Open Letter: Dear Femme

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by kat6071

Thanks Bit!

Snow, Isa, I was actually quoting you, Snow and I totally agree with you. We need to speak up for ourselves and not let anyone answer for us..no matter who it is. It's not about femme's asking questions, .. it's about letting butches answer for or about us.. We don't need to question ourselves at all....that's what I meant.

sorry for confusion...

Thank you so much for answering Kat!! My brain is in low gear today along with my body

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

Thank you so much for answering Kat!! My brain is in low gear today along with my body

My brain is missing pieces. I win!

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by June

Give it a rest, FBG and go get me a cup of virtual tea.

Daddy June wants in on the Big Mac dealio. I can tell.
Pours a cuppa for Daddy to go with her virtual apple butter.

[little man]

i wanted to thank everyone who is participating in this thread. i'm finding much food for thought here. i appreciate the opportunity to learn to be a better ally. y'all seriously rock.

[blush]

Hmmmm...sounds like a new femme drinking game for the reunion...

Take a shot every time we hear a load of shit about ourselves or others?

We could call it Shooting the Shit.

[Random]

I so want to be a part of this conversation, but my nuerons are not firing.. So, I'm going to stop trying to craft this post into anything but the most basic of questions..

After reading some of the rummors that have been flying around for years (?) (I'm more than slightly self involved and am just hearing them now)


Why? I really want to know why people feel the need to tear each other down, spread rummors, tell lies, trying to make someone seem small, or petty... Why tear people down to make yourself feel important?

This is a question that has occupied my thoughts most of my life?

I pretty well walk through life with blinders on.. I have no clue as to what people think of me.. It's always such a shocker to find that not only has someone even thought of me, but that they put the time and effort into talking about me to someone.. Blink..

Last year I started talking to a butch that was friends of a friend of my LT ex.. Some of the things that he passed on to me.. ABOUT ME put me in a state of shock.. Why the hell was someone wasting their time and energy warning this butch about ME??? (Hell, all anyone has to do is read my posts for the last eight years and they will know just about everything about me..)

Apparently, I was a liar, a whore, a cheat, a horrible mother, a gold digger, wouldn't clean or cook,or hold down a job and spent all my time on the internet..

Amazing what you find out about your self from someone you have never met.

The friend of a friend of my ex's was a femme that while I never thought of as a friend, I didn't think of as an enemy..

I ask why... Why do we have to be catty and nasty to each other? I'm not talking snark.. or interpersonal relationships... I'm talking soul biting nastyness.. The kind that if you have a cricket in your head, she is screaming her lungs out at you while you try to sleep..

I don't want to hear about how no one does it... I know I did it twice when I was younger and my cricket was out partying.. I did it out of jealousy and envy... I also know that I wouldn't ever do it again..

I want to hear why you did it...

[blush]

Originally Posted by June

Well. We let them open our doors for us, buy our drinks and hold our purses, why wouldn't they think they could also speak for us as well? And you know, I am saying this tongue in cheek, but there is some truth to it too, I think. I have seen Femme's give their power away to their partners. Come to think of it, I've seen it happen in all kinds of relationships, but we're talking about Femme's right now.

I get your point, but I don't think allowing someone to open a door for me or show those "old school" manners means that I've handed over my power.

For me, it's a cultural way of showing respect. When Goof does it, it's one of his ways of taking care of me. Certainly it's not the only way, but it was the way I was raised, so it is familiar and comfortable to me. I actually feel more powerful with those manners because I feel like I am being deferred to.

[Puplove]

Originally Posted by blush

I get your point, but I don't think allowing someone to open a door for me or show those "old school" manners means that I've handed over my power.

For me, it's a cultural way of showing respect. When Goof does it, it's one of his ways of taking care of me. Certainly it's not the only way, but it was the way I was raised, so it is familiar and comfortable to me. I actually feel more powerful with those manners because I feel like I am being deferred to.

I agree with this - for me, I hold the power to decide to allow someone to open a door, get me a drink, etc. (it's not always a butch/femme situation, I like to do the same for other folks when it would be a nice, friendly, non-patronizing thing to do). I love receiving these compliments in that spirit of respect, and I am more powerful for complimenting them back with my acceptance.

