Heyo! I have a question about your personal definition of femme. (I know what my answer is, so I'm not like. Wanting an opinion to parrot or anything.) Do you think it's okay for a completely cishet man to use femme? As in. Heterosexual, heteroromantic, cisgender, all that, but has a feminine presentation. Obviously this doesn't happen very often because cishet men have less reason to question gender roles than queer folks, but. I dunno do you think he could call himself femme?
Hmmmm, okay, this is actually an interesting question. Because normally I'd say femme is for any kind of queer person, like, even a demiromantic heterosexual cis person can be femme because they are queer even if it isn't very "visible" to most (which no one owes you visibility). Same thing for a heteromantic demisexual cis person obviously. But, normally I wouldn't say a cis, heteromantic, heterosexual man could use the word femme. However, this question has made me think about this a bit.
There is a certain level of femininity in day to day life a man can express without getting harassed by the queerphobes he may encounter. Now, queerness isn't inherently centered on oppression, but it can be a unifying factor. Queerphobes won't ask for your gender or sexuality first before mistreating you, to them, if you don't fit what they think a man or woman should be, they will call you slurs, harass you, etc. Doesn't matter if you're actually 100% straight and cis.
So, in my opinion, I guess if a man is femme, so visibly gender nonconforming, it wouldn't matter if he is cishet. So...I think a cishet man can call himself femme. (This is doubly so for the communities where the term originated, which are black and Latine communities.)
