Over at Mombian, Dana recently wrote about representation of queers in children’s media, where last-minute reveals and extremely subtle hints of queerness are about all you’re going to get. It’s not much better in adult media, either. We all know about how queer characters are extremely likely to get offed at any minute (we’re usually just plot devices anyway), but even if queer characters are allowed to live, they get a seriously puny amount of screen time. In “Humans”, for example, hets get endless slobbery kisses, deep hugs and sexy time, all accompanied by meaningful swelling music, while the lesbos get maybe 2 minutes max to play out their romance, ‘cause who wants to get up close and personal with that shit?
Way back in the day, on butch-femme.com, there were threads where boy/girl jokes were translated to butch/femme, sometimes to comic effect, but mostly it just felt sad. Butches aren’t men and femmes aren’t straight women, after all, but we know why this happens: there just isn’t enough visibility and queer culture for us to find ourselves in, especially for those of us who don’t live where things queer are readily available. And especially for femmes, who tend to be even less represented than other flavors of queers.
We can just lose our queer femme selves as we labor so hard to get along in the straight world at work, in our families of origin, even with our oldest and dearest straight friends. It’s incredibly wearing to keep pretending that we’re fully included, when actually, we’re usually just invited in and are allowed to stay as long as we conform to straight norms. We femmes appear to look the part, after all, and sometimes it’s easier to just play along rather than explain, once more, that yes, we are queer even if you don’t think we look like we are. We get worn down. We reach a saturation point, and find ourselves depleted, with nothing left over to feed our queer selves and hearts and souls. We even forget these need feeding.
“We want to be somewhere where every other waiter, store clerk or passerby is queer,” a femme says of she and her husband’s retirement plans. They are tired of the relentless straight, cis culture in the suburbs. They are tired of unrepentant, compulsive straight people.
Are you tired, too?
This week, reach out to your queer friends. Say no to a straight event in favor of a queer one, even if it means inviting the one other queer in town over for tea.
Feed your fabulous queer femme selves and store up the love. Don’t let your queer tank run dry.
The world needs your queer femme love!
Every Monday (or Tuesday, Wednesday, even), I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was a fabulous straight femme, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.
The Total Femme 