and many trans men who admit to being bisexual or queer in a way that encompasses straight folks as well.  moreover, in conversations about theoretical situations i have heard more than one person, more than one femme, state unabashedly that a butch and a straight man would always be a queer relationship, because the butch would (visibly?) queer it.  a trans guy dating a straight girl, these same people say, could be queer if the trans guy was queer, or straight if he's straight id-ed too.  maybe people assume that a straight man dating a butch person or a trans masculine person would HAVE to be a more accepting straight person to be--what?  attracted in the first place?  i'm not sure, but i know there is a key in what we assume about the appearance and appeal of femmes, and the resulting interaction with the straight world.

...which leads me to question where any of that leaves a femme (any femme) who is in a relationship with a straight person.  if a butch or a trans man automatically queers a relationship, why are femmes so easily considered straight-acting?  why is it always implied that, because we are femme, we are also clearly not out in our relationships and to the world, no matter who our partner is? moreover, isn't that playing into the same old bullshit that a lot of femmes get about trying to pass, not 'looking' queer or gay or lesbian or... enough?  yes, there is something to be said for the politics of “passing”, even when it is unintentional.  but what about how we act?  is a “visibly queer” person inherently more likely to be out in their words and actions?  or is appearance the full sum of our parts? to assume that my femme-ness makes me likely to cheerfully slide into a nice straight role in nice, straight relationship is both hysterical and wildly misguided, and I know I’m not the only femme that’s true of.

on the other end of the spectrum, if a femme is made "straight" in a relationship with a straight man, shouldn't the same be true if anyone, femme/butch/trans/none-or-all-of-the-above dates a straight person? i think it is fair to say that a large majority of the butches and trans-masculine people i know have messed around with straight women.  so, if a straight man makes me and my relationship 'straight', shouldn't a straight person do the same to those who date them, of whatever gender?  is that the power of straight folks, that they magically convert whoever dates them into the same thing?

of course not.

and believing that is, in reality, policing someone else’s identity by making it dependent on the opinion of others.  ever been told “it’s just a phase” or “you haven’t met the right ____ yet”?
yeah, exactly.

moreover it's unfair to say that anyone dating a straight person in a gender combination that is normally considered a heterosexual relationship is therefore IN a heterosexual relationship.  in my opinion, if one person identifies as queer (or bi or lesbian or gay or... etc), the relationship is not straight.  maybe it's not queer either, but it's sure as hell not fair for anyone outside of the relationship to decide either way.

in the end, i'm not even sure what the end is.  bi-phobia, phobia of lgbq (etc.) people dating straight people, fear of losing community, fear in general is rampant in our communities (some more than others).  and, while i have few answers or solutions, i think what it comes down to from my femme perspective is this: femmes are constantly fighting against being defined, valued, recognized, honored or ignored based on who they are with. i would think, because of that, femmes should be able to recognize that of the many femme identities and possibilities that exist, none of us should be making rigid definitions based on who we date.  ideally, we should be honoring femme identities, and trying to understand rather than judge from fear.

after all, maybe you'll never date a straight man, or maybe you'll fall in love with one tomorrow.  maybe you'll wake up one day and realise your partner has become one, maybe you'll wake up one day and realise you've become one.  maybe you date straight women who refuse to be out about your relationship, maybe you've only ever dated lesbian nation, lambda-earring-wearing, separatist-community-living, womyn-lovin-womyn.  you still get to define your own identity, you still decide what femme means to you, how you live it and how you love it.  and no relationship can take that away, or change you just out of the capricious behavior of relationships.

femme, to me, has always meant freedom.  and that means free to have your femme identity recognized, honored and upheld, even if you reinvent it every day.  femme is who we are, completely ourselves, and nothing less.

