“Femmes need to do a lot more work – finding the language, the political positions, the thinking that is unique to us… There was a time in my life when I didn’t consider myself femme unless I was on the arm of a butch. Now I know that I have a whole world I carry with me.”
Femme is not a dirty word. It is not reducible to aprons and muffins. Femme is not an afterthought. It is not a footnote in the encyclopedia of Queer Studies. It is not the forgone conclusion to the sentence that starts “butch and”.
As femmes we do carry ‘whole worlds’ within us…. And our unique realities can sometimes be misunderstood. Femme sexual agency goes along way beyond desiring to be desired. We shrug off the association of any oppressive equation of femme with retrograde anti-feminist politics, with presumptive submissiveness, with any whiff of so-called “straight-acting” disguise.
There is a strength in femme that refuses to be rubbed out or overwritten. What unites Femme Guild is a celebratory passion for femme power; a power that is rich and formidable. Femme is a gender performance crystallized into a deep-seated identity. It is a radical, queer embodiment of femininity camping out in bodies regardless of sex or race or class.
Femme Guild does not seek to privilege a femme identity above any other. Nor do we wish to ascribe characteristics to ‘what femme is’ that might homogenise or exclude diverse or dissident experiences. Think you’re femme? You probably are.
We actively recognise the generations of activism that have challenged traditional gender roles and struggled to explode the die-hard myth of the sex/gender binary. Femme Guild peacefully co-exists with other radical ways to play with gender, or to be a woman. There is no one way to be a woman, to be Trans, to be queer, or to be a man.
Femme Guild encapsulates itself with three words: Solidarity. Celebration. Visibility. It is this and more. Femme Guild becomes a forum in which we can discuss amongst ourselves, and engage with everybody:
How do we read femme? How can a femme on her own, be radical or even subversive? Is the femme presumed to be heterosexual without the visibility of the object of her desire? What queers femme, and how do femmes inhabit and express their own queer bodies?
There are no proscriptions as to how to embody a femme identity, nor are there proscriptions as to the objects of femme desire: (inclusive of, but not restricted to) femmes loving butches, loving other femmes, loving trans-guys, MTFs, bois, men, and those who choose not to identify under any labels.
Femmes stand in solidarity with the broad, diverse and welcoming queer community; and with each other, in creating a supportive and safe space for femmes’ ‘coming-outs’, stories, rants and friendships. Femme Guild is positive and beautiful. With our visibility in Mardi Gras, and with events in Sydney and global collaboration with other femme networks, we are manifesting an awareness, understanding, and ultimately a celebration of femme identity and the worlds we contain within us.
So beautifully written! Thank you!
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