Femme and female

But first, here's some - maybe - final thoughts on the ole topic of femme and female, that Jonathan writes a lot about.

I am actually well aware that sexy femme loveliness is not actually what the experience of living on Earth as a woman is all about.

Could it be that what I crave is not inherently female?

I don't know. Femme and female seem so deeply intertwined. I think that 'male femme' is, if not quite  a contradiction, an inherently contrary concept. I don't think that constructs of femme can discard the femmeness of the female body, the butchness of the male one. We can only strive to be femme in spite of our outer maleness.

Could it be that an actual femaleness within me is ignited by femme on account of it being a cultural representation of ultra-femaleness?

Sometimes I want to detach my trans identification from all the femme fluff. But undoubtedly a lot of the time I just luhrve the pink femme fluffiness. Well, I think we most people some of the time want to detach themselves from how they are in sexy turned-on moments. Yet the sincere and sexy are just surprisingly different manifestations of the same character.

Do notions of femininity impact on women's upbringings, hence their whole character, in a very deep way, making gender character differences more deeply ingrained than might be evident? Do women carry inside them notions of appropriate femininity even when they don't conform to these? Same with men and masculinity of course. Is there a divide that can't really be breached by anti-sexism, causing transpeople to yearn for the other side of the divide?

I don't think that just a liberalisation of the concept of masculinity ('real men do cry' etc.) will sort things out. A complete destruction of the gender binary might be more effective.

So do us trans people inherently belong to the other side of a gender divide from our natal sex, or are we seeking liberation from the oppressive gender binary? I don't know. Increasingly though, I think trans is too deep to be explained by right-on political thinking or clever philosophical theorising.

I just love the idea that I am as I am because there is some actual femaleness in side. That's such a beautiful thought to me.

But I don't think I have the right to earnestly identify with natal women. The experience of being a natal woman is one I cannot know about. I see the female from the outside, and perhaps from some inside instinct which, even if it exists, is far from the actual experience of being an actual female in the world.

I have no comment about how women ought or ought not to be. I fully sympathise with ftm trans people, and also with women who are not trans but regard societal constructs of femininity as oppressive. I respect them hating the femmeness that I so love.

But I do  identify strongly and without apology as one of the natally male people who desires to identify with the femmeness, and who recognises that this is an important part of themselves. I think we should cast aside all the voices insisting 'we are real women' or 'we are real men - just with little kinks or psychological disorders' and be ourselves, t-people. We should be a stronger, prouder community than we are. xxx