Technorati Tags: bisexual, femme identity, queer

there are a few things you expect when moving to a new country.  the food: different.  the language: different.  the slang: unrecognizable.  the people: different and yet the same.
you'd find among my top 10 day-to-day differences things like living with three straight guys, learning after 11 years to eat some meat, doing laundry by hand and negotiating cobblestone streets in heels.  no really--i could write a how-to pamphlet.  and for those of you scoffing at the thought of needing help figuring that out: try it sometime.

but friday i added a new one to my list: how to deal with scorpions.

perhaps i should back up to say this: i am not generally afraid of bugs.  if it's not stuck in my hair, i have no issue.  i'm not what i would call particularly outdoorsy, but fear of the wild and many-sectioned is not accurate either.  anyway, i take a certain amount of femme pride in dealing with things on my own, bugs or otherwise.  you call on your butch friends to kill every cockroach and pretty soon they think you're doing it because you CAN'T and not because you got tired of disinfecting your shoes in the tub post-encounter.

but here, i have been the Chosen One for plagues of little and large many-legged and winged bastards.  a neon orange moth literally the size of my hand?  flew at my head repeatedly.  i'm surprised it still had capacity to fly since supposedly if you touch the damn things their wings are too fragile to go on flying.  not so this one, my friends, no no.  i admit, had it been blue instead of orange (a color i detest) i might have found the whole thing more agreeable, but that's a color-conscious femme for you.

on the list of other Bug Incidents:
feet attacked by giant red ants?  check.  i think they were after my red toenails in a sense of camaraderie or something.
cicada-like bugs falling on my head in the outhouse?  check.  twice.
grossly poisonous spiders in the shower and above the bed?  check.
earwig-like-creatures in my heels?  check (and killed with the same heel as poetic justice).
some strange swimming bug in the water i use to wash my clothes?  check.
some strange running bug in my bed during the summer?  check a few times.  that little thing was FAST...
...and you get the point.  bugs and me: not usually good friends, no matter how much they enjoy tormenting greeting me, but not usually a serious problem.

and then comes friday.  i'm cooking dinner while my sweety does dishes, all is fine, until all of a sudden he started yelling in obvious pain.
now, i assumed this was a matter of getting cut by stray knives or something in an over-crowded sink.  but that, i guess, would be too simple for a bug attractor like myself.

no, it was a scorpion.
a scorpion that had crawled up our pipes to the kitchen sink during the (warm) day we had no water.  and it was just hanging out there, waiting, and then stung my sweety's hand.

now, like anyone who has no experience with scorpions i know only that the smaller the more poisonous.  and you know, they should only be living in a warm place (like desert warm, not a city where, when it reaches 90, everyone's ready to go in for the day and sleep because it never gets that hot here).

but here was a wee scorpion (about the size of my thumb) that had not only stung my sweety, it was now trying to look inconspicuous on the kitchen floor.
i got a screwdriver from my tool bag and killed it.  i wanted to just crush it with my big high heels, like i imagined really Good Femmes do, but then we couldn't show it to the doctor.  and let's be real, while i've been known to stomp cockroaches with my heels (hello nyc, thats half the reason you BUY the high heel boots), i didn't really want to have to then scrape scorpion off my boots.  instead, i put it in little paper envelope and took scorpion and sweety to the emergency room.

an injection and some meds later, we returned home.  apparently the scorpions around here, while poisonous and painful, are not *too* poisonous, and you could get away with peeing on the sting (i dont know why, the ammonia in pee maybe?) and not need hydrocortizone.  which is good to know, i suppose, should another little scorpion with too much chutzpa decide to visit.

though, honestly, if it does, i'm going to designate my red heels the Crushers and stomp away.  it is far too much stress for me, thinking about scorpions every time i want to do the dishes.  i already have enough bug-related things to negotiate and the stress gives me a tendency to pick away at my nail polish, which, once the stressful situation is over, really makes annoying femme OCD kick in (for me, having chipped polish even in winter, when all i wear is boots, is a problem.  i still take my socks off SOMEtimes...)  but that is a whole other story...

Well, we didn't end up with a female president but Iceland is going to have a female Prime Minister...at least for a few months until elections can be held...and get this, she's gay!

