Femme Invisibility?
 

It helps to ride a motorcycle. Then you can carry the rainbow sticker bedecked helmet around with you. It's my dyke badge.

Ok, So I'm at the store yesterday shopping for a new dress.. (bought two!) I also had the added/welcome frustration of spying a very very hot butch doing something in the store that resembled putting up racks.. I don't know about you but I'm not going to walk up to someone and say hey sexy Im into what you've got to offer, wanna play?

What do we do?? how can we help our counterparts distinguish us in the crowd of soccer moms, dazzling beauties who are strickly dickly and well the curious janes who just wanna look and wouldnt know how to touch even with a manual attached?

I have this tattoo on the back of my shoulder its a triangle of stone with the pride colors in the center radiating out like a pool of color, so it is my only distinquising mark of "Family" I mean honestly Ladies I get it..but not enough of it! And living in Michigan means... cold weather and I'm not baring shoulders for months on end.


Flirting has its thrills but damn.

I used to constantly wear a little rainbow-colored necklace with the word "Femme" in script. It helped a lot :)

Carry one of these in your purse...


http://www.freewebs.com/thecommonthread/2x4s.jpg

Cajun Dee...you made my day with that pic. LMAOOOOOO! My purse is probably large enough to carry those around too! :D

I'm a bit shy, so approaching a butch is out of the question for me (unless I've had a few shots of vodka, that is). I have to admit, I'm excellent when it comes to looking "hetero". I've lived this way most of my life, until I finally realized that I wasn't.

I'm considering getting a little tattoo, but have no idea where. I'm thinking maybe my wrist. Could be covered up by my watch when need be.

Any suggestions on tattoos?

:deepthoughts:

Thanks ladies for your responses.

I love this :)

I'm not trying to get noticed by anyone, but when I see other family members I try to go out of my way to make eye contact and smile, especially if I'm with my partner. Although, I do that with most everyone anyway, so ;)

I do remember, in my single days, how this would frustrate me to no end!!!!!

Trying to catch their eyes so you could smile, the whole "I AM FEMME WHY CAN'T YOU SEE ME" feeling. It really is hard to get butches/trans/FtMs attention out there in the real world.

I went through a drive through yesterday and there was the cutest little baby butch at the window. OMG she was probably 17 or so. I SOOOOOOOOO bad wanted to say to her...

"I'm family. Are you ok? Is your family accepting? Do you need a Momma to talk to or just a friend?"

Someone should come up with something we can say and not just the rainbow thingy cause heck my granny used to have a rainbow wind catcher. That's not enough. We need a code word or something so that butches or any part of our family hears it and thinks...oh cool "she's" one of us.

Or maybe a secret handshake.

Something!!!

I mostly wear black and neutral colors and I'm not into bright colors, really. Can't imagine myself wearing a rainbow. Cool for others, but not my thing. Oh well, maybe I'll get a silver double Venus symbol charm and wear the hell out of it. Guess, I can't go wrong with that. LOLL.

I coped really well, but then I never expected to be acknowledged in the street.

I :

Live in gay areas

Used to have stickers on my car

Didn't wear earrings or too much colour

Didn't wear much jewellery at all

Didn't hang out with gay men or straight women in gay places

Didn't put pretty things in my hair

Didn't giggle unless I was drunk

Didn't humor straight men at. all.

Would complain to my friends about invisibility so they'd feel obliged to step in if someone misidentified me

Would dress down (slightly) or drag (queen) up when going to a gay venue or anywhere with majority gay.

It sounds sucky but it wasn't for me. It took away from a heteronormative appearance, so lesbians would pick up that I wasn't straight and men would think twice before hitting on me.

Now that I'm married and not worried about pulling women, I've noticed a difference. My style has become more tomboyish, yet lesbians are starting to ID me as straight. I'm convinced this is because I'm starting to break all of my own rules.

I've thought about getting a necklace (silver only for me, please) that had Femme or FEMME in script but still legible. It's about the only obvious outward sign I would emit I think.

The only people I care about feeling invisible to are butches and transguys (my sisters see me more easily than they do), but I would still have to get close enough to them without sending out 'creepy girl sneaking up on me' vibes out before they could read it.

:blink:

Not bad but i have bangs. :fastdraq:

Chin tat?
 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_On6waCFdLK...oo_0000556.jpg


"FEMME" would fit very nicely there!

