#faetality.queer

Firstly, ButchFEM =/= FEM(ME).

Most who study ButchFem(me) culture, have proposed a split between the pre-70s ButchFem versus the post-70s ButchFemme. This has been summarised best by Obviously Queer’s YT video on Femme who states that there was no evidence of 'Femme' within the mainstream usage within the pre-70s context of ButchFemme lesbians.

Beginning timemark 56:15:

From 1930’s to sometime in the 60s, Fem as in F E M was used in the butchfem dynamic. It's sometime between 1960 and 1980 that writers  start to use femme, as in F E M M E, instead. I’m not sure why. Joan Nestle, who is a fem icon, has  continued to use the spelling F E M  because she identifies that femme  (f e m m e) has grown too large and to separate fem as a part of a  butchfem from just, other femme identities, she continues to use its original spelling. “That was how we spelled it F E M. It’s not a French word. It’s a working class descriptive word,” Nestlé says in an interview with JSTOR. Nestlé is not alone in this  choice. Other academics, such as quoted Sally Munt, also uses Fem,  F E M, long after its mainstream shift. The author of “Old-Fashioned, Old-School:  A Beginner’s Guide for Butches & Fems” (2018) a text i’ve seen been thrown around in  well… old school butchfem communities, writes this on her website: From the birth of butchfem to around 1960,  beginning of 1970 this was how it was spelled. F E M. Femme is a complicated term, because it holds so many different meanings, as I hope you’ve learned from this video so far. Policing who can and cannot use Femme is… honestly impossible. But people do try. Many people talk and educate as if this Fem/Femme divide is the truth. It’s not the truth, it's a new concept. This is the truth only in a small, created filter bubble. There is no clear separation in real life and this divide, differently from what is occasionally claimed, has no historical value. The historical value is the opposite. Femme has been a word for ballroom queerness in the black community, longer than it has been a  word for butchfem dynamic, because the butchfem dynamic used F E M. So policing someone that Femme is and always  has been a lesbian exclusive word is incorrect. Many Fem(mes) today obviously need a word that signifies that their identity is a sapphic woman  who is exclusively into butchfem. Well here I give it to you. Femme as short for feminine. Fem(me) for those who study femininity. And Fem for those in dialogue with butches.

This is also corroborated in “Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: A History of the Lesbian Community”, by Elizabeth Kennedy & Madeline Davis (Note that the authors have expressed regrets for excluding bi femmes and butches from their book). P. 685/776, footnote 2:

We have chosen to use the spelling “fem” rather than “femme” on the advice of our narrators. This is the spelling they have always used. They also feel that “fem” is a more American spelling and that “femme” has an academic component that is too high-toned for their liking. For reference to butch-fem roles in pre-1970s communities see, for instance, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Lesbian/Woman (New York: Bantam, 1972); Audre Lorde, “Tar Beach,” Conditions 5 (1979): 34—47; Joan Nestle, “Butch-Femme Relationships” […]

📘Stone Butch Blues (1993)

The 40s ButchFem culture was a pre-political underground development via cultural exchange amongst the African American and European American working class, SW, drag queens & kings, trans women and transfems, and most importantly, BIPOC communities. Some of the butches AND fems were married to men and had boyfriends, but came to the bars and house parties to form Lesbian community and embraced the erotic dyad. Lesbianism was non-exclusive to monosexuality and its culture involved people of different genders, sexual orientations and backgrounds. [ Scroll down to “📗 Femme : Feminists, Lesbians and Bad Girls” analysis for more.]

SBB was set in the mid-20th century, supposedly in the pre-70s ButchFem culture, during which time many spaces incl. LGBTQ ones, just getting over segregation. Feinberg uses Femme, likely because SBB was written and published in the 90s (and again in the 00s), which means the butchfemme Feinberg knew of, already had influence from the eras before.

‘High Femme’ in SBB was used by trans femmes and femmes, and as Jess says—regardless man or woman. High Femmeness were associated with activities concerning gender affirmation and romance as a femme.

Peaches, a trans femme character, codifies her high femmeness in the moon and in sensual lingerie.

