what the hip-hop hell is this?!

It’s definitely NOT stupid…

I don’t think being femme requires a butch counterpart in order to exist. A lot of lesbian history talks about butch/femme as a relational dynamic, but femme has also grown into its own identity, culture, aesthetic, and way of moving through the world.

For some people, being femme is about presentation. For others, it’s about how they experience their gender, their lesbian identity, their relationships, or their connection to femininity. Two femmes can date each other. A femme can be single. A femme can be attracted to butches, other femmes, masc people, or no one at all. None of that automatically makes them less femme.

Sometimes I think the question ‘what makes me a femme with no butch?’ assumes that femme is only meaningful in contrast to masculinity. But many femmes describe their femininity as something they actively create and inhabit for themselves, not merely a response to a butch partner. The identity can be relational, but it doesn’t have to be dependent.