Femme gay
Queer Cultures 101
There are many ways to be a femme, so it’s top not to confine oneself to a specific definitionbut below is an abstarct of how it was defined in the literature I read. Femme is a term used in LGBT culture to explain someone who expresses themselves in a typically feminine way. With that said, femme differs from feminine, and the differences are key in understanding why the terminology femme is necessary. The common threads amongst all femmes are their expression of femininity and their place on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Many individuals use it to embrace and redefine the stereotypes and expectations that are often placed on women.
Femme & Femininity
- Many people outside the gay community may not fully understand what femme means and how it differs from feminine, but the differences are why the terminology femme is necessary.
- Femme describes a lgbtq+ person who presents and behaves in a traditionally feminine way with the inclusion of cisgender individuals who enjoy a more passive role in intimate relationships, asexual transgender women, or non-binary individuals who identify as gay.
- The common threads amongst all femmes are thei
Femme
Femme (alternatively spelled “fem”) is a homosexual resistive embodied culture liberated from the limits of normative gender (Story 2016). Femme approaches femininity, encompasses it, and then pushes against its boundaries—especially those informed by Eurocentric ideals of “woman.” Femme demands repositioning gender as a fluid and imaginative process of existence. When language seeks to confine or define our sexualities and genders, femme marks itself as an ineffable performative gender. In what follows, I impression the historical usage of the legal title femme in US LGBT culture, centering a femme framework that is “bent, unfixed, unhinged, and finally unhyphenated” (Rose 2002, 12). I explore femme across three movements in an effort to describe its “unruliness that struts across time and place” (S. Lewis 2012, 106): the homophile movement of the 1940s to the 1950s, the lgbtq+ liberation movement of the 1960s to the 1970s, and queer organizing of the 1980s and 1990s. I request the reader to understand not only the shifting uses of a gendered term but also how reading the past through the language of the present can provide a deep kind of human exposure across time (Snorton 2017; Stryker
Why do straight-acting men have a issue with femme gays?
The last few years have been key for “feminine” men. In the fashion world designers are increasingly blurring the lines of gender; many houses now opt out of gendered runway presentations, and Galliano recently presented a series of men with beehives and beaded gowns for his SS16 womenswear representing at Margiela. Over these same scant years, RuPaul’s Performative Race has gone from a little-known reality show to a cultural behemoth, catapulting drag adequately and truly into the mainstream. While these are only minor victories, it seems that the world at grand is slowly adjusting to the notion that men don’t have to fit stereotypical perceptions of masculinity.
Ironically, this slight progression in acceptance seems to include triggered the LGBT community to switch in the antonym direction. Despite increasingly varied depictions of masculinity gay men are still, by and large, rigidly defined by slim categories. Dating apps allow us to write concise profiles which list our height, weight, interests etc, all of which are optional, but gay dating website apps often inquire you to list whether you’re a top or bottom. In the context of meeting
Out On The Couch
By Briana Shewan, MFT
In order to prioritize femme voices, all quotes in this article are from femmes.
Positionality makes a big difference in femme identity: Please note I am a cisgender, white, thin, millenial femme from an upper-middle class background formally trained as a psychotherapist.
Have you ever wondered if you’re femme? Have you been circling around femme identity for a while without knowing if it fits? Are you unsure if you get to dial yourself femme? Maybe you’ve heard “femme” more and more and you’re curious about it?
Femme is a beautiful, complex identity. What it looks like, means, and encompasses is different for each of us. I’m sure for many femmes there’s a instinct of resistance at my endeavor to categorize the identity here. I don’t mean to indicate that being femme fits into one specific box! In truth, quite the opposite is genuine. Femme is all about stepping outside of traditional femininity. Spoiler! I’m getting ahead of myself.
Rather, this article is intended to broadly clarify femme identity by exploring its common themes. As the term “femme” becomes more widely known than ever before, it’s helpful to distinguish what it isn’t, and w