Controversially, Edna’s high femmeness conflicts with the stone of her butch partners, Jan and Jess. She is described by Jan to be able to “seduce any stone butch love”. Her sensuality begins comfortingly and complementary with Jess, yet is indivisible from her desire to melt a butch’s stone. This renders her relationships with her beloved stone butches, fraught. Regardless of Edna’s relationship status, she is still identified as a high femme.

Safe to say in SBB, High Femmeness ≠ Stone Femme or pillow prince/ss reliant on the stone butch identity, but refers to the construction of femininity and a person’s sensuality.

📕Butch Queens Up in Pumps (2013)

The ButchFem(me) community in America and internationally, must recognise how entwined it is with African American and Latine American ballroom culture.

The American Ballroom scene we know of today, arose in the 19th century and has been around for a really long time. It is far older than even the first iteration of the 40s ButchFEM culture. But Ballroom, while popular amongst Black and Latine American membership, was only popularised into mainstream culture in the 90s.

The mainstream has very little access to this history (respect that). This is partially due to academic racism which presides over the presence of POC voices, and priorities on “formal” written literature. We have to acknowledge the limitations in accessible resources on Ballroom culture.

BQUiP has been indispensable for this reason.

While a lot of QTPOC efforts and pioneering roles are often erased, severed and whitewashed from global and American queer consciousness, BQUiP is amongst a corpus of QTPOC resources that challenges this.

It tells of queer history through information and oral history gathered in retrospect, and respects stories passed down through connection between the members and performers of American Ballroom communities and Kiki houses. In doing so, it clarifies its place in the lineage of queer identities and consciousness.

Ballroom was comprised of three dimensions.

1st—Gender System; sex, sexuality & genderdiversity which formed the basis of kinship, as well as competitive elements and categories. These helped to create visible “archetypes” to move towards or away from.

2nd—Houses; kinship structures of social/chosen family, who bonded and cared for each other across locations. These families were formed around mottos, symbols and haute culture references. Its members varied in age, sex & genderdiversity, race & ethnicity (mostly African American & Latine American), and backgrounds.

3rd—Ballroom Events; Ballroom activated families to prepare for competitions, including supporting and training protégés for realness, voguing, body presentation and fashion. It brought together the families to gather community, and accelerated the development of Ballroom across America and even, globally. This provided sanctuary to youths of colour who were marginalised by society for their identities.

The terms Butch and Femme already had identities to them. These identities had purposes tied to American Ballroom culture.

To serve “Femme Queen & Butch Queen Up in Drag realness”, participants had to present boldly and fearlessly as convincing women, with minimal deviation from the gender & sexual norms of cisheteronormative society. To be seen as a real woman is “Realness”. Whether the competitor was for transfems or trans women (Femme Queens) or a gay men performing as a women (Butch Queen Up in Drag). Butches, different from Butch Queens, were recognised as trans men, transmascs, or masculine lesbians or female persons.

Often, the Butch Queen was an exaggerated and flamboyant presentation, and is known as drag, while the Femme Queen is not necessarily drag as their gender identity matched their competitive realness. Both groups of participants, their families and communities shared in the visible performance of gender and the self-fashioning which transformed normative categories of sex, gender and sexual identity.

Fem(me), as an identity, began percolating in ButchFem culture especially catalysed by 2nd wave feminism and LGBTQ rights movements (late-60s—70s) which encouraged sexual autonomy in every queer arena.

It is likely that Fem(me) was inspired by the mid-20th century Ballroom’s spirit of gender reconstruction, gender affirmation, drag, and sexual autonomy, as well as the defiant protective qualities of the pre-70s Fems. It likely also promoted the focus of community-building, irrespective of the dyad.

The current general queer Fem(me) is not the same as the Black & Latine American Ballroom Femme. It has developed its own multiculturalism, communities and experiences beyond Ballroom. Nevertheless, the inspiration/lineage must be recognised for how Black and Latine communities pioneered American queer consciousness.

[ And if I may add from a social studies lens, BIPOC have typically been the reason that community building is a strategy of unity, solidarity and resistance, as well as the catalysis of (sub)culture independent of the wider society.