Johanna Siguardardottir, Iceland's social affairs minister, is set to become the country's interim prime minister after month's of governmental struggles following the country's banks collapse last fall . The AP's story led with the fact that she is a  former flight attendant, union organizer and that she is openly gay.However, I found it much more interesting that she has a long background in Icelandic liberal politics. She has been a member of Althingi (the Parliament) since 1978, was Minister of Social Affairs in 1987 until 1994, and again in 2007. She is one of the most popular politicians in the country as noted in a recent Gallup poll that revealed 73 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with her work. She is also the only minister whose popularity had increased compared to a similar poll undertaken in December 2007.Which all leads me to wonder if the AP headline of flight attendant was a slur...(why would they do that, when being a flight attendant is a highly respected field?)...or that they were just trying to make a point that she started out life as an average Jane? (Just to be clear, she was actually a flight attendant in the late 60's, early 70's for Loftleidir Airlines now Icelandic Air)

Let's face it, politics are politics and prejudices are prejudices; and until our media sources can get over their prejudices, we are going to be stuck when them molding the ideas and viewpoints of generation after generation. I'll try to not get started on that soapbox since I try my best to not allow the media to make my choices for me and it so greatly angers me that so many people I know are so easily led...I'll save that for another post and just glory in this monumental feat for a bit longer...

So, at the moment Johanna Sigurdardottir, is being touted as the nation's most popular politician and will lead Iceland until new elections are held. Possibly in May. It is a sad note that few expect her from going from Interim Prime Minister to status as an elected Prime Minister.

So, what else could I find out about Sigurdardottir? She is the mother of two grown sons, is married to Icelandic writer and playwright Jonina Leosdottir, and by appearance appears to be Femme.

Links to more info:
Huffington Post
AOL
*photo credit: Vidskiptabladid

this morning, I got called a whore by some girl on the street.  while the sentiment was not a nice one coming from her, I couldn’t help but appreciate that she had recognized me as someone different.  and not just different because I’m a blue-eyed gringa in this southern Mexico town.  different because of that little extra… brazenness.

I think it was the brazenness she picked up on anyway.  today I’m decked out in red and black.  red cowboy boots, matching red bracelets lining my arm, big rings and low cut shirt that shows off just the right amount of cleavage, a bird taking flight from my collar bone in a sea of coppery red.  not exactly standard issue around here.

of course, the best femme accessory I have is my walk: decidedly not standard issue anywhere.  the way I move is what I consider the most noticeable part of my femme attire: a confident, not-hurried-but-I’m-going-somewhere, swing-the-hips-my-bubbe-gave-me, don’t-fuck-with-what-you-can’t-understand, swagger.  it is also what most frequently gets me into trouble.  coming or going, a confident walk garners more commentary than all the fabulous skirts and flashy heels in the world.

it is also what earns me the most looks of shielded or not-so-shielded disdain from women in this town, along with observations far more direct than the whistles and stares of men.

but the truth is, on some level I appreciate it. yes, it would make every day worlds better if I did not have to do self check-ins every morning against the clothes I choose to make sure I have the brain space to deal with all the attention I don’t want (I don’t always).  certainly I would prefer a world in which I could be femme as I am and also easily read as the queermo I am.  but if I can’t have the visibility I want as I want it, I can at least distinguish myself in some ways. “not normal” is better than “average” and as a femme I have always reveled in all the ways I can distinguish myself simply by being comfortable in myself.

honestly, when I moved here from NYC almost a year ago, I didn’t think I could feel much more invisible.  I carry few of the markers that butches and queers claim to look for to distinguish femmes: no tattoos, long (perhaps boring) hair, a personal abhorrence for rainbows.  I have piercing, but that is hardly a distinguishing marker these days.  I fancy my attitude and presence altogether telling of the fierce, hussy femme I am, but that does not appear to be a shared sentiment among the homos I pass on the streets, in the subway, even at meetings and trainings at queer organizations (oh!  how nice to have an ally here…)

i used to lament all of this with my femme friends at great length, but now i have passed through to a whole new realm of invisibility that makes my old, where-are-all-the-butches-who-appreciate-high-heels-and-lace laments seem laughable.  my darlings, I did not know what I had.  got ignored by butches at a gay bar?  at least there were butches and gay bars!

now, why a fierce, hussy femme would move from NYC to a small, conservative town in southern Mexico is of little importance.  call it an overdeveloped and desperate need for change (it was my 15th move in 4 years), but here i am.  what was not apparent to me, in the two months i took to transition from decision to reality, was how much of my identity would be, suddenly, erased from view.

