That’s right, fellow MSP readers! This Saturday has been deemed International Femme Appreciation Day (or so says the Facebook page)!
What is a femme, you might ask? The femme identity can be and is adopted by all sorts of people- men, women, gender queer folk, etc. The word femme is a queer term used to describe femininity (as opposed to butch, used to describe masculinity). Wikipedia defines the words as being “ used to describe the identities of each person in a lesbian relationship in terms that are analogous to a heterosexual relationship, with butch representing the traditionally male role and femme the traditional female role. Not all lesbian couples can be described accurately in these terms.” The word femme isn’t limited to lesbians, or women, or even females for that matter. A man can be a femme. A fag can be a femme. A butch can be a femme. A dyke, queen, bear, genderfucked, twink, bull, queer, transgender, genderqueer, womyn, bisexual, trysexual, trisxual, transexual etc. etc. etc…can be a femme.
One of my favorite blogs, Fuck Yeah Femmes, once published a post called “Some Telltale Signs A Queer Femme is Queer”:
“They are WAY over-dressed/Stand out based on their fashion choices
They have swagger
They tell engaging stories and clever jokes and try not to let anyone around them feel uncomfortable
If you make eye contact with them they do not break it, in fact they might smile back
If you talk to them they are flirtatious
They might own a pair of cat-eye glasses
They might have visible tattoos
They might use ambiguous pronouns to talk about their exes
They have extensive knowledge of women’s history, feminist art, and are involved with political issues and combating oppression of all sorts
They look “straight” but they are surrounded by conspicuous dykes, punks, and queers
If they tell you they’re queer don’t question it, THEY ARE!!!”
Confused yet? Check out the Facebook page!
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