In my house, I have a policy called Straight Up. It is essentially our golden rule. It’s that important. You show the utmost respect by being straight up, and if someone asks you, “Straight up, answer me this…” then you must, absolutely must, honor it with the whole truth. To defy it would be as bad as a physical slap in the face. What I need more than to have my feelings assuaged is to be forthright and to have forthrightness in return. It’s how I continuously learn from all of you, and from my family. It’s what I have to give in return. Not roses and hearts and a virtual tea setting but your truths for my truth.

So here (in this thread), I’ve struggled because although I want all of you to feel my genuine and deep gratitude, my love for you as people I know to be intelligent and wise and just fucking beautiful, I also worry that I am, as per usual, going to come across as overly aggressive in my positions on issues. I worry if being seen as hard or insistent will mean that my voice isn’t heard or that my words are dismissed, or that I am dismissed because of my words. I can’t know any of that, but I’ve grappled enough hours with myself to know that speaking my truth outweighs that worry. I’ve gotta come straight up or not at all. I owe it to all of you, and I owe it to myself.

So, here we go:

Although I understand why you draw a distinction for transmen in this (because to queer a transman without consent might be invalidating and erasing and thereby a transphobic act), it’s still problematic for me because to set him aside as a ‘special class’ from everyone else is to say:
*I hold you with kid gloves because you really aren’t like everyone else*.
*Your self-determined heterosexuality is more special/different than a cis-sexed male’s and so I’m going to protect you.*

I think this is a real slippery slope, and quite possibly a furtherance of the kind of invalidation they too often face. Does that make sense?

And because, as I said earlier, I don’t want it done to me, I will not do it to ("queer by fucking") anyone else. Not a straight cis-sexed man, not a heterosexual transman, no one. I think doing so has the power only to erase and invalidate someone else’s identity and we’ve all fought too long and too damn hard for the right to claim ourselves than to be guilty of attempting to dismantle anyone else’s identity. No, a straight guy cannot “straighten” me out. The idea is laughable, but I cannot queer him. It’s an empty power. It fails to satisfy my desire for egalitarian gender relations.

No matter how you slice that kind of power, it cannot come to equal parts.

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Originally Posted by June It is about Personal Power, yes. And to me (posting back to evolveme here as well) as a Queer Femme who makes mutually beneficial/agreed upon decisions about who she fucks, my Personal Power is not up for negotiation. No, I will not identify as straight to validate you. No, I will not identify as straight to help you pass. I am not straight, and I am not pretending to be so. Ever.

I absolutely understand this, and I see how the strong need to be heard around it arises. I will not accept any masculine or other person usurping my power ever again. She or he may only take what I offer up to them on the altar of my own personal power exchange, but no more. I get how it can feel like yet another means of coloring us invisible when a partner impresses upon us her or his need that we be straight, look straight, act straight. (Funny that we’re alternately accused of these things, then how they are demanded of us by some.)

I’ve watched femmes being told not to wear certain kinds of clothing and jewelry or you know, bird feather and tropical flower embellishments in their hair, because it screamed “I’m Here and I’m Queer Femme” which made a guy feel uncomfortable with the way he needed to be seen. I don’t have the answers to those tricky issues; they are for couples to grapple with themselves, but I do see how it can be invalidating to a femme who experiences invisibility. I also see how wearing queer visibly could potentially invalidate a transguy who no longer wishes to be read as queer. Therein the tricky wicket. I disagree, however, that this is always and necessarily about the concept of masculine-centrism. Trans(male) issues are tender and bitterly tough. There are some real similarities between our (femme and trans) invisibility such that I would never negate their experiences simply because they are masculine and masculine must always equal enemy. That isn’t my position and I hope no masculine person reading this thread has read me as believing such.

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And also, just to clarify. The Transmen I know, are male to me, regardless of bits, but I do look at them differently and "feel" them differently than say, my ex-husband.

Since I’ve already opened the door, I want to speak to this. When we say to/about transmen that they are different than cis-men, that they “feel” different, even if our intentions are pure and good, we are very possibly negating and erasing Who They Are. And that is never good. To say “you are male to me” only throws an ugly light on what we want not to do, which is to set them apart. It suggests that there is really something else going on there, but you know, I’m cool, so I get them.

June, you and Bit are two women that I fucking admire, respect and adore. I see how your voices are incredibly influential in this space. I speak to these issues with you here because it matters, and because I believe both of you are willing to listen and engage in ways that are more open than we’ve seen elsewhere. I believe we, as feminine people strongly need good allies, and that our allies need to understand that old language is no longer useful to us, that it no longer serves us in the ways we once allowed. I also believe that we have to be the best allies we can. That’s why, in this post, I’m speaking the same truth to transmasculine issues. Sometimes, it’s just too easy to miss this stuff, because, you know, it’s not *our* stuff.

It’s not my intention to divert the thread, but it’s important to me that when we name the ways we choose to take back our power, or call for the ways in which we need support, we are careful not to create a dichotomy that wouldn’t work if flipped. I want a balance of power; I chose equanimity. I have to be willing to look at all of the ways that my own employment of power affects the world around me first.

Okay, big breath.

I’m ready for better and more true conversation. Even if it’s hard. Even if it hurts me a little. Especially if it learns me anything good. :)

If I am out of line.. then please let me know..

Cause this has been on my mind since i started reading this thread.

