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Femmes Don't Wear Heels by
Joshua Bastian Cole |
So most femmes are invisible queers, right? Well,
how about a transitioned FTM who passes full-time as male and part-time
as straight? Talk about invisible! I am assumed to be a great many
things, none of which is femme.
My experience as a femme is, in a way, the reverse from that of many
femmes,
and not just because I’m a boi. The visibility, or rather, the lack thereof,
for femme women boils down to perceivable queerness. It’s the queerness
that gets lost in assumptions, but not the femmeness. That part is often clear.
But not for me.
Once someone gets to know me well, my femmeness is unmistakable. To look at me,
though, most people just see a guy and whatever other indicators are there, “guy” does
not mean the same thing as “femme” to them. And, of course, they
are different things, but my point is that one can be both things at the same
time. I am living proof, as are many other femme men, trans or not.
To a surprising amount of people, queer and non-queer alike, the word femme brings
certain images to mind, images such as: long hair, dresses, heels, lipstick,
maybe even fishnets. Perhaps even other words arrive as a noun to follow the
femme adjective: woman, womyn, girl, grrl, lesbian, dyke.
None of those are words for me. How many, I wonder, immediately come up with
words like man, fag, goatee, pomade, cologne, or bottom? How about metrosexual?
Try this one on for size: straight. Need I clarify that it is possible for a
transman who passes and dates women to still be femme, still be queer, while
simultaneously being hetero identified? Yes, well, it is not only possible, it
exists.
Personally, I don’t identify as straight, though I sometimes date women.
Primarily, I date other transmen. Due to my disinterest in the flirtations of
non-trans men, along with my very boy-like masculine energy, gay men tend to
think I am not gay. However, my clearly effeminate behaviors and my snazzy clothes
lead many women to assume that I am gay. Though, when I out myself as trans,
both men and women conclude that my effeminacy is just a residual “girlyness” from
my former self, and that I must be some sort of lesbian and therefore must be
into dating lesbians. Whether or not it is in those words, that is the popular
train of thought. It happens time and again. Although, I must elaborate that
many lesbians do not have this thought pattern, concluding that I am anything
but one from their queer community, and that if I ever was, I am now a sellout
or traitor to male privilege. In terms of who I date, many with this concept
of me, assume that I must date straight women and because I am not constantly
stared at by non-queers, nor do I surprise them when I talk and my voice matches
my face, I must not at all related to the queer world because I now blend in
with the rest of the straight and straight-acting populus.
On the flip-side of all this, are the assumptions made by my trans brothers.
Most of them pick up on the femme thing right away, but similarly to non-trans
folks, they do not label it “femme” because to many transmen, “femme” means
their girlfriends. In general, transmen think I’m gay, meaning that they
think I date non-trans men.
Very rarely has anyone said to me, “let me guess, you are a femme trannyfag,” and
never has the speaker been non-queer, non-trans.
Now, certainly there are a great many femmes out there who recognize and acknowledge
that there are masculine femmes and that femme does not necessarily mean feminine.
Of these, shall I say, more aware femmes, some like to use femme as a gender,
as it obviously has nothing or little to do with sexual identity or orientation,
and the term varies in usage per individual.
I think gender identity, or any identity for that matter, comes from two main
sources. The first, and more important of the two, is one’s self-identity.
That is the person who is there when no one else is, eyes closed and alone, regardless
of physical attributes, presentational modifiers, and performative behaviors.
Who are you?
The second source is one’s peer group. Who do you surround yourself with
and why are you friends with them? Of course, one finds commonality and support
amongst groups with similar interests. A sense of safety underlies immersion
in shared experience. There is less fear of misunderstanding and mockery.
As with anything else, peer groups can change. Because they are so closely linked
to self-identity, they are equally fluid. That is why people “grow out
of” one another. Sometimes, peer groups can evolve if everyone changes
at the same time.
I think, in my case, my peer group has recently mutated and expanded. I didn’t
come out as a femme until after I came out as trans. I discovered it along the
path of my transition. Upon initially coming out and meeting other transguys,
I found I had more in common with the femme girlfriends of the guys I met than
I did with the guys themselves. Besides the trans-specific conversations I had
with the guys, I much preferred discussing with the women things like shopping
dancing, pop culture, hair and skin care, and clothes to things like beer, motorcycles,
being a sex top, and other things the guys I met liked to discuss. The group
of transguys I was meeting was more of a rugged type, having recently emerged
from experiences as butch lesbians. This crowd liked hiking, camping, and football.
So, my peer group remained virtually unchanged from the time before coming out
as trans to the time after it. I was surrounding myself with queer femme women,
our commonality being that we were all queer femmes, though not all of us women.
The only significant difference of this group was that these femmes were dating
my transguy friends and were not dating women. This, of course, as any partner
of a transguy can tell you, is very significant. It heightens their invisibility
as queer because they are then seen as a woman dating a man, and are then expected
by the straight community and our heterocentric society to present the way they
have already chosen to. Looking like a straight woman was not really a concern
of mine, but dishing about cute bois was certainly always a fun time had by all.
