Last week’s transgender hearing shows great progress, but much work lies ahead.
Pride should continue into July, when the gay story becomes part of the American story.
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MEREDITH STEPP
Friday, July 15, 2005
FEMMES ARE INCREASINGLY anachronistic, if not regressive, among queer women, Jennifer Vanasco suggests in “The Death of Femme” (op-ed, May 27).
She points to the growing movement among queer females of embracing masculinity and blurring gender to support her notion that femmes are “out of fashion.” Not only are they out of fashion, but perhaps not even worthy of dating, she speculates.
“The gender queer among lesbians are our current tastemakers,” she concludes, “where they go, so go we all.”
To shed the confines of gender in a society that focuses so much on two genders, we face the conundrum of taking on the existing ideas about the opposite gender in order to nullify gendering.
Though fluidity exists between masculine and feminine, it can’t be achieved without rejecting prescribed gender roles and, by default or choice, taking on the roles and traits of the opposite gender.
The presence of gender is integral to gender ambiguity. When queer women moved toward masculinity with the intent or repercussion of subverting, defining or assimilating to masculinity, we place emphasis on maleness and reinforce a gender hierarchy.
BUTCHES, BOIS, FTMs, and transmen who embrace masculinity, or even live as men, are brave dissenters in our gender-repressed society and deserve respect for living so honestly and uncompromised. At the same time, butches and bois owe equal respect to non-masculine queer women and have an obligation to honor and celebrate them.
Part of this responsibility is to acknowledge femme ability to challenge gender paradigms without relinquishing femininity.
Skirts, heels, lipstick, slacks, ties and cropped hair are visible expressions of gender. But the aesthetics of gender are not the agents responsible for tiering femininity and masculinity into a dominant and sub class.
The values assigned to the two genders are the real foundation for society’s gender ghetto, so they’re the most in need of dismantling.
As Vanasco unintentionally but poignantly demonstrates, we equate vulnerability, weakness, inanity and reticence with femininity. Conversely, that which is masculine or butch is inherently strong, smart, “emotionally savvy” and competent.
IF QUEER WOMEN uphold these mythical values and shun the women who do not abandon femininity, they are mirroring the actions of our larger, dominant society and marginalize women, straight and queer. They create a queer patriarchy.
Instead of recycling the gender status quo, queer women should model new values to represent femininity and masculinity. Nurturing butches to be sensitive, vulnerable, deferential, while empowering femmes to be strong, outspoken and unyielding is true “genderfuck,” from which all men and women can benefit.
If we truly seek diversity, we must promote it among ourselves. Valuing the roles of butch and femme, and everyone in-between, among queer women is as important as the straight world accepting an array of sexualities beyond its own.
The more manifestations of queer identity, the richer and less compartmentalized our community becomes. When queer women can escape categorization by demography or appearance, we make it harder to be stereotyped and “othered.”
Where butches are gender outlaws defying the physical trappings of gender, femmes are interlopers challenging the assumptions of gender.
Femmes offer an alternative within the all too predictable “queer alternative.” In this regard, and all the others stated before, femmes are exceedingly transgressive despite Vanasco claiming otherwise.
A Chinese proverb says that women “hold up half the sky.” Similarly, femmes hold up half our community and should be valued accordingly.
Today’s real tastemakers are femmes and the women and men who love them. Where they go, so go we all.
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