“In the most basic terms, Butch-Femme means a way of looking, loving, and living that can be expressed by individuals, couples, or a community. In the past, the Butch has been labeled too simplistically the masculine partner and the Femme her feminine counterpart. This labeling forgets two women who have developed their styles for specific erotic, emotional, and social reasons. Butch-Femme relationships, as I experienced them, were complex erotic and social statements, not phony heterosexual replicas. They were filled with a deeply lesbian language of stance, dress, gesture, love, courage, and autonomy. In the 1950s particularly, Butch-Femme couples were the front line warriors against sexual bigotry.”
[Business Owner/Consultant, Grandmother, Mother, Activist, Friend, Sage, Sarcastic Observer of The World | Seattle, Washington]
“I wish people knew, understood, that it’s not about playing a role—one of us is the man and one of us is the woman. The butch/femme dynamic is about so much more than that and most people, many lesbians included, never bother to ask or learn.
I wish the heteronormative culture had the ability to expand beyond itself and understand that being femme and lesbian doesn’t mean you are confused and that being masculine of center doesn’t mean she wishes she were a man. That fact that I am a lesbian is a critical part of my identity and I don’t want, and don’t accept, anyone saying “it doesn’t matter, I just see you as a person”. I get the idea behind it but that makes me invisible. It does matter, it matters to me and influences my life and choices in everything I do. I want straight people to get that. Beyond that, I wish the politically correct lesbians, the “sporty” dykes, the “I don’t want a label” lesbians would simply be respectful that my identity, my gender even, is a Femme Lesbian. And Butches need to understand it’s not a competition about who it’s harder for. We’re Gay, it’s hard for all of us sometimes.”
yall on here: kljfhlskdjghslkjg us gays are useless! lol we cant do anything right ugdigxixhlcohc cant cook, cant drive, cant read, CANT count. we just out here being big gay disasters! asdfghjgfdkjfk we’re all just a bunch of big clueless dumbasses :) <3
Taking misogynistic stereotypes for feminine women and repackaging them as just cute things that Femmes do is both sexist and homophobic.
There is nothing inherent about being Femme which prevents me from understanding how to operate power tools, build furniture, fix a car, or do any other traditionally “masculine” activities. What a shitty thing to imply, even in jest. Do better, folks. This is tiring.
Our community should not just replicate tired old stereotypes and drape them in a rainbow flag. Ask more of yourselves and each other.
I had the chance to be among amazing artists that Milano PrideandMana Project Studio contacted to make a series of pictures tribute to lgbtqia important characters who have stepped on this earth. So I took the occasion to draw one of my favourite music artists, Chavela Vargas!
“Chavela Vargas is proof of how beautiful contradictions are and how senseless it is to call them that. Costa Rican, in the 60s she asserts herself in a male oriented musical genre (the ranchero music). Her only religion: life. She wears a red poncho, she smokes, she drinks, she shoots with a gun and she loves women. In her list of lovers Frida Kahlo and Ava Gardner. So to sum it up: this atheist costarican butch lesbian and alcoholic is one of the most interesting and sensitive human beings who have walked, screamed and struggled her way on this earth and she is now without a doubt the symbol, the heart, of a very manly music genre, in a foreign land (Mexico) which is also a traditionalist, machista and catholic country. Que guapa!”
