the femme mystique

ya know what? i think i may just change my gender identity. because i don't feel "female" most of the time; i associate that label with being the object of the straight white male gaze. and very few straight white males have ever impressed me with their gaze; a few have harmed me.

femme makes sense to me. it feels right. even when i'm wearing jeans and a teeshirt, i never feel masculine, only rarely do i feel butch. unequivocally female is how i feel and how i've always felt, it's all i know how to be. female is in my blood and my body, and i just can't explain it. i know i am female in the way that i know i'm an aries, a human, a good writer. it's exhibited by the way that i act. put me next to someone else, someone more butch than me, women who shall remain nameless (yall know who they are - plenty of butch[er] women around in my life), put us in the same teeshirt and jeans, and i will move differently than her. when i'm playing up my femme-ness, i'm focusing you on how female i am, and usually how sexual. there are parts of my body i'll make you notice. i'll walk a certain way.

but most of this is not traditionally "female" or "feminine" - i still know how to walk like i own a room and feel no shame in brazenly asserting myself. that, to me, is where the femme comes in. femmes are all that is right and good with femininity, flipped - instead of existing for the male, you exist for yourself. this is key - femme, for me, is not about flipping femininity simply so i can look attractive to women. femme is for me. i feel attractive and attracted to myself when i'm femme. even when i'm dressed down, adding a sway to my hips or a blush to my cheeks makes me feel better. paradoxically, if i put on a button-down, or a polo, or a baseball tee, it often calls MORE attention to me. i remember wearing baseball tee, jeans, and sneakers in high school - those were some of my most cute-acting, high-pitched-voice-squealing, boy-attracting feminine days. i'm femme with boys AND girls, another distinction. femme travels, whereas "female" feels all straight-jacket-y. the femme code of ethics applies no matter the genitalia of who i want to play with.

another damn thing: a friend of mine, who is about half my size, a tiny wisp of a girl, once said she didn't feel secure in her body. i realized you could tell this, if you watched her. and i gratefully realized that i DO feel secure in my body. on a very fundamental level, your body is where you live. it is our most intimate home. and so many people expend so much effort hating theirs. it's like hating your living room but refusing to paint it. either spruce up the place, or love it anyway, because either way you have to live there. one thing i have never felt is not safe, not assured, by my body. my body is solid. it's right where it belongs. it's fundamentally a safe place for me to live. i like the way it takes up space, i like the way it moves, i like the weight of it against my bones, proving to me that i am real, that i am here.