This is why governments know that if they must strike, it would be to isolate persons from each other and reinforce the nuclear family model (the dyad). It is no surprise that BIPOC influence has shaped the Femme & High Femme identity. ]

Racism within ButchFem communities

Black communities were legally allowed to enter into what were once “white-only” spaces, only following the dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the mid-60s. This did not necessarily translate into immediate acceptance and social allowance. Different regions varied in how safe and receptive they were towards integration regardless (or often because of the complicity) of law enforcement.

Prior to this, the general Black queer and ButchFem(me) communities of NYC Harlem and Buffalo ( hotspots of ButchFem history ) had their own segregated spaces or else favoured underground house parties, where they had built their own subcultures and engaged in the circulation of Ballroom terminology and concepts.

Black communities have always presented themselves in many different ways and understood presentation as a tool for social mobility, and resistance. This includes but is not limited to Black Dandyism since the 20s which involved the classy sartorial formal wear, nouveau riche “new money” aesthetics, and many more postmodern fashion subcultures since.

Embodied by Black Butches and Fem(mes), this contrasted against white pre-70s ButchFem fashion which consisted of predominantly flannels, jeans and attires associated with the blue-collar working class.

As far as racism and cultural ignorance went, Black lesbians’ gender expressions have been derided, mocked and appropriated by white lesbians including but not limited to those of the lesbian separatist crowd and the pre-70s ButchFem crowd.

Make no mistake. This extends all the way to present day racism, mockery and appropriation by white queers against Black queers.

Most BIPOC diasporas in USA necessarily had later, slower, more cautious and fraught transitions in diversifying binary and dyadic gender norms in their unique ways, because of the more severe marginalisations they faced and the ways race and gender intersected living under the Eurocolonial Cisheteropatriarchal hegemony. However, they have been consistently shamed for their traditions and cultures, cast as opponents to white liberal and leftist politics.

The Butch’s hypervisibility and the Fem’s invisibility that white ButchFems prided themselves upon, were not treated the same on Black bodies. Black lesbians including Fem(me)s were harassed, and far more frequently and violently targeted by racists, homophobes and law enforcement.

Simultaneously, QTPOC were moralised against for their greater reliance on dyadic dynamics and gender norms, which were tools of resistance against the state-designed killing machine that is white supremacy and its pervasive multi-level effects. They were often condemned by the ignorant crowd of white lesbians dismantling dyadic and binary norms, which included (but were not solely) radical feminists.

The late-60s was rife with radical feminists. The 2nd wave feminism was overrun with TERFism from predominantly white and cis women incl. lesbians who pushed for lesbian separatism, biphobia, transphobia, androgynous appearances and the exclusion of masculinity including any phallic associations. This often muddied the agendas and motivations for others in finding themselves and their belonging in lesbian spaces.

📗Femme : Feminists, Lesbians and Bad Girls (1997)

The pre-70s lesbian communities were governed by clear rigid norms about stone identities, with the “Butch only topping” and the “Fem only bottoming”, and the strict Butch-Fem pairing which pushed for a “queer-amatonormativity” to be upheld. When they were within the lesbian bar spaces, there were strict masculine and feminine roles to observe, including in appearances and the dyadic pairing. Beyond the bar, the roles in private sex lives may have deviated (ie Butch4butch, fem4fem, aroacespec butches and fems), but many were pressured not to talk about it due to its taboo nature.

While this provided safety and simplicity for a handful of butches and fems who required and/or desired clear outlines of this new gender binary to navigate society then, the Butches and Fems of the later decades had the means to encourage diversification.

Some, special mention to those of colour, were in favour of inclusivity for diversifying the strict binary enforcing of queer-amatonormative and sexual expectations. They challenged how the dyadic priority could be controlling and exclusionary.

While the impositions of OFOS ButchFem still affects butches and fem(mes) to this day, it would be incomplete to look at this without also addressing 2nd wave lesbian separatism and radical feminism, as well as the racism targeting the different progressive routes taken by QTBIPOC communities.

