i'm so grateful for all the posts here, especially bleu's post and the responses to it. thanks medusa for starting this thread.
i grew up around a lot of really strong women. i was shamed for not being extremely assertive, and that sucked, but it also made me grateful for when i did begin to become more assertive and it made me recognize and appreciate the fact that i needed to learn that skill. i also had the benefit of the fact that my mother and older sister, though our relationships were/are not always perfect, were great role models for me as women (though they were/are both straight).
i came out as bisexual/queer pretty early on in high school and always felt silenced about that, like no one took me seriously, at least until i got to college. i mostly had relationships with straight men, sometimes queer men, and other feminine women. i was always attracted to butches and folks with other gender ids but never seemed to move past the friend zone. (i also didn't date much at all and tended to have serious relationships with people i was friends with first, though, which could be part of why.)
i never felt comfortable in my body, identifying as a woman, in relationships with straight men. it's hard to explain why. i think part of it is just from the sort of awkwardness of being queer in a relationship with a straight cisman. but part of it for me was not feeling like what i'd always known/been told about womanhood and femininity were really me. meeting other femmes and coming to learn the meaning of "femme" in disabled, poor and working class, and indigenous community/ies really helped me to come home to myself and to see my gender identity and expression in a more complex and true (for me) way. i think that's a huge part of why i consider femme to be my core gender identity rather than something that's tied up in how i look/act/dress/whatever. (i mean, i guess it is a bit of both, but i tend to speak of it as my gender identity rather than my gender expression because it's such a core part of how i understand myself in the world.)
on the other hand, i do still feel some awkwardness sometimes. even in the most accepting and down groups of femmes i've been a part of, there's still an aesthetic of how one is supposed to look/dress/wear make-up, etc. that i definitely don't feel i fit into most of the time. looking at pictures my friends have posted from femmecon, part of me wonders if i'm really "femme enough" to be at home in a space like that, and i do even feel a little bit of anxiety about the planet meetup. the "not fitting in" or the reason i don't express my femme-ness in that way is because of a few different things...financial limitations, comfort/access/mobility reasons, and just generally how i like to dress and be...i don't like to wear makeup, i wear jeans and t-shirts a lot, i physically can't wear heels on a regular basis, i'm not super glam. i think maybe a lot of it is stuff i've internalized and just overthink myself when i look around and see all these gorgeous femmes and feel a bit like an ugly duckling.
there are other things besides dress and presentation, though. i like to top and bottom. i am attracted to both butches and other femmes (and people of all other kinds of gender identities/expressions). i definitely have both dominant and submissive qualities.
i still don't really feel "seen" by butches i meet on the street or other femmes, lesbians, and queer women. femme invisibility sucks. i wear queer jewelry because i love it, but also because i like not being invisible
one of the blessings i feel is that even though i may not look like a lot of other femmes in the group, i have felt pretty accepted by the femme (and more generally the queer) communities i've been a part of once people get to know me. and my partner now definitely sees me for who i am, and has since we first met.