Femme visibility [story for Diversity Rules magazine]

The femme behind the counter had a fake red rose tucked behind their left ear, cat eye makeup and red lipstick adorning their face, hair swept back into a perfectly messy bun. We made eye contact and both nodded. Not just any kind of nod, the femme nod.

I’ve often heard people speak of the “butch nod”. That’s the nod given when one butch or masculine presenting queer usually female identified person passes another on the street. What most people don’t realize is that there is an assortment of acknowledgements given between LGBT and queer identified people on the street. Acknowledgments such as nods are signifiers. They are an image or action that signifies that you are “one of us”.

These signifiers could be anything from a same sex couple holding hands, to sharing a long admiring glance, to perhaps the way the dapper trim of their outfit spells out your shared experience.

So, while I was standing there, admiring my fellow femme, my friend noticed the way I was looking the femme up and down. He said, “I see you’re checking them out. They’re one of your people.” While, yes, they were an attractive person, I wasn’t checking them out, I was reveling in the glory of the gift I had shared with the femme. When I stepped up to the counter, the anonymous femme had made eye contact with me, and gave me “the nod”.

No one had ever given me the nod before. I’m a female bodied, mostly femme presenting genderqueer. I’m bisexual and pansexual identified, so I label myself simply as queer. That’s a whole other story, however. The fact is that I look feminine, sometimes over the top. I am perceived as a heterosexual woman on the street, whether I want to be or not.

The nods go to the butches. My attendances at gay bars or LGBT events is perceived as being from an ally’s perspective. There is a societal narrative that queer women are always butch, and therefore, femmes must be straight. It creates the cycle of femme invisibility.

There is a heteronormative and patriarchal idea that feminine expression is only done for the male gaze. Many of the ideas of queer femme presentation actually are trying to do the opposite. Keeping in mind that everyone has their own reasons for dressing or acting as they do, and that this idea is subjective, femme presentations are often done to queer the idea of women as objects of men’s desire. It can be done to parody traditional ideas of women’s gender roles and dress. It may also be conducted out of the individuals desire to break free from the pressures of society to look a certain way. It may be dressing over the top, with sequins and bright colors, because that’s what one wants to do, and as a disregard for what one is supposed to do. I am getting dressed for myself and will not concern myself with the desires of others when doing so.

I’m a femme and I want to be visible in my community. I want to walk into a room and not be assumed as a straight woman. I want to see femme solidarity in the community and to spread the idea that femininity has a lot of reasons to be expressed; it is not just performed for men.

I hope that over time, I receive that femme nod, or even just a nod from any other LGBT community member, just as I did from the femme behind the counter. For all of the queer femmes out there, I send you my nod.