The ButchFem communities have historically already understood how gender style decides existence, and is always a matter of bodies and lives at stake. However, the pre-90s focus of queer validation was typically reserved for those who socially presented differently to their assigned sex, such as trans femmes and butches.

Butches were seen as the signifier of “obvious” lesbianism and the ButchFem dyad. Fems were sidelined as only tending to experience the “rawness” and risk by extension of the ButchFem dyad, and as such were often seen as “straight-er”. Femininity and androgyny were both seen as “not subversive enough”. Thus, Fems were often kept from claiming oppression and gender transgressiveness under the white cisheteronormative patriarchy.

Femme: FL&BG (1997) showcases interviews from Femmes who recognise the stigmatisations from “traditional” ButchFems as well as the radical feminists.

Butch Mystique (2003) interviewing nine African American butches addresses these stigmatisations too, and provide insight into how these interviewees deviate and transgress racialised cisheteropatriarchal norms and queer norms.

Between the 60s to 80s, Black lesbians and trans persons including transmasculine persons, Bulldaggers, B.D women, Bulls, Dykes, Butches, Fem(me)s, Studs, Fish, Drag Queens and transfeminine Femme Queens were the likely influencers for the Fem(me) identity flowing into the mainstream. Especially since Fem(me) was earliest used by the Black Ballroom community.

Stirring up of change and novelty in the traditional ButchFem dyad, the post-70s Fems began to incorporate Fem(me). They challenged the notion of “privileged passing”, addressed invisibility as oppressive, and argued against the invalidation of their struggles. By the 90s, the feminine-constructionist femme came to be someone who embodied their own unique signature, empowering themselves in the power and comfort of their own body.

Some Femmes pushed for the acknowledgement for their inherent gender non-conformity as separable from the erotic relationship with a butch. They were recognisably Fems, even beyond the Butch-Fem dyad. These Femmes coined the identity of the High Femme as a category of a transgendered femme experience which fucked with the ideas of normative Fem-ness and femininity. Many from diverse race and ethnic groups, and other subcultures, reached into their own sociocultural experiences to inform their gender performances. They likened this to a form of drag especially where it became a hyperreal self-emphasis. Like the Femme Queens of the Ballroom, they designed and publicly flaunted their own “girl-ness”.

The High Femme and the Femme were crucial to the creation of an independent Fem(me) entity, as an equal to the butch in all matters of visibility, gender non-conformity and lesbianism.

Fem(mes) emphasised the importance of creating community and solidarity with other fem(mes), which not only improved their partnerships with butches, but also challenged the discourse of a Femme’s independent relevance. They motivated Fems to claim their sexual and erotic autonomy beyond the ButchFem dyad, and voiced new perspectives in the transgender and genderdiverse consciousness of the ButchFem subculture.

It is evident that both Butches and Fem(me)s both white and especially QTBIPOC, have invested efforts through the many decades and revivals of Butch and Fem(me) consciousness, to balance the stigmatisations they face, challenge the social pressures of stone identities, and push for diversification and autonomy in gender reconstruction.

Closing Words

Today’s Fem(me) identity has fluctuated between recognising this legitimate divergence from the traditional ButchFem, versus lumping it together with the dyad’s emphasis.

I suspect that those who spread that High Femme = Pillow Princess or Stone Femme, were likely repeating what they heard from those within the community, who themselves either did not recognise this, or refused to witness this history.

The reductiveness of the High Femme identity as dependent upon the Stone Butch, takes away from this history. Not to mention the limitations on others to define high femmeness for themselves (verbally, physically, lifestyle choices +++) constitutes label-policing.

Decontextualising it from the Black Ballroom influences is whitewashing and ahistorical which contributes to academic racism, especially when QTBIPOC butches and femmes were frequently marginalised by white butches, femmes and lesbians, and have been consistently written out of American history unless as victims, dependents or threats.

It erases the feminist movements within ButchFem subculture that had little to do with the erotic aspect, and minimised the credit of fem(mes) who took the strides for autonomy in their gender and sexuality non-conformity.

Especially with High Femmeness once again being mistaken for Pillow Princess and many seeing it as inextricable from Stone Butches while shaming others for using it in the traditional (or other) ways.

