How do you define your femme identity?
I define my femme identity as a reaction to the intersection of feminine gender presentation and a female-sexed body. I define my femme identity as, and a correlation to, my femalehood, my queerness, my being a lover of female masculinity and butchness, my white middle-class midwesternness, my being a survivor of incest. Shit. I define it as a problem some days, as a curse some days, as the most phenomenal thing about me some days: I don’t feel that way about this so-called female body, but the femme-/feminine-gendered-ness continues to be a space of contradiction and struggle. I’m getting to where I’m ok with that. I’m getting to where I like the way that femme looks different on me almost every day. I’m getting to where femme looks a whole lot like I imagined “grown up woman” was going to look like when I was a little kid: freedom, variety, play, laughter, jeans and long twirly skirts, pretty and scuffed knees. Grace and klutziness. Angry and joyous. Hands that are strong and soft and calloused and scarred and audacious.

How do other identities you have not only intersect with femme but also contradict it?
It can feel like every identity both intersects and contradicts, contravenes, every other identity sometimes. Sometimes it feels as though a Midwestern whiteness inherently undermines the fierceness of the loud-mouth, thickly fearless femme that I want to inhabit. There are times when being a capital-S survivor of sexual trauma is so along-the-lines of white American (= victim) femalehood that I can’t figure how to devastatingly embody them both and have them feed into rather than on one another. Ever since coming out to myself as femme, I’ve fought to retain the identity of strong-bodied woman – wanting to be the girl in high heels carrying the heavy load. Physical strength is an important piece of my own identity, and it’s been a struggle to feel as though I can be seen as undermining someone else’s identity if I can lift a whole lot of pounds. But then, I’m from farm stock, and women out thataway know how to pull (our) weight; it’s a value. It’s a necessity. Letting someone else carry mine for me is a difficult negotiation.

What are some joys of being femme?
The shoes. The word-play. The friendships and solidarities. The underminings of expectation, within and without our various queer communities. The fingernail polish. The nakedness. The conversion (recognition?) of nudity, of skin, into costume and even armor. (Did I say the shoes?) The laugher. The sexiness. The crying in public places. Our deep queerness. The sense of an actual rightness within myself, even if it’s momentary and transient. The appreciation of cleavage. The abutment of biceps and glitter; I mean, the glamour of strength, and the strength of softness. Our own contradictions, surprises, eruptions. The volatility of our erotics, our desire. Finally recognizing our multiplicities–*my* multiplicities. Ball gowns. Jeans and t-shirts. Bright, dark nailpolish digging in cookie dough, in the dirt, in language against the page, slow and thick into another’s body…

What role does writing play in community-building for you?
Writing is community and community-building for me. Reading is the primary way that I (as a white, middle-class, Midwestern girl whose family was focused on education and upward mobility) have found language for the possibilities in my life (as a girl, then as a survivor, then as a dyke, then as a sexual human, now as femme and partnered with a butch-trans husband), and I’ve often written myself into the life I desired, as well as in response to those who’ve inspired and helped create space for me (so many you-saved-my-life thanks to my ancestor writers, my fore-folks, my inspirations). I’ve often had to write the essay or the story that I most needed to read at some difficult time in my life, and have had the strongest responses from readers of those pieces. The writing workshops I facilitate are as much about affirming each of our stories and artistries as it is about participating in the creation of safe and risky community.

How does it feel to be part of the Femmethologies?
I’m deeply honored to be a part of the Femmethologies! To be one of a multiplicity of voices exploring what femme can be feels like a gift. What I hope is that these books will help to create that wider space of what our queernesses can look like, so that fewer folks spend stretches of years feeling like there’s only one right way to be (be good, be gay, be strong, be right, be queer, be revolutionary, etc.), whether or not that way is a right fit for them. I hope these collections help me/us/our communities recalibrate our gaydar, you know? So that we can better recognize and celebrate one another and ourselves.

Femme is _____ (one word only, please)
Mandelbrotian.

