Femme
Femme is a term that refers to a queer person whose gender expression is considered to be feminine. It was originally used to distinguish feminine lesbian and bisexual women from butch women, and it is still one of the main uses of the term. It is common for trans and nonbinary individuals to use the term to refer to their identity or expression even if they do not identify as lesbian or bisexual women.[1] However, this last usage is a bit controversial.[2] A common definition of femme is someone who queers or subverts femininity, as opposed to a butch person, who rejects femininity. [3]
Difference between femme and feminine
The word femme can only be used to describe people in the LGBTQ+ spectrum, and it can be a synonym of the expression lipstick lesbian in some cases. That means that cisgender straight women should not use the term to describe themselves, as it would be considered appropriation.[note 1] Because there are many stereotypes surrounding femininity, the term femme is often used to subvert cultural expectations about how a woman should look like. For this reason, many (but not all) people that identify as femme do not try to adhere to these stereotypes.[1] This is similar to how the word queer was reclaimed by the LGBTQ community.
Usage within the nonbinary community
Although originally the term femme was used to describe women only, its usage has been expanded to the nonbinary community.[3] It is rarely used as a standalone identity, as it normally describes nonbinary people that have a feminine gender expression. This might lead to difficulties for the femme-identifying individual caused by the false assumption that all nonbinary people have an androgynous expression.[4]
Controversy
The usage of this term by people who do not identify as women is a bit controversial. Some people claim that in the same way that nobody uses the words bear or twink unless they are gay men, nobody should use words such as femme or butch unless they are women. Therefore, they consider it appropriation.[2]
Flags
There is no universally-accepted flag for the femme identity, but several have been proposed. Below are some of them.
See also
Further information
- Donish, Cassie (5 December 2017). "Five Queer People on What 'Femme' Means to Them". Vice. Retrieved 8 June 2020. (note: article contains reclaimed slurs)
- "The Many Definitions (and the Continuing Evolution) of the Word "Femme"". them. 19 July 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tonic, Gina (24 August 2016). "What Does Femme Mean? The Difference Between Being Femme & Being Feminine". Bustle. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 On the appropriation of femme on Lesbians over everything (lesbiansovereverything.com)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Shewan, Briana (15 February 2019). "Are you Femme? What Femme Isn't and What it is". affirmativecouch.com. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
Femmes may have any gender identity; some consider femme their gender identity, whileother femmes may have a different gender identity (such as transwoman, nonbinary, cis-woman, genderfluid, agender, etc.) and consider femme their gender expression
- ↑ smith, s.e. (27 April 2015). "Beyond the binary: Yes, nonbinary femmes exist". this ain't livin'. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
Notes
- ↑ Note that, in French, femme means woman. This article is about the English usage of this word.
