Do have a study of crossdresser Jonathan's concept of 'femme', in some of the early posts at his always thoughtful Male Femme blog, especially this one.
I find the concept interesting, intelligent and important. Of course I'm not saying it's the final word (I'm not very keen on final words), but it's a good word. xx
The term 'femme' maybe ok when its used in association with presentation, like "portray such a femme image" or "upping his femme"
ReplyDeleteBut.. "inner femme" or "feel like a femme" ?
I don't think so...
But both 'man' and 'woman' feels kind of wrong as while I started a boy, I didn't quite grow up to be a real man, nor do I want to, and I can't really think of my self as woman either or think that I have a inner woman as the girl never got to grow up...
So I think I am a guy with a "inner girl", or just a plain girl, if I am able to forget this stupid meatsuit and separate the "me" from it...
Fair enough, Lils. xx
ReplyDeleteHi Deb - many thanks for the nice post :)
ReplyDeleteHi Lilith - for "feel like a femme" to have resonance you need to understand the butch/femme paradigm, and it's not one that's necessarily very familiar.
It was only after a lot of reading that I realized butch/femme made sense to me. It allows me a culturally-proscribed gender expression (and the desire for that) without basing it on binary sex. Thus I now regard my "femininity" as a valid human gender, applicable to any sex, rather than being "female" at all. (This also incorporates a feminist perspective on sex and gender.)
Then again, maybe you just meant it wasn't applicable to you personally. And that's fine of course :)