I am a queer femme of course.  but also a feminist, a Jew, a community and labor organizer, a sex educator, an actress, a writer, leather and motorcycle fiend, an occasional sex worker.  I’m committed to anti-oppression organizing as a way of life, I believe theory is useless without practice, I challenge and expect challenges in return, I’m political and engaged.  I’m sex-positive, independent, working class and proud…  and if I didn’t advertise all of this every place I went while living in the US, I was also not ashamed or closeted about any of them, either.  like I said, brazenness is part of my so-called charm: you ask, we answer.

since moving here, though, things have changed.  it’s not that I have shed my shameless self, but now, I am careful.  I am now finding new ways to negotiate invisibility and self.  it’s the oldest femme game and now I find myself connecting it even more to the stories my bubbe has told me being “too Jewish and too loud”,  of being too ethnic or too ambitious or too passionate or too free.  here, I am dancing on the razor blade not only of sexuality, gender and expression, but also of religion, work, philosophy, rights, way of life.

when I talk loud, laugh out from the belly, I know I am sometimes seen as a loud gringa.  when I first moved here, I did all I could to curtail those impulses, to not be like one of those damned spring break types.  but, with time, I realized that wasn’t being fair to myself.  I’m a respectful, bi-lingual, loud-laughing person.  belly laughs are not the same as being an entitled, drunk, unthinking (la tipica) American.  shameless is not inherently the same as rude.

moreover, laughing loud, talking direct and with honesty is something I associate with almost all the admirable women I’ve ever known.  I am not going to shave that off in exchange for ‘women are to be seen and not heard’.  honey has things to say, you know?

the same happens when I talk about the jobs I used to do, the things I know and do.  like so many before, I applied for a job working at a vidrieria, working with glass and wood.  I was offered a secretarial position despite my experience in building and proficiency in more tools than the workshop contained.  later I found myself teaching some of the workers the right way to use L-brackets (they go under, not over) and quit shortly after.  a person has limits and my arguments with the boss lady to actually use my skills were unappreciated.  she didn’t believe I could possibly know what I was doing.

so I started to tell people about what i used to do: lead protests in big NYC hotels, for grocery workers in Arizona, for queers in Oregon, queer youth across the country, people living with HIV and AIDS in Boston.  the fact that I have ever done more than be a secretary or waitress is never asked about.  and, while it makes me uncomfortable to volunteer too much information about my past to anyone I don’t know, I have learned to, as another way to stay true to myself.  there is so much more to this complicated mess than what a person sees standing in front of them on any given day.

of course, there are struggles—this femme is not tefflon.  many days I wonder what the fuck I’m doing here, so far from family, from a place where, at least if I’m not always seen as femme, I’m seen as some of the parts of who I am.

but there’s always hope.  getting called a whore in the street wasn’t exactly the effect I was going for when I got dressed this morning, but when my gay bf calls me fierce I know at least someone gets it.  if no one understands what “Jewish” means, it is a chance to think about how I embody it, how I explain it, how I practice and who I invite in to see.  if I’m a marked feminist in a place where that is overwhelmingly a damning word, well, that’s nothing new.  there is a certain comfort in being reviled for something so infinitely yourself.  and if I’m femme in a place where “gay” is hardly spoken, at least I am still able to find ways to be flamboyantly me, myself complete.

I walk too freely to claim my body as my own. I am direct and empowered in my speech and actions, in my opinions, in my appearance, in my desires to do something very femme indeed: explore who I am and project whatever that is today into the world with as much strength and truth as I can.  and if I sometimes get called whore on the street, at least I am unrepentantly and shamelessly me.