You Knew You Were a Femme When...

[Silverseastar]

Femme as I see it is energetic. Just like butchness. I have a friend that looks butch but energetically is all femme. I wish I knew exactly what mechanism describes this but it just is. Sometimes I wear "butchy" clothes depending on my mood, sometimes high femme, but I'm always seen and read as a femme.

Femme as I see it does not equal passive, high maintenance, or being a sexual bottom amongst many other stereotypes. But it can still mean those things on an individual level.

I feel my femme energy for myself comes from an internal relationship to my female identity. I'm in love with the womanly energy and parts of me. They feel right to me. I love enhancing those aspects, playing with them, and celebrating them. I feel so deeply female. This does not shift no matter what I do or do not wear. It translates in my body language, movement, and energy that I share with others.

My identity became obvious to me more concretely in reference to my relationship with the butches in my life. We seem to enhance each others gender identity energetically. They seems to see and enjoy my femme as much as I see and enjoy their butch.

[VintageFemme]

i love this thread & i did reply to it somewhere a page or two back, but i've been reading through some of the posts this evening & it's interesting to see that femme is not always the same thing from one girl to the next. i like this discovering of definition each femme identifies with. it really is a lovely garden isn't it?

[bright_arrow]

I knew I was femme, I was ME, when Bard told me I was beautiful with bed head, rumpled clothing and smeared mascara. Hy tells me every day, and for once, I can believe it

[Leigh]

And you should Desd because hy's right

We are all beautiful in our own way, and its about time that we celebrate our beauty by being who we are and not being afraid to do so

[aishah]

i'm not sure when exactly i started identifying as femme. as long as i can remember, i've always been very femme and queer, and i came out when i was really young, but i didn't have a strong queer community around me. i didn't really know a lot about butch/femme culture or about femme identity until i found my queer disabled poc community/virtual home, a lot of whom are femmes. i've often felt excluded from queer community and disconnected from butch/femme because i have been read as straight for so long (i also used to cover my hair - i'm muslim - and that is a pretty big barrier to being seen as queer unless i'm around other queer muslims). being disabled and dressing differently because of that (no spike heels ) and my faith also left me with the feeling of not being 'femme enough.' anyway, once i found queer disabled poc community who i felt 'saw' me, i knew i was a femme and i started id'ing as femme.

i've always been attracted to butches but i am usually read as straight by them so i've never really been around butches a lot in a flirty/romantic sense, more in an acquaintance/friendship sense...getting to know my partner (we were acquaintances in the queer community/local activism stuff where we lived, and i was usually treated as an ally/straight person, before we started dating) was the first time i really felt 'seen' by a butch. he was like, "duh, i knew you were queer from a mile away."

[vagina]

I knew I was a Lesbian when I told my friend at 13 that she's beautiful.

When I was a kid/teenager I always looked for the most Butch looking women when driving through the 'Gayborhood'.

I tried to impress girls and look more like a dyke by dressing the part of butch... which lasted all of 3 months. And then the cargo shorts and oversized tshirts had to go.

I had flings with women who were not Butch... and it was just that flings.

I started dating women that were tomboys. When the L word came out I had a crush on Shane and then even more on the Butches.

Finally in my midtwenties a Butch picked me up and took me home. It was only after several relationships with Butches/AGs/Studs... that I learned what a Femme is.

And I went, 'Oh, I guess I must be a Femme'.


I feel that I am Femme because my main attraction is to Butch and because I am a lesbian.

[anaisninja]

I started noticing that I'm most attracted to masculine women. I don't see myself as a girly girl, but in relation to what I'm attracted to, I guess that makes me a femme.

[Femmadian]

Sooo...

I don't really have any stories about always being a girly-girl (I wasn't and still am not...). Growing up, I was always actually a bit of a tomboy and hated wearing dresses or playing with baby dolls. At three, I'm told, I promptly kicked a newly gifted doll down a flight of stairs and, apparently insulted, huffily went back to my LEGOs and dinosaur books. I favoured action figures, climbing trees, and wrestling with the boys, and thought frilly pink tutus and those little play kitchens were stupid. I probably have a lot more in common with the butches growing up than a lot of the femmes. Up until puberty when everyone started acting funny around each other, most of my friends were boys and the girl friends I had were mostly the spunky, mouthy, smoking-behind-the-school, bad influence types (okay, most of my girl friends still are, but I digress...).

I was raised in a family with somewhat feminist-y second wavers who eschewed over the top displays of femininity as frivolous or capitulation or desperation to get a man. Being feminine was a negative. The men in my family never really enforced the boundaries either and to dress feminine in a cold environment like Atlantic Canada was seen as impractical.