I want to talk about the femme experience. I want to talk about what it means to other femmes.

Since I started reading this.. There is about five pages dedicated to talking about our partners. Is that all there is to us? Is all we are between our legs and who we partner with? Can Femme's not have a discussion without bringing butches, cis-guys, transmen into it? I have been reading the butch thread and guess what? we arn't the focus...

Am I wrong? Am I just seeing this because it's something I have to fight against all the time.. Internally.. Once I am partnered, I fight against becoming a two headed monster.. With my partner's head being the biggest and most predominate..

If I am out of line, or having tunnel vision, please let me know... Right now I am in transition.. Trying to be more than Mother, more than Partner... And it's hard as fuck. For me.. I have an image of what femme is stuck in my mind.. and that is sure as hell not me.. Unlearning this programming is so very important...

I'm not the donna reed, suzi homemaker, dress up doll that I see in my head.. I'm not some sweet submissive... I'm not a woman who's world revolves around her partner..But that's what is in my head... That is what I've allowed to be planted there.. If I am not that.. then I couldn't be femme, I'm not *enough* That is what I am trying to reprogram..

Cyn, we can talk about that image in your head---I struggled hard with it too, and I'm willing to bet all kinds of posters in this thread have dealt with it--but for right now I really need to answer Julie, because this goes to who she and I are, both as Femmes and as members of the community. Forgive me this post on it please?

Straight up, Julie: I do NOT sleep with biomales. Not ever, not under any circumstances. (Made that mistake once, done with it forever.) I only included them in the hypothetical example because you did, and I was trying to answer you in kind.

I am Queer. For me, that means I do not sleep with straight men.

Would I make an exception for a Straight-Identified Transman if I fell in love with him? Yes. But it would BE an exception and he would HAVE TO accept me as a Queer both in my sexuality and in my community for us to have a healthy relationship.

Most of the Straight-Identified Transmen I have known didn't want to do that. That's completely understandable; I tried to change who I was for a couple of them, I tried to force myself to be straight and it didn't work--so why should I expect them to try to not be straight?

Queer-Identified Transmen, on the other hand, are my cuppa tea. Neither of us has to change, just as when I am with a Butch, neither of us has to change. We are both Queer together, and that is as it should be for my good mental health (and presumably for theirs too!).

I am not Pansexual, but Transensual... I define that to mean that I am comfortable in all ways including sexually with Transgendered Butches (for example, the ones who are Third Gender, Two Spirit, or Gender Queer) and Queer Transsexual Men.

About the kid leather gloves... There is an early stage of transition that is common to many Straight-Identified Transmen where they have an intense need to "Straighten" the Femme they are with because they need to see themselves as completely Straight. When that stage hits--I call it a stage because I've seen many Transmen come through it and relax considerably, afterwards--then a Femme cannot win for losing unless she is TRULY happy about sleeping with biomales, because nothing less will do to prove to the Transman that he is not "different."

Well, hello. MY being Straight (or not) does not prove anything about someone else's identity. And straight up--no pun intended--a Transman IS different. I happen to like the difference; most of the Transmen that I have known deplored the difference. Given those opposing attitudes, supporting them can be fraught with difficulties, and the only way I have found effective in dealing with those difficulties is kid leather gloves.

Does that mean I think Transmen are weak? Not no, HELL no. Transmen are some of the strongest beings on the planet. They just happen to bear really heavy burdens that call for extra consideration.

They'd treat me with the same gentleness and consideration if I needed it. Many of them have over the years.

You CANNOT.

It is not possible for anyone to "make" someone else Queer.

I think you must have missed my last post on it, where I said that I know I cannot make anyone else Queer, that it is already inside them--or not. June and I were talking about the stereotype that equates sexual power with men, and thereby with Butches---and refuses it to women and thereby Femmes. We were talking about the wall she slammed into when she claimed that sexual power even in a discussion, even as a stereotype.

It is absolutely impossible to MAKE someone else be Queer.

Or Straight.

It's just not ever gonna happen.

:stillheart:,
Cath

I was thinking the very same thing. Why is it that we are most articulate about our relationships and our partners?

In this discussion, I'm still trying to untangle my identity as a woman from my identity as femme. I am a proud, fierce lesbian who reveres women of all orientations and types. I'm not talking about sexual attraction, only. I'm sexually attracted to butches, but, truthfully, there are women of all types who slay me. I remember that I had trouble reconciling my lesbianism with my own way of being. I'm now comfortable being feminine both in appearance and in my inner view. But, there was a time when I had trouble accepting this, as a lesbian. FEMME is where being a feminine woman and being a lesbian intersect, for me. Realizing and embracing my attraction to butches was a completely separate process from recognizing that "femme" was an aspect of my identity.

I hope this makes sense. I'm trying to articulate something that I am just figuring out here.

Do the terms "high" and "low" femme add to this feeling of not being "femme enough?" They've always felt like a ranking system to me.

Thank you for bringing this up!

It does feel like a ranking system to me. I have never understood it...

To me, I see "high femme" and I wonder what that person might be smoking! Is that like, "high as gas" or "high as Jesus"??

Its funny that I have never seen "low femme"...

I think this might apply to any femme shorter than 5'0".
But.... I could be wrong.

LMAO!!! I thought that was any femme other than me... I usually tower over everyone... no matter the ID...