keep it kind

Our femininities are often marginalized and delegitimized. We are often seen as heteronormative, apolitical, less radical, and less queer in a community where being visible and valued depends on being masculine or androgynous.

This femmephobia in queer communities—this devaluation and stigmatization of queer femininity—is a form of misogyny that is rooted in dominant patriarchal culture. It’s a form of sexism that intersects with cissexist, heterosexist, racist, classist, ableist, and sizeist views of femininity, women, and what it means to be queer.

The accusation that femme women “pass as straight” undermines our own self-definitions of our femme identities, our empowered embracing of our femininities, and our blatant disruption of the normative constructs of what it means to be feminine and a woman.

Femme is about being a babe inside of your own brain.

It’s about feeling like you are taking care of you.

It’s about knowing that you have assembled a team of experts – friends, partners, chosen family, lovers, mentors – to go through your life with. People who will see you the way you see you, and who aren’t afraid to set you to rights when you need a talking to.

Femme is about trusting your own conceptions of beauty, power, pleasure, and generosity.

If “femininity” is defined according to (sexist!) social expectations and separated entirely from “masculinity,” then Femme is looking over its shoulder and laughing at all those rules.