How do you define your femme identity?
My identity is butch, actually. I’ve come to define myself as a transgendered butch, but that term often creates more questions than answers. I wear men’s clothes, use women’s bathrooms and avoid third person pronouns. I’m polite when addressed as “ma’am” or “sir”, and gracious when others struggle with the limited pronoun choices. I haven’t yet found a pronoun that fits me perfectly, so I don’t expect it of anyone else.

How do other identities you have not only intersect with femme but also contradict it?
Answering this as a butch: I’ve noticed that my Southern manners are very useful in my identity as butch! In areas where it is contradicted, the contradiction is externally determined. Shrieking when I see a spider or being overly fond of bubble baths doesn’t contradict my own butch identity, but sometimes it contradicts others’ views of my butch identity. I just see myself as an arachnophobic bubble bath-loving butch, that’s all.

What are some joys of being femme?
I can describe the joys of being *with* a femme: They recognize me, sometimes before I recognize myself, which is the subject of my essay in this anthology. I know it’s an overused cliché and I should be smacked upside the head with the nearest copy of The Persistent Desire (which is at the moment 20 feet away), but the point remains: Femmes see me the way I want to be seen. It feels good to be known.

What role does writing play in community-building for you?
The greatest opportunity writing provides is the opportunity to tell my story on my own terms. Over twenty years ago, before the term “riot grrl” was ever coined, I was a punk rock dyke who knew only a handful of others like me. I started a band called the Ellen James Society, and after a few years of defining music in my own way and playing show after show to a tiny but passionate audience, I noticed one night that there were hundreds of punk rock dykes in the audience, singing along to every song we played. I had created exactly the community that I had sought. Now, instead of writing songs, I write essays. Putting my story out there gives others like me a way to find me, and each other.

How does it feel to be part of the Femmethologies?
Butches often tell their stories as if they sprang from the womb with a fully formed butch identity. Yet over and over I hear femmes talk about how they helped butches recognize who they are, how they guided butches to their identity and nurtured them. This is my story as well, and I am delighted to share it in Femmethology.

Femme is _____ (one word only, please)
strength.

How do you define your femme identity?
While I definitely use my femmeness to attract potential suitors, it is my something I create and use primarily for myself. As I discuss in my essay, I’ve don’t consider femininity to be an indicator of weakness, but rather power. This power is amplified by the fact that I actively choose to present myself in flagrantly feminine ways rather than simply acquiesce to gender norms. My femininity is made even more powerful because I use it to make myself happy above all others. My femme identity enables me to feel like my best, most authentic self. Therefore it is something I define as a fabulously performative and powerful choice.

How do other identities you have not only intersect with femme but also contradict it?
What a great question! I feel that all identities intersect and inform each other. I identify strongly as white, femme, feminist, queer, rural, working class, and as a survivor of sexual abuse. There’s the notion, for instance, that femmes are apolitical and frivolous. I find this idea particularly troublesome not only because of my own views and activism, but because of the many politically-oriented and activist femmes I know. Conversely, there’s the belief that feminists are not feminine, which is ridiculous. I am but one example of a wildly feminine and staunchly feminist individual.

Representations of queers frequently position them as affluent and urban—two things I am not! Many queers grew up and/or still live outside the metropolis. Likewise, there is a disturbing trend broadly of erasing poor people in the media—from advertisements to entertainment, the overwhelming images and representations are of affluent people. I see this even more with regards queers. This obscures the obstacles poor and/or rural queers encounter such as homelessness, no access to health care/insurance, un/underemployment and the like—all of which are compounded by heterosexism ad homophobia. These representations make us look like our biggest concern is which florist to hire for our weddings, as opposed to how we’re going to eat today! I don’t feel like my history or identity as a sex abuse survivor contradicts my femme identity, but bleed onto each other. My sex abuse taints everything I do with real debilitating grief and anger, but my femme identity gives me a much-needed sense of fabulosity so that when I feel worthless and sad, it reminds me to keep my head up. Sexual abuse so often makes the victim feel powerless; my femme identity helps counter this by making me feel powerful.

