June Cleaver : Femme Friend or Femme Foe

[Julie]

Originally Posted by princessbelle

Wow that's some great points!!!

I think maybe that is why i feel the way i do about femme being used by anyone who claims it, because, like Nat, i lived a straight life with a bio man. Didn't change who i was on the inside. I knew i was gay, didn't know the term femme at the time. Did people have the right to tell me i wasn't gay? I may not have been living a gay life, but that didn't change who i was or how i felt on the inside.

I guess my point is, if we put femme into a box of what it can "only" be.... Isn't that limiting? Isn't that forming a certain type of hierarchy? And if we agree that femme does not mean you have to dress or ____ (insert descriptive), doesn't it also mean that ANYONE can claim that identity? If that is what you feel in your heart? Or is the line drawn at being straight? Or living a straight life?

I'm talking in seriousness here. Not someone making fun or poking at us. I mean if a straight women says "im a femme" how can i tell her, no you aren't. Ya know?

Still trying to sort this out...

Femme is an identifying descriptor in our queer community.
Femme is part of our history. It dates back in time and it is how we connected.
If you hand over Femme and say it's okay/accept for anybody to use this.
Then in reality you are erasing our history.
Without our history and the Femme's and Butches who have come before us - then you are erasing me, as I am Femme, it is who I am and it is my identity. It has no place in the straight community.

Julie

EDITED TO SAY: You can say to the straight woman who identifies as straight - Our history. Tell her. Be honest. If you do not know our history, then please read as much as you can about it, and perhaps you will not see it as being placed in a box - but an honor to be surrounded and loved as a Femme by and for your Femme sisters.