However, if I wait for a butch or anyone else to speak/do something for me because I feel afraid or if I believe that someone won't like me or won't think I'm as cute if I show I have a brain and speak for myself, I just handed over every ounce of self and power to another. (does not apply to when I don't speak up etc because I have chosen to be in that dynamic with another).

And considering what Cara said about not posting - I also often do not post in serious threads because others either say what I would have said before I get caught up in the thread and the point has been made, or because I feel I can learn a lot more from listening/reading rather than thinking up what I want to say. Maybe I silence myself, but I don't see it that way.

P.S. About being academic enough - to me, the more academically something is said, the less effectively and meaningfully it gets communicated. Simple is powerful.

[blush]

Originally Posted by June

I know, Blush. And that's the way it should be. But have you ever had someone shove you out of the way to open the door? Or be surly because you did it yourself? I have.

Hmmmmm. I love the ways we take care of each other, as long as it is not insinuated on me. And I never assume, either. Although I will admit to being a brat sometimes and standing next to a closed door with an annoyed look on my face, but again, with my partner, and I am having fun with her. I like how she "Jumps to it"

Yeah, we've all had those experiences, but that doesn't make me throw the baby out with the bathwater. If anyone was ever surly with me, that would be the last time they were allowed to open a door for me, yanno?

[evolveme]

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:

Originally Posted by Bit

Well, I suppose the context might make a difference on that one, come to think of it.... if I said that to a Transman, I don't think it would necessarily sit well, cuz yanno, Man + Femme does not equal Queer unless the Transman himself already identifies as Queer. But anyone else I might sleep with? Hell YES it would make them Queer to sleep with me...

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.

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.

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.

[Random]

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..

[Bit]

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?

Originally Posted by evolveme

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.*

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.

Originally Posted by evolveme

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.

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.

,
Cath

[blush]

Originally Posted by Ms Cyn

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...

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

[Arwen]

Originally Posted by Ms Cyn

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

[snip]
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..

I get so wrapped up in the unwrapping
That I sometimes forget the box
If I am a gift to myself--femme
What is under the ribbons, the bows--
The carefully chosen wrapping--
Each piece of me someone else's
Or are all the parts of those--me whole?

I couldn't write that out in regular sentences and I apologize. It's how I communicate sometimes.

I think....maybe...for me...that the different "roles" I've chosen ARE my femme experience. And that is not going to be yours or yours or yours or any of yours....same reality.

Femme, for me, is this woman who dresses to please herself. Who feels her body is her own in thigh highs and diving shirts. In blue jeans and t-shirts that are stained and dirty.

Femme, for me, is this woman who expresses things held to be "girly" with delight and no damned apologies.

Femme, for me, is this woman who can create pictures from words and write about romance and sex unabashedly and unashamedly.

My femme is not your femme and never will be. My femme may like to sit on the couch and ask for a foot rub. My femme may like to give foot rubs. My femme IS defined in some part by my attraction to butches.

I can not get around that or away from it. I'd still be femme if there were no butches, but that's kind of a silly, grandiose statement in my view.

I, after reading so much here, am beginning to feel frayed and frazzled as if my femme is not enough or maybe too much in the eyes of other femmes. And I know that's not true. I'm just speaking my own truth here and now.

So I think that for this femme--my femme experience is the total sum of all my labels and roles and expressions and lovers and femme friends. I don't think I can effectively unravel this present I am to myself without losing some of the pieces.

I do love that others can do this. I am learning so much in this thread. Thank you to everyone who has posted here.

[apretty]

Originally Posted by June

Well. We let them open our doors for us, buy our drinks and hold our purses, why wouldn't they think they could also speak for us as well? And you know, I am saying this tongue in cheek, but there is some truth to it too, I think. I have seen Femme's give their power away to their partners. Come to think of it, I've seen it happen in all kinds of relationships, but we're talking about Femme's right now.

i bolded this portion because it was something that i was going to speak to on the 'exlusion' thread: femmes who defer to all things "butch", those that aggressively hand over their power as if subjugating herself were an art form (newsflash: that's totally weird).

[Arwen]

Originally Posted by apretty

i bolded this portion because it was something that i was going to speak to on the 'exlusion' thread: femmes who defer to all things "butch", those that aggressively hand over their power as if subjugating herself were an art form (newsflash: that's totally weird).