For several years, this remained the same. However, within this past year, I
have been forced to interact with a larger set of people in my workplace. I was
surprised to find similarities between myself and the people I work with because
I have never put myself in male spaces, because I never really felt comfortable
in them. I never felt it was my space to share. That is not a statement about
transmen in general, but only about myself. I do not feel that I am the same
as assigned males and so in male spaces, I feel to be an outsider. It is usually
a feeling I create myself, as many non-trans men who are trans allies have been
very welcoming.
My current job is in a higher end fashion retail store, a large chain that is
known for an image of clothing for clean-cut and exceptionally good-looking rich
business people. There is a high expectation of presentation in the store. With
such an emphasis placed on looking good and creating interesting and fashionable
wardrobe options, I expected many of my male coworkers to be gay, but surprisingly,
I found that not to be the case. It is not a secret that gay men dominate the
fashion industry, and different companies have different looks to match their
overall images. The image of my store is, perhaps, a bit too fancy for the typical
straight man. The level of detail in the clothes and the outfit combinations
are things I have rarely seen straight men care about. It is not the typical
straight man who considers accessorizing and creating an entire wardrobe, not
just one piece at a time. I suppose, I should say that it used to be that way,
before the age of metrosexuality. An era I am very proud to be a part of. The
stereotype of gay men being snappy dressers certainly could be worse. I am sure
things like gerbils are much more offensive than to assume that if a guy likes
to accessorize, his sexual taste is all clear and understood without even asking.
All this being said, I have worked in clothing retail before and I have been
in the queer community for quite a while. I know the behaviors associated with
both things. So, to my surprise, I came to a workplace filled with effeminate
men, who actually did their hair in the morning and thought about which socks
matched their belts and shoes and believe it or not, these men date women! My
own comfort levels in presentation have been strengthened by seeing so many men
present in a way that at one time was perceived to be only characteristic of
gay men. I have no problem being perceived as gay because I like to be read as
queer. It is the only clear option left available to me. However, it throws a
wrench into the works when I am looking for a date. It has just been a welcome
surprise to be in a space where I can match the men around me, and many of us
can also appreciate femaleness from the aspect of attraction.
In my very large store, there is an unfortunate lack of gay men. I like to have
gay men around, even if I am not one, because I do also like to discuss queer
things, and the effeminate straight men can’t help me there. There is one
in particular, in my workplace, who I have taken as my own personal role model.
He has a very strong self-esteem and unlike many gay men in his age group, his
relationship patterns are more similar to the ones I recognize from the lesbian
and trans communities. More monogamy (or at least more dating) and less hookups.
He actually likes to build relationships, and cares less about the physical part
of dating. I think that is an honorable and self-respecting way to interact with
people. I am not a part of the random reckless hooking up party scene. Maybe
I have outgrown it.
There are also the everyday type of straight men at my job, as well. To these
guys, I am completely invisible because many of them do not consider the queer
world having very little need to encounter it. I have been horrified by some
comments that have been made by these men who have not realized that I do not
share their experiences nor do I share their opinions of women. At one time,
in a different and less fashionable job, I found myself in the midst of a group
of guys, all of them straight, all of them all kinds of stereotypical and overcompensatingly
masculine (I, the transguy, the one not assigned male, noticing the desired machismo
of this particular group of non-trans men.) They said something that I do not
need to repeat that involved women and sexual positions and wonderfully disgusting
if not colorful nicknames for female body parts. I was simply horrified and felt
it unsafe to be the odd one out, though I desperately wanted to be the awesome
feminist and say something. It is not always the right thing to do if it is potentially
dangerous. So, I said nothing, and hoped it would not happen again. But men and
their power do exist in other places. A fellow coworker in my newer job, blindly
suggested “rocking out with your cock out” to myself and a roomful
of women. While I get the joke and don’t mind the comment in different
spaces, I was disgusted by the allusion to his member to a roomful of biologically
female people, and I reported it to the manager. I, once more, felt insecure
approaching the situation myself. Why do men have to be scary sometimes?
There are women, too, in my workplace, and though they present femme, its meaning
is lost because it is not consciously chosen to represent their identities. I
am sure they find it comfortable, but if you were to ask them why they present
as they do, it would have very little to do with complex identity politics. It
would be about what flatters their bodies, and maybe that’s really all
it has to be. But then, that wouldn’t be what being a femme is about. And
that is why my non-queer women coworkers are just that, and though they look
like femme women I know, they are not themselves femmes.
All in all, even with a smattering of regular Janes and Joes, I find myself being
very comfortable around men who present in ways atypical to the expectations
of straight men but do not necessarily date other men. I like the idea that one
doesn’t have to be queer to look queer. I realized, we femmes aren’t
the only ones invisible out there. The world is slowly getting mushier.
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images and content copyright © Joshua Cole 2007.
All Rights Reserved. |
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