Pieces of my Femme Genealogy
Hello there!

My name is Jenn Paterson and I’m very excited to be blogging with the Femme Show. I live in Canada with my primary partner and our two cats. I’m really interested in queer culture and politics, disability culture and politics, the intersection of the two and everything to do with sex and gender! I could say a lot more about my interests but I’ll share them over time.

I haven’t identified as a femme for very long and I’m not even sure I identify as a femme every day. My femme identity has been evolving over the last couple of years and arguably all throughout my youth.

I’m not exactly sure where this story begins. But perhaps at this stage of the game, it doesn’t actually matter. What does matter is I’m able to make sense of what I can recall of my past and how I politicize the fragments of my gendered identities.

In my mind, I hoped I would write a tidy little post, presenting a clear genealogy of my gender identities; where they came from and how they have evolved.

I don’t believe that my current femme identity is my ‘one true identity’. It just happens to be my identity today; perhaps for many years, maybe less. But for now I am having a lot of fun seeing my identity evolve every day and playing with fashion. I am also having lot of fun in ways I haven’t allowed myself or felt entitled to for years.

If I had to guess where my femme story starts consciously, I would say it was when I came out as queer. But I know my gender identity was political from the day I was born.

When I came out as queer someone asked me if I was going to turn into a gender androgynous lesbian with no style; if I would ‘stop caring for myself.’ At the time I didn’t realize that this was a very homophobic and sexist remark. Unconsciously it did not feel right and I felt very defensive at the time. I didn’t think I had to look a certain way because I identified as queer. After that conversation I think I started to become androgynous just to be stubborn.

Ironically (or maybe not) at the same time I started to feel very uncomfortable with being visibly feminine. Getting dressed up in a sexy outfit and getting attention felt like too much. All of the unwanted gawking and cat calls got to a point where I felt vulnerable in a way that did not feel empowering or sexy.

From then on in I was pretty gender neutral, dressing in jeans and polo shirts that hid my curves. I felt sexy in them, but in a different way then I do now in clothes. (I want to be clear that I think androgyny is incredibly sexy – but my relationship to it is very complicated) I went on a clothing binge where I got rid of most if not all of my sexy tops and outfits.

After about three or four years, I began to dabble with more feminine type of clothing in the summer time when I felt like I was able to be more playful with my wardrobe versus my winter wardrobe which I feel limited by.

In 2003 I attended a womyn’s festival for the first time and admired all the strong femmes that were in attendance. I watched a femme parade from the sidelines, uncertain if I fit into the femme category.

Each year as I go back to that same festival I feel safer and empowered to experiment in skirts, sexy tops and boots. Dressing up feels like a real choice and the attention that I garner is hot; it feels mostly sex positive gaze and mostly not sexist. With each piece of clothing that I put on, I feel I’m putting my gendered and embodied identity on the outside, ringing true to my feminist politics.

Today more than ever, I’m fascinated by the clothing that femmes wear. Each piece of clothing I put on says something. It’s a lot of fun but it also makes for a lot of work. I try not to get too caught up in my head and analytical about what I wear. But I also fear of a slippage – will I be ‘too much’ as in too revealing, too queer and sometimes, straight. I know there’s a plethora of internalized sexism, misogyny, heterophobia and homophobia in each of my fears. And I’m ready to deconstruct all of them.

I hope to go on more about the joys of gender and fashion in future posts. For now, perhaps you might share how you think clothing (if at all) relates to you gender politics. Is it important to you? Why or why not? Can you identify any of your clothing (including accessories!!!) that embodies your politics?

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 10:33 am and is filed under 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.