“I feel sometimes that, by being less visible, I’m not pulling my weight, as if there were a finite amount of anti-queer fucked-upness in the world and if I don’t take my share someone else, a stranger or friend or neighbor or lover, is going have to take my share too.”

Two weeks ago I hosted a discussion on femme identity for MadFemmePride members. I wanted to host the discussion as a community service and a chance to meet new people and expand the circle of people with whom I’m talking about this stuff.

People brought up a variety of options, but there was a clear majority who wanted to talk about “defining femme” and “what femme means to me” so we went with that. The discussion stayed mostly in the realm of personal experiences.

Every time I spoke, I either used the word “privilege” or started with the phrase “I worry a lot about…”

I don’t think you can talk about being invisible (as a certain type of femme in the queer community) without talking about the passing privilege that usually comes with that invisibility. (Before I go on, I want to point out that of course not all femmes are invisible as queer in the queer community, and not all femmes have passing privilege.) It’s always hard to admit to privilege, especially when something that shows up as privilege in one arena has negative effects in another. I move in the world as a very privileged person - white, educated, middle class, native-English speaking, American citizen, and passing privilege interacts with all of those other privileges.

I have to accept that I am going to be assumed to be heterosexual when I’m out in the world at large. I don’t experience harassment related to being queer* unless I’m with other people who are visibly non-gender normative or queer. Sure, I’m out, constantly, to everyone in my family, to everyone I work with, to everyone I share my life with. And I’ve been discriminated against for being queer. But that’s not the same as what people who are easily read as queer or have visibly different gender expressions deal with.

It’s hard to explain just how much that bothers me. I feel sometimes that, by being less visible, I’m not pulling my weight, as if there were a finite amount of anti-queer fucked-upness in the world and if I don’t take my share someone else, a stranger or friend or neighbor or lover, is going have to take my share too. I feel sad and more than a little guilty thinking about this.

Now, before you start emailing me to recommend a good therapist, let me say that I know those thoughts are ridiculous. Prejudice and discrimination are not a burden we have to bear, but a wrong that we are called to fight against.

AI fend I know that passing in the straight world gives me opportunities to confront prejudice and assumptions that I wouldn’t have otherwise. People often express their prejudices around people whom they assume to be like them, so sometimes I get to hear and respond to comments that might go unspoken if they knew there was a queer in the room.

I’ve also been known to charm the pants off of my partner’s parents and grandparents. I’m a ballet dancer, I went to boarding school, I wear skirts and makeup and keep my legs crossed. Grandmothers are particularly fond of these qualities, and I like to think that, through discussions of Nutcracker and needlepoint, I helped a few of them look on their grandchild’s queerness a little more favorably.

That’s not always enough to counteract the guilt I feel. But then there’s the immutable truth - this is my gender I don’t know how to be any other way.*”hey baby…” type street harassment is another story.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 8:43 pm and is filed under femme community, musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.