Some attempt to re-assert a “sexual hierarchy” of Femmeness any which way, hindering sex positivity. It erases the work that Femmes throughout time have put into gender and sexual autonomy, to impose onto others pressures and standards to only see Femmeness and High Femmeness in the context of the dyad. This is comparable to how the prejudiced Gold Star Lesbian identity has been weaponised against people within the community.

Personally, I encourage people to defer to adopting the identity of the High Femme, in all of its historical glory, and separate it from the Stone Femme or the Pillow Prince/ss.

Doing so not only empowers Femmes, credits our Femme predecessors and challenges the white-washing of ButchFem history, but it potentially presents a strong counter against the criticisms of many lesbians who are not a part of ButchFem(me).

art by the lovely and talented @angelinwineredandburgundy

             𝔟𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔫, 𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔫           🏮           𝔦 𝔞𝔪 𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔪𝔬𝔲𝔱𝔥

‘00 SEAsian Diasporic Malacca Straits Chinese-Austronesian 1st-gen immigrant on unceded First Nations Aboriginal lands. s/He. aplatoaroacespec sapphic & achillean. XIÁ 侠 Knight-Errant. HIGH FEMME. tomboy femme. Masculine-of-Center (MoC) and Feminine-of-Center (FoC). transneutral. gender & sexually fluid. gender anarchist. LesBI. AuDHD. psych major. professional ragebaiter. sweetbitter. mindfucker. demonfucker. knifethrower. intermediate rigger. sadomaschochist. Dom-lean Switch, Bottom-lean Verse. Yang Spirit, Yin Body. Yang Will, Yin Heart. Year of the Metal Dragon 金龙. ♐︎ Hunter Sun, ♉︎ Stubborn Sensualist Moon, ♈︎ Riot Rising, Vigilante Mars Chart Ruler Ω︭ ♂, Dominants ; Jupiter ♐︎ + Saturn ♒︎. Pragmatic Lover ♑︎♀, Sexual & Sociopolitical Freakologist ♒︎⚸. ENTP VLEF ILE 3w4 371 so/sp. Political theorist. philomath. avid consumer, novella RPer & writer of angst hurt/no comfort, theology, mythology, fantasy, sci-fi, psych, horror & crime thrillers. volatile. vile villainess. scathingly hypo/critical. leather, silk & lace. hellion, horror. cannibalistic symbolism. venomous diatribes. religiously destructive. eternally damned & more ➣

Anger awakens. Anger is real. Anger is something they made forbidden for all of us to reach in different ways, even the “angry” ones. Too angry and fearsome to honor your own anger. Too delicate to honor your own anger. Too much of the adult to honor your own anger. Too much like a child to honor your own anger. But It’s Yours. It’s yours, it’s yours.

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MUSIC. TASTE

( reworking section )

流行 LiuXing, Ballad-Pop, Mandopop, C-Pop: 周興哲 Zhou XingZhe/Eric Chou • 隔壁老樊 Ge Bi Lao Fan • 李荣浩 Li RongHao • 周杰倫 Chou JieLun/Jay Chou • JJ Lin • 蔡蔡子 Tasia • 高旭 • 田馥甄 Tian FuZhen/Hebe Tien • 苡慧 yihuik • 王靖雯 Wang JiWen • 董唧唧 • 王力宏 Wang Leehom • 陶喆 David Tao • 吴克群 Kenji Wu • S.H.E • 王翊恩 “en” Wang YiEn • Tay Kewei • 杨胖雨 • Kaho Hung • Evangeline Wong 王艷薇 • 胡66 • 陈粒 Chen Li • 卓文萱 • LBI 利比 • DIOR大穎 • 薛之謙 • 派偉俊 Patrick Brasca • Tr33 • BK/Bill Kang • 雪二 Xue Er • 蓝心羽 • 不是花火呀 • Zkaaai • Joysaaaa • 我是土豆 • 颜人中 • 杜宣达 • 鄭潤澤 • 张紫豪 Zhang Zihao • 周星星 • Bomb比爾 • 吳卓源 Julia Wu • 呆呆破 • step.jad • aMEI