In the grill or on the chin???

:blink:

Princessbelle: I soooo agree with you. Thanks for posting!

Cajun_Dee, you're a riot! LOLLL

I'm very much a tomboy, and not a high femme at all, except when I dress up for dates and events. I was at a leather event sharing a hotel room with a butch couple who know me as a femme lesbian, and their friend needed a place to stay for the last day of the event. She was a nice butch with some serious health issues, who was living on a shoestring budget, and not young.

Of course she was welcome to stay in the room at no charge since we three had already budgeted and paid. I made her a completely chaste offer of the other half of my queen hotel bed. She said, very strongly, that she preferred to sleep on the floor. She woke up at 4 AM with a serious asthma attack from sleeping on the floor. I demanded that she get up off the floor and sleep on the other side of my bed, threatening that I would sleep on the floor unless she got off it. Thankfully, that did the trick, and she spent a few restful hours in a proper bed.

I later asked my roommates what that was about. They had told the asthmatic butch that I was a big old dyke, but she had insisted that she was NOT going to sleep in a bed with a straight woman! She was quite sure of it. I HAD to be straight. WTF?

Butch femme folk think i am too andro to be femme. Yet regular lesbians think i am straight.

By the time i have given an andro lesbian enough significant looks for her to get that i am also a dyke, she thinks i am coming on to her.

Oh joy.

My ex had a silver necklace made with the word Femme in script. Not only was it beautiful, it sent a clear message.

She too got tired of being "invisible".

If I wore a "femme" necklace in my city, two things would happen...

1) I'd get too many nosey sorts asking what it meant, and it's not really something I'm keen to discuss with those not in the know;
2) Even if a butch saw it, they're not looking for femmes! :)

I'm present in my local community, and I've been present and active for many years. I know many people, and people do know... unless they're younger, just out or visiting, and then they think I'm the straight girl at the gay bar!

As for visibility... I struggle with how to do it, or whether I really want it. Saskatoon is a pretty decent place, where if people don't approve of queerness, at least (among adults) they don't waste their breath or energy trying to hurt you.

Besides... whenever I see a cute butch, I just give 'em the old eye-sex treatment. You know the one. Sultry eye contact, break away, see if they're still looking, telepathically communicate the desire for a drink and conversation, etc. When it works, it works!

I don't know what the solution is? I experience everything you and everyone else has talked about, but I still have no solution. I am always going to be a high femme. I am always going to look "straight". It is just part of the femme package, I guess. When I did not have a girlfriend, it was really difficult meeting people as well. I am super shy. The only time I notice butches checking me out is when I am with another butch (go figure). Oh well. Good luck on your journey femme sistah!

:-D

What a dick, I would have left her on the floor.

I've had boyish gay women insist I must be bisexual or straight before, interestingly they were nearly always single.. Perhaps a lack of social skills?

I'm not subtle at. all. when I like someone. Trust me, it's worthwhile being forward.

It's ironic as I'm not confident at all, I'm social awkward, hate confrontation, struggle to hold peoples gaze unless I'm actively conversing with them and get really anxious around people I like. I'm also an extrovert, so when I like someone, whether it be a friendship or romantically, I can't help myself. I want to get in their face, I want to talk to them, I want them to notice me and want them to remember my name. People like attention so it's always worked.

I always worked on the principle that once someone knows who you are, then anything is possible.

Well if it makes you feel any better, we wish we knew too. Sure would make things easier.

it seems like a lot of butches won't make eye contact with even other butches. shy, fear, taken, not interested, ... the reason for not doing so, gotta be one of those lol. i noticed this in my teens. if i see someone that gives off a vibe/something visible (butch or femme), i try to make eye contact, smile.

if we use the mind set that most heterosexuals use, which is all femme women are straight, reverse that, ... all femme women are lesbians, ... can't hurt. be bold, go for it. if i see someone that interests me, this way, i'll find out soon enough if she's a lesbian lol.

the butch has to help. this thread right here is letting the butch know that a lot of femmes feel invisible. so step up!

standing out in the general public. that makes me go, whew! i don't know. i like the necklace idea, gemme and others mentioned. and the code word princessbelle mentioned. there has to be one, ... to make known world-wide lol. seriously. let me think about this lol.