femininity and shame in a queer context
All these thoughts this morning, pleasant, and painful, and disappointing are making me think of femininity.
I think about the fight for femininity. Yes I see it as a fight, a fight to express whatever inner type of femininity lays within you. And a fight to be taken seriously while expressing it.
Perhaps more than anything this is why I fall for trans women more often than trans men. Its the complexity of femininity.
The wide array of what it can look like, and feel like and be like for different people. I want a world of a multiplicity of femininities without shaming.
It does beg the question, if we didnt have to fight to express real femininity, what would it look like? What would it be like if it didnt matter how we adorned ourselves, we would still be taken seriously, still be thought of as intellegent and complex beings?
This is not just about women, trans or cis. But about everyone. About our comfort in expressing femininity, or for many men, trans or cis, about feeling the need to run from it.
I also think about an honest negotiation of the time we put into our femininity. If the act of being feminine was perceived differently perhaps we would balance the time we put into it differently. Where the things we do to ourselves to express femininity are actively choosen, not the obsession of looking in the mirror and trying to fit a certain image.
I am thinking again and again about being a femme who doesnt shave. How much it rattles people. That seeing me they assume I shave, that I spend that time. I have digested each new piece of femmeness as I’ve gone. For now deciding what to wear and putting on make up is the most I can commit to. I used to save make up for rare occasions, but now its a routine I enjoy most days.
Besides other feminist arguments for not shaving, which have been said many times before me, the time and upkeep for it is unmanageable for me.
Although I have been disappointed with the femme conference before. Or simply not that interested in the workshops they have to offer. I get a glimpse of the range of femininity, including all ranges of gender. i can see my own place in that spectrum if only for a moment.
For me part of beauty, part of attraction is when I see those unique elements of femininity and masculinity being worn in a way so specifically you. And maybe I want someone else who can see that beauty. Rather than becoming focused on one imaginary image of who it is they desire.
I am a trans woman and lesbian. I fought transition as long as I could, tried to make a man of myself; then when I transitioned I went ultra-girly- and now, I am seeking to broaden the range of my gender expression, to be comfortable singing baritone and hugging from my male space, for example. I want to be Me, unaffected and unmodulated, rather than judging how I behave through the prism of gender roles. Instead, asking- what gives me pleasure?
That is a wonderful place to be! A hard place, a place that brings lots of challenges in society, that many people dont like or can’t relate to. But I think its an honest place. It will bring about new discoveries of yourself as well.