Sino Hip-Hop & Melodic Rap: PPlin 林芃逸 • 齊翔 XIANG • YANGCh!ll • 刘柏辛 Lexie Liu • 马也 Crabbit • Lil RAD • COY6OI • JaS52 • Ensie • Seluu • 林達浪 Lin DaLang • 王子明 Wang Zi Ming • Lizi 栗子 • 寒冰 Ice • JERRYZ • 永彬 Ryan.B • Lambert凌 • Tyson Yoshi • WYAN 王毓千 • 高爾宣OSN • 制造热搜 • XMASwu 吴骜

Sino Emo & Pop-Rock: 陳奕迅 Eason Chan • Mayday 五月天 • 庄淇玟 Zhuang QiWen 29 • 八三天 831 • Lil Ghost 小鬼 • Silence Wang 汪苏泷 • Kaizly • Kuo.ZT • 韋德 WADE

Sino R&B: Zou PeiPei 邹沛沛 • 深水29 • Aioz • 果妹 GuoMei • GrayGray灰灰 • JuggShots 袁生钰 • karencici • Gareth.T • 任然-Ren Ran • YangYang • LOFTHESTAR 刘思达 • Yu JiaYun 余佳運 • Khalil Fong • 加木 • 梓渝 Zi Yu • Ice Paper • 蒋小呢 Jia XiaoNe • 梁根荣 Gen Neo

Sino Shanghai Jazz, Retro Pop & City-Pop: 布鲁昔 BlueC • J.Sheon • Shanghai Restoration Project

Chinese Lofi, Ambient & Indie Pop: Haze哈泽 • Cole 先生 • Pank • 小包 Zerinn • bbbluelee • 芊芊龍 QianQianLong • Howard Lee • Jeffrey 董又霖

Chinese 民谣 Minyao: 毛不易 Mao Buyi • 李健 LiJian • 伦桑 • Winky诗 • 宋冬野 Dongye Song • 房東的貓

Chinese 古风 GuFeng / 仙侠 XianXia: 黄诗扶 Huang Shifu • 银临 YinLin • 董真 DongZhen • 音频怪物 YinPinGuaiWu • 司夏 Si Xia • 王敬轩 Wang JingXuan • 张紫宁 Zhang ZiNing • 李鑫一 Lin XinYi/Rex • 鞠婧祎 • 等什么君 • 云の泣 • 清水er • 李袁杰 • 阿 YueYue • 排骨教主 • 叶里 • 小时姑娘 • HITA

Goth, Dark Pop & Darkwave: She Wants Revenge • Lebanon Hanover • Mr. Kitty • Mareaux • Social Order • Nyxjvh • Astrophysics • Jah PHNX • Witchz • Depeche Mode • Twin Tribes • Joy Division • London After Midnight • Johnny Goth • Kwasi Kai • Artemas • Isabel LaRosa • yeule • Korine • She Past Away • Baby Storme • Vestron Vulture • MGMT • REDCHINAWAVE • The Bravery • Interpol • Ashley Sienna • Witchz • Goldfrapp • UNKLE • The Masqs • The Cure • Violent Femmes • MOTHICA • Pale Waves • Sinnerella • The Violent Youth • Asal • Ari Abdul • Dionnysuss • Royal & The Serpent • Elita • Night Club • ULTRA SUNN • Blind Seagull • French Police • cutouts • phyllzx • Cult of Venus • Vlad Holiday

Pop & Rock: Glass Animals • Peach PRC • ADÉLA • FEYI • NIKI • COBRAH • Ashnikko • bludnymph • Doja Cat • PVRIS • DPR IAN • Ayesha Erotica • Kim Petras • Nessa Barrett • Dutch Melrose • Olivia Rodrigo • Dove Cameron • BENEE • XTINA GG • Honey Revenge • CHAII • The 1975 • SNOW WIFE • Cassyette • Chandler Leighton • tiffi • MAY-A • arya x • FINNEAS • Imagine Dragons • Fall Out Boys • Nasty Cherry • MNEK • A.i.Jones (Adrian McKinnon)