What are some joys of being femme?
Of the innumerable pleasures of being femme, chief among them are the sound of high heels in motion. It is a sound that commands attention. Wielding my hard, glossy nails gives me joy. Butch admiration, respect, awe, and lust are the sweetest, gooiest icing on the cake. The sensuousness of makeup—the colors, textures, smells are too good! Flipping through magazines and looking at makeup is like porn for me. Another joy is the way I am able to use my femme privilege to influence people who would discount my so-called queer looking brethren. To quote Digable Planets, I’m a creamy spy. My non-threatening (read: gender normative) self-presentation enables me to make connections with people who might discount those who “look queer.” This has been especially helpful in the rural South in which I grew up and still frequent.

What role does writing play in community-building for you?
Writing plays an ever-increasing role in community building for me. Reading about femmes was the first way I ever knew they even existed—and it was my first exposure to queer identities and communities, so it is wildly important. Since I have been out of graduate school and struggling to make a living, writing and written communication has been one of the critical ways I’ve maintained contact with revolutionary people and ideas. It has always been helpful for me in terms of clarifying my thoughts and ideas and its utility continues to grow.

How does it feel to be part of the Femmethologies?
For a country girl like me, it is truly a dream come true. Adding to the growing body of femme voices is both personally and professionally fulfilling. Representations, particularly in the media, (and to a lesser degree, academia) often have the troubling effect of homogenizing folks; as a result, we only see pieces of the picture. I am pleased to be able to represent fundamental parts myself and suspect that these volumes are at the forefront of a femme revolution!

Femme is _____ (one word only, please)
agency.

How do you define your femme identity?
I don’t know that I do. To define it would limit it, and femme to me is something that’s always growing and changing as I grow and change. It’s about being comfortable in my own skin, despite the changes that occur inside and out.

How do other identities you have not only intersect with femme but also contradict it?
Throughout my childhood I was considered a tomboy, a book nerd, a math/science geek. Those are other identities I’ve learned to embrace as a part of, but not all of, who I am.

What are some joys of being femme?
The single biggest joy is that I finally know who I am-it’s easy, it’s comfortable, and it’s empowering. I love lingerie and makeup and old faded soft men’s jeans, and I celebrate the contradictions instead of trying to force myself into someone’s idea of feminine. I’m part of a community, a strong community with a strong sense of its history and its power, and that is amazing as well.

What role does writing play in community-building for you?
Writing is everything. It’s opened up new worlds for me and taken me to places I never could have gone otherwise.

How does it feel to be part of the Femmethologies?
It’s fantastic. I’m thrilled and proud to be part of this project!

Femme is _____ (one word only, please)
sexy.

How do you define your femme identity?
The piece I wrote for Femmethology is called “I Am Not a Box”. It talks about identities as boxes. Femme one of the boxes I like to play in.

How do other identities you have not only intersect with femme but also contradict it?
The only contradiction I ever feel is that of being a boy and a girl.

Most of the time, though, it doesn’t feel like a contradiction at all.

What are some joys of being femme?
I am not femme, I’m boygirl. And for me, the joys of being boygirl are simply the joys of being alive.

…the sound of running water; the feeling of embodiment; the joy of food, of community, of sex, of love; feeling fear, anticipation, pain; transformation…

What role does writing play in community-building for you?
A good question is why communities need to be built. How did people become so isolated? I believe that systems of oppression tear communities apart through violence and create isolation. I know that is true for me, personally. Rebuilding community is one of my favorite forms of healing and is also an act of resistance.

Writing is a small part of that.

Writing does have incredible power because, unlike speech, it is reproducible. One flaw of writing is its boxiness. I am literally typing words into a box right now. Writing and identity are both boxy. Still, I like to do them.

How does it feel to be part of the Femmethologies?
Honestly, it’s intimidating. I’m going to come out here and admit it: I am really truly terrified of femmes.

I have social anxiety issues already, and throwing me in with such frighteningly beautiful people is likely to trigger a panic attack.

Femme is _____ (one word only, please)
boxy.