I then flirted with the goth and punk subcultures as an adolescent and donned the frilliest lace dresses, pointiest boots, most femme-y shirts, and tonnes of makeup but it was okay because it was mostly black and "edgy" and it didn't feel feminine to me. It was "counter-cultural" and to be conventionally feminine meant, to me, giving in and giving up, conforming and also, frankly, as a girl who was always chestier than most of the others my age, it meant making myself a target. If I could distract or deflect some of the attention off of my body by wearing equally distracting clothes, then win-win. I won't lie and say that I didn't also get positive reinforcement from the teachers and some of the adults in my life who, through their own internalized sexism, saw me and the other girls like me as girls they were more willing to take seriously than some of the just-as-smart teenage girls in designer gear with perfect hair. I won't say it didn't happen because it did and I played into it.

To be frank, I did buy into a lot of the sexist messaging which said to be feminine meant a lack of intelligence (and as a girl growing up who was always pegged as "the brain" wherever I went, I certainly didn't want that). I thought it was frivolous. I thought that to show my sensitive or feminine side was to show weakness and as often the only girl in a group of boys (and eventually one of only a handful of girls and women in school and university partaking in male-dominated environments and debates, that was definitely something I didn't feel like I could do). I was already a soft-spoken, quiet, sensitive introvert. To allow myself to be seen as (more) feminine, I felt, would have been intellectual suicide. So, I didn't allow myself to explore that side of who I was and I certainly never felt safe doing so.

There were, however, little blips along the way.

There was this girl when I was in high school, a friend of mine, the only out lesbian in our grade (there were three in the whole school) who had a lovely, punky, baby dyke spike and who played the drums in her own punk band. We got along really well and she was funny, smart, and sweet. She made me feel a little strange inside and the way she looked at me made me uncomfortable and squirm in my pointy boots. I can remember feeling also a little unnerved when in her presence. I can only describe it as feeling naked. I turned into a giggly mess with her. I told the most stupid jokes just to see her laugh. We wrote the worst teenaged poetry and shared it with each other. Hers made me blush. Sometimes I would attend some of her practices after school in the band room and remember feeling transfixed and flustered when she'd take off her button-down shirt or jacket to reveal her athletic shirt and drummer's arms. After class I would gush and go on and on about the latest band or skirt or pair of boots I'd found and would gab her ear off excitedly before realizing that 10, 15, 20 minutes had passed and she'd barely said a word. I would say sheepishly, "I'm rambling again, aren't I?" She would just grin. There was never any judgment and, butterflies aside, it was an easy yin-yang friendship. I would often sneak glances at her in class to see how she had done her hair that day or if she had worn that shirt with that steel necklace and those clunky boots which announced her presence before she appeared around the corner. I thought at the time that I was just admiring her teenage counter-cultural style instead of admiring the butchy figure she struck. I was so far in the closet to even myself at that point that I dismissed the idea of being attracted to her as anything more than a friend. I knew there was something different about the two of us when we were together but I stuffed it down and pushed it away along with my own femininity. For the first time, though, I felt feminine with someone and also felt beautiful.

I thought it was a fluke.

And then I met a few more like my drummer friend along the way and gradually, over a process of years, I noticed two things: one, I was really, really attracted to these unconventional, masculine, butchy women and two, I felt safe to be feminine in their presence. This second point was key for me. Butch women helped me to see femininity in a positive light. They helped create a space in which it was safe to explore that. Butches helped me see that feminine could be smart, could be fun, could be desired by someone without in the same breath being hated and denigrated by that very same someone. They helped me see it was okay and helped break down some of the ugliness and misogyny surrounding it which had attached itself to it via heteronormative society. Frankly, I never would have claimed femme as mine if it weren't for those who claimed butch as their own.

I really relate to what honeybarbara and others have said about it feeling emotionally and physically safe to be feminine around a butch. That's something that I don't think more masculine/butch people quite fully get. It's not always safe or desirable or easy to be feminine. Frankly, it takes just as much courage and fortitude and thick skin to present as an overtly feminine woman as it does to present as a masculine one. There's a lot of shaming and baggage and a huge culturally prescriptive narrative that goes along with that and sometimes against the din of all that messaging it's hard to separate the "I am's" from the "therefore I should's." Even with that backdrop, though, it feels safe to be a feminine woman around a butch when it really doesn't feel safe in any other place. The energy between us is quiet and it's gentle and there's a kind of reverence there that I haven't found anywhere else.

And it feels like finally being able to let down the armour. Sometimes it feels like I've had the armour on for so long that I'm surprised myself by what I find underneath of it.

The ability to be feminine and be seen for it, to be appreciated or, perhaps, even loved for it, and not have to couch it or qualify it, be sheepish or self-deprecating about it, that to me is what it means to claim femme. It's still a process for me and in many ways, I feel like I'm playing catch up with other women... but at least I'm finally here.