Alt Rock, Indie Rock: Sons of Silver • Nine Inch Nails • New Order • U2 • AC/DC • Beth McCarthy • Saint Motel • Woodkid • Crystal Castles • Arctic Monkeys • Gorillaz • Empire of the Sun • Charlotte Sands • emlyn • Lauren Sanderson • The Aces • ZELA • KiNG MALA • NO CIGAR • The Warning • The Wombats • The Cab • The Bleachers • The Killers • RIELL

Baroque Pop: Hozier • Florence + The Machine • The Last Dinner Party • Son Lux • Missio • Woodkid • Cosmo Sheldrake • Erin Lecount

Southern Rock: Alabama Shakes • ZZ Ward • Stela Cole • Fleetwood Mac • Noah Cyrus

Alt-Indie, R&B, Soul: Blackstreet • Leon Bridges • Sade • Gigi Perez • Chance Peña • Leonard Cohen • sombr • Japanese Breakfast • Ogi • The Cab • RINI • JADE • Millie Turner • Griff • Spacey Jane • Coldplay • thuy • Stan Walker • SZA • H.E.R • Khalid • Daniel Caesar • Frank Ocean • Rachel Chinouriri • Lyn Lapid • The Beaches • The Velvet Underground • Blondshell • King Princess • SEB • RAYE • The Regrettes • Teddy Swims • Ella Mai • Chloe × Halle • Miguel • JYYN • Pink $weats • BaggE

Hip-Hop & Boom Bap Rap: Wutang Clan • Jeru The Damaja • Metro Boomin • Blackway

Afrohouse & Afrobeats: 0.griot • Tems • Dave

Psychedelic, Surf, Hazy, Downtempo, Ethereal: Nusantara Beat • Jungle By Night • Cocteau Twins • Sabrina Claudio • Alina Baraz • Frank Ocean • Esha Tewari • ARK IDENTITY • Alan Chang • Saint Avengeline

Electronic: Son Lux • Missio • M83 • COBRAH

And I don’t mean to impose an individualistic nor anachronistic POV upon the ButchFem(me) community, which has been genuine as well as strategic resistance informed by prepolitical sapphic communities. I do not share the class struggles of the working class Butches and Fem(mes) of the 20th century, as my financial dependencies and also privileges, are of a different nature. I won’t forget this either when dismantling capitalism in contemporary ways.

Rather, I emphasise that I don’t believe my Femme-ness and my visibility as a Femme, relies on:

❌being on the arm of a visibly “queer” partner.

❌performing my gender for potential partners, in order to exist validly.

❌how much “safety” my femininity offers via assimilation.

Visibility…?

Many put forth that Femmes, especially she/her femmes by default, possess the privilege of “passing” as cisheterosexual. Sometimes, I encounter strong assertions about the “standard” of a Femme which typically emphasises the invisibility of Femmes, and the “passing-ness” in cisheteronormative patriarchy, as the glorified expectation. This, defines the validity of a Femme. Therefore, a Femme is expected to “pass” well, and is expected to create class mobility by “passing”. And while she is appreciated and admired for this, “passing privilege” is often used to invalidate or dismiss the struggles of femmes, too.

At the same time, many femmes have a history of not “passing” after the 70s, when bar culture began to become overrun by political lesbians. Femmes’ femininity were often criticised by middleclass women (and lesbians) as being of a lower class, or a “caricaturisation” of femininity. This especially applied to BIPOC femmes who were held to vastly different expectations, even shamed for upholding ButchFem relationships out of necessity, when they entered into white-dominant spaces and its (typically white-centered) politics. (Baby, You Are My Religion, 2014)

Passing…

As a very obviously Asian and disabled femme, I cannot “pass” and benefit from “passing” at the same time. My femmeness cannot be safe for me if I assimilate. The ways in which the system desires to objectify and exploit my body, and override my health BY assimilating, is extremely pervasive and damaging.

At the same time, if I am authentically embodying my heritage, disability and gender, it would not be safe for me either. To live authentically and NOT pass, has consequences of endangering security and safety for myself and my loved ones. My resistance to this will not be seen as a popculture ‘drag’, it would be seen as an infection to the xenophobia and f@cism of today’s Anglosphere.