I think it may be weird if it is not a known TPE (Total Power Exchange) relationship. I've been in those (with bio males and butches). Giving up the power is freeing on one hand but there is a loss of self if you and your Dominant are not careful.

I've seen some seriously kick-ass strong femmes in these relationships. They are not doormats. As someone else said (Snow?) those submissives were some of the strongest women I've ever known.

And I have also seen what the negative side of that turns people into--grasping, clinging, whining, can't make a decision to pee or poop by themselves. It's ugly. And there's no saving those types from themselves. They will keep going back to that type of relationship until they wise up and grow the spine necessary.

I know. I used to be one.

[apretty]

Originally Posted by Arwen

I think it may be weird if it is not a known TPE (Total Power Exchange) relationship. I've been in those (with bio males and butches). Giving up the power is freeing on one hand but there is a loss of self if you and your Dominant are not careful.

ah, you're right and i wasn't clear--i meant to speak specifically about a femme who isn't necessarily connected in any way to the butch she's deferring to. but good point on the TPE.

[Bit]

Originally Posted by June

I've had people get so irritated with me because I truly believe that if I am a Femme (And I am) and I am fucking someone other than a Butch, I don't lose my Femme card and become Bi, Straight or, um, other? I am a Femme, regardless.

EXACTLY.

In my world, Femme is neither what we wear nor what we do--nor whom we do. Femme is who and what we ARE. Nobody--N O B O D Y--can take it away from us.

Originally Posted by June

No, wait. It was the time I said that anyone who sleeps with me is Queer. That pissed a lot of people off.

Omg, you're kidding! They didn't get that?!

Well, I suppose the context might make a difference on that one, come to think of it.... if I said that to a Transman, I don't think it would necessarily sit well, cuz yanno, Man + Femme does not equal Queer unless the Transman himself already identifies as Queer. But anyone else I might sleep with? Hell YES it would make them Queer to sleep with me... that's the societal definition of Queer, two females having sex, and I am definitely female--so YEAH, if other female-bodied people sleep with me, it means they must be Queer, whether they were before or not.

I'm picking up this undercurrent in your post, June, please correct me if I'm wrong... but this statement about people being Queer because they sleep with you, it's about power, right? It's about the subtle perception that only Butches, being masculine, have the power to claim sexuality, to "make people Queer" through sex? Am I reading you right that people were angry because they saw you "usurping" that masculine power?

If I'm reading you right, THAT is most definitely not only masculine-centric but also male-centric, since it would be derived from the cultural idea that sex belongs to males and females must neither initiate nor enjoy it.

Overthrow that stereotype! Claim that power, Sister Femmes! Viva la toaster oven!

[Bit]

Cara, hon, I wanted to answer you specifically.

Originally Posted by Cara

On a totally unrelated note, I spend an awful lot of time responding to posts and never actually posting what I've written because I am fearful of offending someone or not sounding academic enough. So, in a way, I guess I'm silencing myself.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Cara}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} I have been there, I have been there, I have been there. It is a most uncomfortable feeling for me, yanno? Usually it's a fear of offending people, although sometimes when a convo has been strongly academic I have thrown up my hands and walked away because I just haven't been able to muster up the energy to .......omg, I just almost said "compete" when I meant to say "participate"!!

That pretty much tells me about the threads where I have run into that--none on this site, btw--but oh, how telling!

Well, anyhow. What I mean to say to you is start slow. Take baby steps. Your post here is a marvelous start, very courageous. Speak from your heart, darlin, and the more you do it, the easier it will get.

Sometimes a person just has to break through that fear barrier one step at a time. Soon enough, you won't be silencing yourself any longer.

[SuperFemme]

Anybody I have ever slept with is Queer. Mind you I have four kids. Why are they Queer? Because when I give myself or take somebody else I am doing so a a Femme. I don't care if it is a transman, a bio-man, the Fed-Ex guy/girl, or that one nun from high school. The act of fucking ME is also an act of queering the other person. I'm not a heterosexual. I'm not straight. When I hop into bed it is not as a straight woman, but rather a Queer Femme. So. I don't care if my fellow fuckee is a straight identified transman or any variety of man. They are engaging in a homosexual act.

Luckily there is only one person whom I fuck. I consider hym to be faggy.