I knew I was femme when I met my first butch. It just took me years to find the words and a lifetime to finally say it.

[MasterfulButch]

Originally Posted by Femmadian

For the first time, though, I felt feminine with someone and also felt beautiful.

That’s where the magic of this pairing is for me. The way that two people, so hugely different, can combine to give themselves a new level of meaning through their interaction. They are both perfectly valid and whole in their own right, just as a sculptor is still a sculptor when walking down the street. Put them together though and, like giving the sculptor clay, a deeply authentic part of their true selves can be expressed.

For what it’s worth, I see feminine as beautiful, as something to be respected and cherished. I seek it in a partner but also value it in society at large. If my butchness can help provide a context for a femme, to let her know that despite any societal judgement her natural instincts are appealing in their own right, then I take extra pride in my own differences.

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by Femmadian

Sooo...


... and two, I felt safe to be feminine in their presence. This second point was key for me. Butch women helped me to see femininity in a positive light. They helped create a space in which it was safe to explore that. Butches helped me see that feminine could be smart, could be fun, could be desired by someone without in the same breath being hated and denigrated by that very same someone. They helped me see it was okay and helped break down some of the ugliness and misogyny surrounding it which had attached itself to it via heteronormative society. Frankly, I never would have claimed femme as mine if it weren't for those who claimed butch as their own.

.

This. Exactly.

[imperfect_cupcake]

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

This. Exactly.

A yup. For the first time I wasn't told I was silly, surperlfous, fluffy, insipid and that "I must like shopping"

(Later I found out this happens too with many butches, but it wasn't always an automatic)

I found that some lovers liked watching me put on make up.
For the first time in my life I was safe enough to be a submissive. To be a Papa's girl. To be totally feminine and not try so hard to be a tomboy to compete with men. I suddenly didn't have to prove anything because I was smart and capable.

[IrishAmazon]

Originally Posted by Femmadian

Sooo...

I don't really have any stories about always being a girly-girl (I wasn't and still am not...). Growing up, I was always actually a bit of a tomboy and hated wearing dresses or playing with baby dolls. At three, I'm told, I promptly kicked a newly gifted doll down a flight of stairs and, apparently insulted, huffily went back to my LEGOs and dinosaur books. I favoured action figures, climbing trees, and wrestling with the boys, and thought frilly pink tutus and those little play kitchens were stupid. I probably have a lot more in common with the butches growing up than a lot of the femmes. Up until puberty when everyone started acting funny around each other, most of my friends were boys and the girl friends I had were mostly the spunky, mouthy, smoking-behind-the-school, bad influence types (okay, most of my girl friends still are, but I digress...).

I was raised in a family with somewhat feminist-y second wavers who eschewed over the top displays of femininity as frivolous or capitulation or desperation to get a man. Being feminine was a negative. The men in my family never really enforced the boundaries either and to dress feminine in a cold environment like Atlantic Canada was seen as impractical.

I then flirted with the goth and punk subcultures as an adolescent and donned the frilliest lace dresses, pointiest boots, most femme-y shirts, and tonnes of makeup but it was okay because it was mostly black and "edgy" and it didn't feel feminine to me. It was "counter-cultural" and to be conventionally feminine meant, to me, giving in and giving up, conforming and also, frankly, as a girl who was always chestier than most of the others my age, it meant making myself a target. If I could distract or deflect some of the attention off of my body by wearing equally distracting clothes, then win-win. I won't lie and say that I didn't also get positive reinforcement from the teachers and some of the adults in my life who, through their own internalized sexism, saw me and the other girls like me as girls they were more willing to take seriously than some of the just-as-smart teenage girls in designer gear with perfect hair. I won't say it didn't happen because it did and I played into it.

To be frank, I did buy into a lot of the sexist messaging which said to be feminine meant a lack of intelligence (and as a girl growing up who was always pegged as "the brain" wherever I went, I certainly didn't want that). I thought it was frivolous. I thought that to show my sensitive or feminine side was to show weakness and as often the only girl in a group of boys (and eventually one of only a handful of girls and women in school and university partaking in male-dominated environments and debates, that was definitely something I didn't feel like I could do). I was already a soft-spoken, quiet, sensitive introvert. To allow myself to be seen as (more) feminine, I felt, would have been intellectual suicide. So, I didn't allow myself to explore that side of who I was and I certainly never felt safe doing so.

There were, however, little blips along the way.

