I want to write more on passing because it’s a hot topic around here lately and there are some in depth and thoughtful comments.
Freedomgirl said: If I have to go through that just like every other lesbian, do I really have to take crap from said lesbians because I don’t look right???
Last Saturday Kestryl and I were wondering around Trader Joes filling our shopping cart with apples, cheese, pasta and all the rest of our favorite weekly foods when a butch walked by with pallet of bread. As pronoun passed they smiled and nodded at us! Later, when Kestryl was off grabbing us free samples the same butch now sans bread hurried back the other way but while passing, caught my eye and grinned! Now for many folks this doesn’t sound particularly special, but for me as a femme who on my own continually passes as straight, and as the partner of a passing transgender butch we are almost exclusively read as straight these moments tend to stand out.
H. and I go to Jaded Lounge for all-queer, all-asian cabaret. We eat biscuits, corn, and mac and cheese from Kentucky Fried Chicken, I have a beer that I’ll only drink half of and she has something pink. We look around. I whisper, is it bad that I’m wondering why the white straight-appearing couples are here? She says, I was wondering that but then I told myself that’s fucked up.
We have so many stories about being alone, we come out into these amorphous communities and all we want is to not be alone anymore. Our monkey brains say, categorize to survive, separate enemies from friends, know your tribe. We’ve been rejected so many times and we want to know who’s safe, so we draw these lines with our eyes to say who belongs and who doesn’t. We hurt each other this way, but we keep doing it.
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My name is Sassafras Lowrey and this is the first of what will become a regular blog posting on Fridays here at The Femme Show. I’m a high femme author and artist living in New York City with my partner, princess dog, and two puddle cats. I wasn’t always a femme. I hid from my femininity for a long time, trying to be butch, trying to be an FTM; needless to say that didn’t work too well for me. I came out as femme several years ago, and this blog will be talking a lot about my observations about what it means to walk through the world as a femme, specifically surrounding issues of passing and invisibility. Additionally, in this blog I’ll be talking about the ways in which I conceive of femme-femininity as a gender transgressive, perversion of traditional femininity, and positioned outside of the gender binary.
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Stop and Shop, Exeter, New Hampshire, Wednesday night. I’ve got my driving snack of bread and cheese, plus I’ve perused the sale aisle and grabbed some tuna, pasta, and beans that are 10 for 10. I see her short hair first, then a rainbow beaded choker, just like the one I wore as a teenager, and a name tag - “Rachel.†She looks about 17 - a high school queer working the checkout counter.
While she rings up the person in front of me I scan the magazine rack and wish that she could see me as queer. Read the rest of this entry »
