y'know, reading this thread has been a reminder about things.
I've had the massive privilidge of living in two very different kinds of community (many subtle different kinds but two majour ones). I recall the most extreme of one being in Toronto where the nick name of it being "bois town" didn't quite sink in till I attended a 300+ queer night at Buddies. "WOW! OMG! wall to wall butchez!! I am. so. lucky. Look at them all! gosh.... just so.... many... and.... ahhhhhh. um. there's ah. five femmes? ??? oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. oh CRAP >
" and I did find out that unless you were an aogressive/assertive hard working/networking full-on femme top, as a femme you didn't have a chance. One friend actually cut all her hair off, dressed in dungarees and pretended to be a "faye" boi bottom - and got a lot of action. Till she fell in love and very slowly came out to her Daddy. very slowly explaining that just because she was femme, did not mean she was shallow, demanding, materialistic, high matinance emotionally, wanting to be served and pandered to while being submissive etc.
it confused me to tears because here were all these very strong, independant, mouthy femmes that organised so many community events and worked with the bisexual women's community to make sure it was integrated, many worked very hard with the gay men's leather community to get integrated sunday brunches going etc. Yet the common perception of a femme was "I don't want to pander to a spoilt demanding child." Which threw me. It you look at the programme of Mad Men and look at Don Draper's wife, Peggy, how immature, dependant, demanding and looks orientated and confused she is, that's the view of femmes
in a relationship I was under the impression the larger masculine ID'd community of lesbians thought of us. It seemed that although the masculine ID'd were pretty swinging (in that they enjoyed submissive bois and very toppy femmes who didn't seem allowed to have needs) the stereotype was still pervasive in people's heads about femme femininity.
This probably has changed somewhat as it's been 10 years since I've lived there and I know the feminist porn awards are there now etc.
When I moved to london, gosh I can't tell you how different it became. It was like a veil lifted off me that wieghed two sacks of wet cement. I was
seen. And yes, many times people thought I was straight or bisexual,
but here's the key, they didn't give a sh*t and still tried to chat me up in the bar or give me an appreciative once over on the tube. I'd like to state this is a London phenomena, I know it changes when you leave London. There are also so many lesbian clubs, bars, nights and venues I can't possibly know them all.
And because of this and because of a very organsied and outgoing Individual who moved to london from her country, club wotever was started. and from that little wee club of generqueer that turned into club nights, weekly bar nights, movie nights and a sex club - club fuk (which just closed) and then started Bird Club because she felt there needed to be a feminine (she doesn't ID as femme, she ID's as Bird, which is the working class name for girl and she's very political in that way) gender queer club (temporarily closed due to lack of venue but she's still looking).
But the difference in visual acceptance I got between vancouver, seattle, calgary, toronto, portland...vs London is unfathomable if you haven't experienced that kind of visual immediate acceptance. I'm not talking about the lesbian nod, which I still don't get - though in oxford I've had it twice when I've been out with my wife. And everytime it happens I'm always gobsmacked and pleased down to my teeniest toe. But the casualness of acceptance in queer space. the tone is very different. there's an ease that I know I can just be. I don't have to be ever so slightly tense all night cause I'm going to get "those looks" or get challenged at the door or if not verbally by the scowl as I walk in. or some drunk will come up and say something stupid about straight girls in pubs.
Or worse, that feeling you have the words "serial killer" painted on your forehead if you go to a pub on your own and no one will talk to you, even though you've tried a couple times to start polite convo with people beside you. but they will stare.
that doesn't happen in London, not in my experience. The cloak of invisibility isn't nearly as smothering. I get some of the same stereotype assumptions of what I'm like as a person: high strung, demanding, constant need for attention etc but that's really just from mouthy young baby dykes at clubs who are pretty high matinance and attention seeking themselves but fail to claim these charming traights because they happen to see themselves as masculine. They figure it out later that it's a personality traight, not a gender trait. and frankly I don't have to be around them till they figure it out cause there's enough people who know I'm an
individual with
individual personality traits and I do not have a borg personality just because I'm wearing heels.