There was this girl when I was in high school, a friend of mine, the only out lesbian in our grade (there were three in the whole school) who had a lovely, punky, baby dyke spike and who played the drums in her own punk band. We got along really well and she was funny, smart, and sweet. She made me feel a little strange inside and the way she looked at me made me uncomfortable and squirm in my pointy boots. I can remember feeling also a little unnerved when in her presence. I can only describe it as feeling naked. I turned into a giggly mess with her. I told the most stupid jokes just to see her laugh. We wrote the worst teenaged poetry and shared it with each other. Hers made me blush. Sometimes I would attend some of her practices after school in the band room and remember feeling transfixed and flustered when she'd take off her button-down shirt or jacket to reveal her athletic shirt and drummer's arms. After class I would gush and go on and on about the latest band or skirt or pair of boots I'd found and would gab her ear off excitedly before realizing that 10, 15, 20 minutes had passed and she'd barely said a word. I would say sheepishly, "I'm rambling again, aren't I?" She would just grin. There was never any judgment and, butterflies aside, it was an easy yin-yang friendship. I would often sneak glances at her in class to see how she had done her hair that day or if she had worn that shirt with that steel necklace and those clunky boots which announced her presence before she appeared around the corner. I thought at the time that I was just admiring her teenage counter-cultural style instead of admiring the butchy figure she struck. I was so far in the closet to even myself at that point that I dismissed the idea of being attracted to her as anything more than a friend. I knew there was something different about the two of us when we were together but I stuffed it down and pushed it away along with my own femininity. For the first time, though, I felt feminine with someone and also felt beautiful.

I thought it was a fluke.

And then I met a few more like my drummer friend along the way and gradually, over a process of years, I noticed two things: one, I was really, really attracted to these unconventional, masculine, butchy women and two, I felt safe to be feminine in their presence. This second point was key for me. Butch women helped me to see femininity in a positive light. They helped create a space in which it was safe to explore that. Butches helped me see that feminine could be smart, could be fun, could be desired by someone without in the same breath being hated and denigrated by that very same someone. They helped me see it was okay and helped break down some of the ugliness and misogyny surrounding it which had attached itself to it via heteronormative society. Frankly, I never would have claimed femme as mine if it weren't for those who claimed butch as their own.

I really relate to what honeybarbara and others have said about it feeling emotionally and physically safe to be feminine around a butch. That's something that I don't think more masculine/butch people quite fully get. It's not always safe or desirable or easy to be feminine. Frankly, it takes just as much courage and fortitude and thick skin to present as an overtly feminine woman as it does to present as a masculine one. There's a lot of shaming and baggage and a huge culturally prescriptive narrative that goes along with that and sometimes against the din of all that messaging it's hard to separate the "I am's" from the "therefore I should's." Even with that backdrop, though, it feels safe to be a feminine woman around a butch when it really doesn't feel safe in any other place. The energy between us is quiet and it's gentle and there's a kind of reverence there that I haven't found anywhere else.

And it feels like finally being able to let down the armour. Sometimes it feels like I've had the armour on for so long that I'm surprised myself by what I find underneath of it.

The ability to be feminine and be seen for it, to be appreciated or, perhaps, even loved for it, and not have to couch it or qualify it, be sheepish or self-deprecating about it, that to me is what it means to claim femme. It's still a process for me and in many ways, I feel like I'm playing catch up with other women... but at least I'm finally here.

I knew I was femme when I met my first butch. It just took me years to find the words and a lifetime to finally say it.

So very well said. Thank you.

I learned to hide my pretty and girly in my late teens. I got unwanted attention from my cousins husband in Jr high and High school, but then I moved away from my family and I went to school for building maintenance, and stopped in to pick up my tools, for a on the job learning session, I never got any attention before from guys till that summer day, I wore a sun dress not overly revealing but it was the 90's so it cinched in the back and wasn't long. My shape was noticed. It wasn't fun. Apparently the surprise that i was endowed and had legs was too much for them.
Latter that year I lost a great job that I loved because there was apparently too much talk when i wasn't around. I do appreciate that the guy letting me go was honest about it, It didn't make it suck any less, but it wasn't something i could have done much about, I wore the same uniform as the guys it wasn't tight or fitting and I didn't wear much makeup since I lived in Oregon too much rain and just wasn't money i cared to spend.
I never wore that dress again, I stuck to the tomish clothes or very long billowy skirts and dresses, nothing that showed anything.

It wasn't till I met a butch friend of a friend in my mid twenties after I was divorced, that I felt like I wanted to be pretty and feminine and it wouldn't cost me respect or dignity. not to be cheesy, but it honestly felt like sunshine to something I didn't understand but was learning.

These days I still love long skirts they have become light and airy especially here with all the desert wind, I don't use them to hide any longer .

[girl_dee]

THiS... i wanted to be Marcy because i crushed Peppermint Patty so bad... and she got to call her *Sir*