The Purse: Unpacking Femme Privilege

[MsMerrick]

Nat, I've been thinking along much the same lines, but haven't time today to reply in any kind of depth : )
Later perhaps, and thanks for putting in the time and effort

[Nat]

Originally Posted by MsMerrick

Nat, I've been thinking along much the same lines, but haven't time today to reply in any kind of depth : )
Later perhaps, and thanks for putting in the time and effort

I am very much looking forward to hearing your perspective! I have lots of feelings, opinions and questions, but trying to think about this is difficult because the subject shifts around so much when I try to think about it.

[Nat]

I was listening to an Outbeat Radio podcast called, "Coming out from Behind the Badge." This was a podcast about police officers both in and out of the closet, and they ended up talking about the negative side-effects of passing within the context of closeted officers. Because I feel that some of these issues do apply to passing privilege as experienced within this community, I went ahead and copied it down:

Gay officers, because a majority of them are in the closet, become the target of harrassment unknowingly by the harrasser. Many officers, they're not out to their families, friends, coworkers - and for that fact, they're unseen. Because they're unseen, a person will make homophobic jokes, gay comments, not knowing that they're affecting their officers sitting at the table. There's been many examples of good officers leaving agencies just because they were afraid that they would not get back-up because of what they've heard in the locker room, or they've heard at the briefing table. The unseen officer is a problem. The officers - once they come out - some harrassment will discontinue. They will not be harrassed in that manner. But their fear of not getting back-up or being ostricized once they are out is a very real threat to their safety.

This is just one example of how passing is a mixed bag. The podcast did interview one female cop and one man who said he is effeminate and that it's always been assumed he was gay. The majority of the officers were masculine men who spent years in the closet, and people assumed they were straight based on their gender presentations. Although there are definitely differences between passing for a straight cisgender man and passing for a straight cisgender woman, I still think this is one of many examples illustrating the mixed bag of passing for straight.

Honestly these days, I'm sick of coming out of the closet. Every aquaintanceship or friendship I begin feels like a game of double-dutch. I'm trying to figure out exactly how and when and in what way to jump in there and say, "I'm a lesbian." If it's too soon, it's out of context. If it's too late, things start feeling dishonest because I know they are assuming I am straight. It's taxing. It doesn't feel like a privilege to feel like I either have to discuss my personal life and identity with people or have them interpret and speak to me me as a straight woman.

Also, as suggested in the quoted text, I don't think it's better to be exposed to homophobic remarks by people who assume I'm straight than to be the intentional target of homophobic language. If I had to choose one-for-one between the two, maybe being the direct target is worse in that it's more immediately threatening, but receiving these messages from people who assume I'm straight is more insidious, frequent and unnerving. I definitely begin to feel those messages are the true feelings of society, and overall that makes me feel less hopeful about humanity.

[LotusFlower]

Hi - passing privilege is true but true. But I do get harrassed for being a femme too.

A butch woman I know wanted to know if I was really gay even though I had been coming to the same gay event for 6 months.

I am not super girlie but a femme through and through.

[Mrs. Strutt]

Originally Posted by LotusFlower

Hi - passing privilege is true but true. But I do get harrassed for being a femme too.

A butch woman I know wanted to know if I was really gay even though I had been coming to the same gay event for 6 months.

I am not super girlie but a femme through and through.

This is what often frustrates me the most. How is the "privilege" of passing an advantage without any validation--or perhaps 'acknowledgement' is a better word--from the butches in our community? So I "pass" in straight society...woo-fucking-hoo.

I suppose the fact I can "pass" in public is a privilege in some ways, but it has its share of challenges as well when I feel invisible within my own dynamic.

[Heart]

It feels weird for me, as a femme, to talk about "passing privilege." Passing as what? A straight women? Okay, if that's it, I have to question the privilege inherent in that. I guess from a narrow perspective, passing as straight in a homophobic world is a privilege.

But saying that passing as a straight woman is a privilege overall, is very questionable to me -- given the routine dangers that women face in a sexist, misogynistic world.

Heart

[ButterflyKisses]

I don’t think of passing as straight as a privilege. True, no one cares when I enter a public restroom; no one hurls gay slurs at me when I’m walking around by myself. But I do get drunken idiots who assume I'm straight, and that they have a right to grab me. I have gotten cat calls and crude sexual comments that made me want to carry around a bat and curl up in a ball at the same time. As many femmes here probably have.

On the flip side (while I'm not Butch and would never pretend to know what that feels like) I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, past the wrong side of the tracks. Clerks would follow me around in stores, would ask me if I was in the right place, or even kick me out. My face still burns at those memories and I have a hard time talking about my past. Of being judge instantly as a deviant or “un-normal” because of the way I looked and dressed, and where I was from.

People see what they want to see. Whether it’s as someone who fits society "norms" or not, both sides have their share of bad and good.