Q: What’s the difference between identifying as “fem” vs. “femme”? I’ve seen a lot of different women who are adamant about dropping the extra “me,” do you know what this choice is about? Thanks so much!! xx
there really isn’t a consensus on what the right way to stylize fem(me) is, and it seems to depend on your age, culture, and location. “femme” is certainly more popular, but there are exceptions — some elder lesbians are fond of “fem” as they consider it old school, and some lesbians of color use “fem” (e.g. black lesbians referencing stud/fem).
a lot of young lesbians have been adamant about asking nonlesbians to drop the “me” and just use “fem” as a shorthand for feminine. i regularly see discourse that repeats “just say fem, femme is for lesbians”. this started as a way to push back against the popularity of the label “queer femme”, and it would fully make sense if you think it shifts to the nonlesbian dichotomy of “masc/fem” as opposed to our “butch/femme”. but this largely doesn’t work, either, when you take into account the above lesbians who do use fem. and the fact that there is no noticeable difference when said out loud. people arguing over the internet seem to forget that.
i have also seen people who are wholly unfamiliar with the rich history of ballroom culture saying the same to drag queens using “fem(me)”. it gets positioned as ballroom culture vs. lesbian bar culture, but they are dissimilar — fem(me) is an aesthetic in ball culture. fem(me) is a role and identity in lesbian bar culture.
it’s depressing enough, but femme does feel like a losing battle for lesbians sometimes, and the discourse can be unproductive. i’ve seen friendships lost over it, and threads with hundreds of comments arguing about it. i think that instead, we should focus our collective energy on getting straight people to stop commercializing femme (those godawful “femme forever” and “femme vibes” shirts), and to stop self-describing as a word we know they could not even begin to understand.
