Being a femme queer woman is great. Rather than being about outdated traditions and societal norms, it’s really about basking in all that’s feminine, while reclaiming our feminine identities and making them our own. Unfortunately, it does come with its fair share of problems and sometimes it’s a pain.
- People think we love heels. Just because we like to dress very feminine doesn’t mean we’re always down to rock a pair of heels. Actually, maybe we never wear them because we hate them and find them uncomfortable. This is fine and doesn’t make us any less of a femme. People need to stop making ridiculous assumptions, especially based on gender presentation.
- People say we don’t “look” gay. Sure, you can look at some women and have a good idea that they’re LGBTQ+, but that doesn’t mean you have to look a certain way to be queer. Just because we’re feminine, many people want to try to label us as straight and we have to constantly come out as otherwise. It’s annoying. What about when we’re sleeping with women? Do we look gay then?
- People assume we aren’t good at sports. They assume we’re just girly girls and can’t get down with some sports. Maybe this is true, maybe it isn’t, but our femininity doesn’t indicate our level of athleticism. Maybe we kick butt at volleyball and we played in college. Just because we love to wear lipstick doesn’t mean we aren’t down to get dirty in the sand. This is just a total misconception.
- We get a hard time for dating butches. People say some really stupid thing to us sometimes like, “Why don’t you just date a guy?” or, “She must be the guy in the relationship.” Newsflash: men aren’t needed to form a relationship. Some femmes are perfectly fine dating more masculine women just because that’s what we like. We don’t owe anyone an explanation.
- We get called “hot” if you date another femme. People have seen way too much porn—they think it’s an erotic movie coming true when really we’re just trying to do our thing. We’re not a walking porn advertisement, We’re two human beings. It’s annoying AF to be objectified just because we’re both feminine.
- Passing for straight is a double-edged sword. Sure, on one hand, it’s kind of nice to not have to deal with bigots regularly because we don’t look queer. It can be cool to fly under the radar and be able to just live our lives. On the other hand, we miss out on feeling like we’re part of the LGBTQ+ community sometimes.
- People doubt our sincerity. It’s not uncommon for “you don’t look gay” to snowball into “you’re not really gay.” People make ridiculous assumptions based on how feminine we look. They doubt that we’re sincerely into women despite having all the qualifications we need: we like women. This is especially hard for those who are bisexual. Bisexual femme women get questioned the most.
- It’s harder to pick up women. It’s easy to glance across a room at a woman that’s more butch and assume that she’s a lesbian. Wherever she goes, people mostly know she likes women. Femme girls, on the other hand, don’t have this same benefit. We have to show that we’re gay by approaching and hitting on another woman. Even then, sometimes queer folk can be suspicious of our sincerity. I mean, we could just be straight women who got too drunk.
- People think we take the “feminine” role in a relationship. What does that even mean anyway? Gender roles are garbage. Nonetheless, people think they have to buy us dinner and treat us like dainty princesses. This is all quite unnecessary, though admittedly it does sometimes feel kinda nice.
- Guys think they can “turn” us. Since they’re making the assumption that we’re not gay or at least not THAT gay, some men think they can “turn” us straight again. This means men sometimes come onto us despite it being totally unwanted or they talk about how they could make us like guys. This is such a gross problem. I wish men would just leave femme women alone, especially gay ones.
- People assume our girlfriends are just friends. If we have a girlfriend (specifically one who’s also femme), then people just assume that she’s our friend rather than our partner. They see two ladies and don’t think twice that we might be a couple. This makes for shocking many people when we kiss or do any other PDA. It’s kind of annoying having to deal with the shock factor because to us, it’s just no big deal.