This presents a challenge to the standards and assumptions about Femme “passing privilege”; I not only fail the Femme standards by not “passing well”, but even if I DO “pass”, I cannot be expected to create safety and accessibility via this method, nor can I “pass” and benefit from it.

So, my femmeness cannot be reliant upon my gender performances only, it relies on the ways in which I embody my activism in EVERY group I belong to. My femmeness is there regardless of my ‘drag’ or my mask. My Femmeness is aggravating when it is true, and debilitating when it isn’t. My Femmeness is there even when there is no one to gaze upon and desire it.

To perform femininity which so happens to coincide with patriarchal femininity, does not equate to an invalid nor conformist expression of femininity. Why? Because patriarchal femininity is not a static idea, but a constantly mutating one. It is eurocolonially constructed, but also depends on appropriating and commercialising other cultures.

It entirely depends on the way such femininity is used for the resistance and critical activism of the individual. And for those who claim “but this is the traditional ButchFem!” , I cannot imagine a BIPOC ButchFem or StudFem couple of the past conforming to the whiteness required for maximised mobility, and calling that privilege.

Sure; to be invisible for my gender nonconformity as a Femme aids with the mobilisation of my cultural capital under this society. (Cultural capital = marketability for Intellect, Presentability, Aesthetic Beauty in employment, accessibility and even Boston & Lavender marriages—see this source).

However, it also traumatisingly conceals something core to my journey—which is to decolonize and resist the insidious intergenerational ways in which Whiteness commodifies BIPOC cultures. To overcome ableism, anti-immigrant violence, capitalistic pressures, and to break free of patriarchal white-centered femininity.

To have a femininity that does not belong to me, imposed upon me, endangers me. An easy example is Orientalism, hyperfeminisation, infantilisation, “sexlessness” and the fetishization of Asian people. The way that Asia and its sexual tourism has consistently been exploited by tourists from white countries—makes it such that “passing for the male gaze” is even more insidious and grotesque to me. My femmeness is not qualified by its invisibility and cis-“passing” aka white-centered patriarchal privilege.

Why should ultimate femmeness strive to be as “passable” into white standards as possible? Why should ultimate femmeness be about using cultural capital in ‘traditional’ ways when that upholds capitalistic and nuclear family systems? What happens to a Femme in this stage of global capitalism, globalisation and the neo-totalitarianism of the West?

Solidarity…

Sometimes I see it being about protecting and standing with MoCs, but this is often warped into unfair criticism lobbied at femmes who do not stand with MoCs who are problematic. I have encountered MoCs who spew ableism and white exceptionalism—not always maliciously, but certainly ignorantly and neglectfully, while expecting to still receive the emotional accessibility of my Femmeness.

I aim to protect and stand in solidarity with MoCs, but this is not unconditional. I will not do so if they threaten and undermine my protection of my other communities too. I will not throw my values and principles under the bus to ensure an exclusionist, racist, biphobic, or bigoted person feels comfortable and safe; of which anyone including MoCs can absolutely be.

While I understand the knighthood and chivalry many MoCs live by, there are some forms in which this is enacted which I cannot help but identify as more egoistic and self-beneficial, than it is out of respect. I hope I am not misunderstood when I say my Femmeness does not benefit from white saviourism, self-martyring, and many other types of self-sacrifice that some people (incl. MoCs) try to impose upon me to be receptive to—often without respect to my autonomy, intersectionality or my strategies of resistance.

To oversimplify the Femme identity, overrides the validity of mspec Femmes, including AroAcespec, Bisexual, Trans Femmes, and Femmes who also fall into intersections such as race, disability, class, immigrant & ethnic minority etc;

Wherein their gender autonomy are constantly usurped and invalidated by white cisheteronormative able-bodied upper-middleclass Anglocentric patriarchy.

I love this community but I want to see MoC and FoC identities diversify their ideas of protection and resistance. To take care of each other and those within these units, without leaving the most intersectionally-marginalised behind, or excusing bad behaviour.

…Okie that’s all…if u made it this far…be well… (ominous)…