sydneyflapper:

shelbysphotocoloring:

African-American girl, probably around the 1920’s judging by her finger-waved hair. 

Yup - second half of the 1920s, judging from her hem length.

laulaunyc:

Here’s the shorts i’m talking about!  I’m not going to try to replicate the whole thing, that would take forever!, I’ll probably just replicate the tyrannosaurs rex and the front sun image.

via “Bossy Femme” Tumblr

wonderwomanproject:

“The femme identity is always treated with suspicion and disdain precisely because it invests itself into the qualities most commonly associated with weakness and powerlessness. Even across queer communities, we, too, are often convinced that relying on masculinity is the only way to be commanding and threatening in the face of the powers we seek to challenge. To Hollibaugh, the femme identity is always a radical one, no matter who dons it, because it works to command and threaten without reifying male status or masculinist hierarchies. It challenges power on the terms which power most fears, and refuses to forfeit any of its own desires, tendencies or passions in the process.”

—Amber Hollibaugh, My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home. Found and well-substantiated on We Are All Subversives.

garconniere:

crankyskirt:

This is gonna be good.

OKAY i was wondering where all the followers came from all of the sudden! i was waiting to put a bit more work into this baby before sharing it with the world but yes FEMME FLAGGING IS A THING, i had to make this tumblr! working on a mission statement but basically i want it to be as open and submission based as possible so start tagging your awesome manicures “femme flagging”, click the follow button, and stay tuned for more sexy femme flagging details. message me if you want to be an admin!

Tammy Rae Carland, Cell 69 / Enlargement from [i think] her Queer Youth series.

(via Queer Zine Archive - Because The Boss Belongs To Us )

I’m surprised that this is so white [since femmes and Bruce fans aren’t whiteout categories at all - especially femme re: the Harlem scene predating white regional cities ones]

otoh, going through all the expected zine issues at QZAP on AIDS, transgender, feminism, gay, race, riot grrrl, homocore - you know, politics 101 and 90’s music - pleased to see a recent one so in the fangirl genre. I really loved these kind of zines, esp. the ones with really random fan subjects.

related: butch/femme’s another category being cyclically claimed-erased-contested in ahistoric ways in recent years with the emphasis on fashion over anything else. Catch 22 - it’s kind of a negative feedback loop. So much queer and feminist criticism of the more shallow, white, hetero-normative, fashion obsessed femmes - chooses to never get past that and acknowledge the more political, POC, white underclass, sex worker, transgender, activist, PWD, rural, DIY kinda butches and femmes.

You get the politicians femmes you deserve. But there’s femme invisibility like being peripheral members of the most visible scenes, and femme invisibility like too invisible in plain sight to think femininity and fashion are your main sources of erasure.

fuckyeahfemmes:

filipinafeminist: this dress - thrifting jackpot

lesbianseparatist:

1998

i used to fangirl alison because she’s a butch who plays bass and studied marine biology.

possibilitiesof:porannarosa:

garconniere:

calumet412:

A John Cushman Kodachrome of a circus trapeze artist, taken at Soldier’s Field, c.1944, Chicago. Those arms!

wow. i’m in awe.

This is what I loved about circus - the muscular femmes, the physical discipline and experimentation without the macho stuff.

The Circus, 1870-1950 by TASCHEN (by kReEsTaL)

(via ArtSlant - Notes on Style, Violence Christina Catherine Martinez)

People hate style.

This is immediately apparent to anyone who has heard the words “How dare she!” masquerading as fashion commentary, or witnessed the gleeful ire with which a former disciple of Wes Anderson breaks down everything that is “wrong” with his latest film. Strong style is seductive, and the violence with which we initially adore it can easily turn into embarrassment and then hostility …

Choices of taste and aesthetic are so deeply rooted in ideas of self-esteem and class consciousness, concepts which are volatile enough without being freighted by a uniquely contemporary tendency to perceive these concepts as quantifiable, i.e., my personal brand has earned me more Twitter followers than you.

amydentata:

Expanded from a comment I wrote on an article by Megan Evans (Huffington Post):

Not all queer women are invisible because of femme presentation. The issue is more complicated among trans women. Some trans women are singled out for violence by the straight world and the cis world because of femme presentation. For some trans women, being femme is what makes them visible. There is another group of trans women who are occasionally read as cis, and other times read as trans. Their invisibility is temporary and random. And some trans women are regularly read as cisgender. 

When femme trans women are read as cis, they are doubly invisible until bureaucratic paper trails or honest talks about personal history are used against them. When their queerness is revealed, the outcome is different than when just revealing trans status.

If I am read as trans among queer people, not only is my queerness questioned, but my femme-ness is questioned as well. My body is coded as “male”. I’m written off as “androgynous” unless I go over-the-top in my femininity. Even then, I am granted a segregated version of “femme”, banned from the hallowed halls of cis presentation, written off as a cheap imitation or an amusing oddity.

When I’m read as cis, none of this happens. My experience becomes that of the cis “femme invisibility” narrative. But I mentally start the countdown clock to when something comes up in conversation revealing my trans status. At which point cis people immediately change how they react to my presence. I’m invisible no longer, and in their eyes, femme no longer.

My dating issues aren’t just about being invisible to other queer women. I am also denied my womanhood. Instead of being overlooked like I don’t belong, some lesbians make the case that I literally don’t belong at all. I’m not just an outlier, I’m an impostor.

This varies from person to person, and trans status isn’t the only thing that affects how femmes are read by others. I’m disabled, and this changes how others perceive my femme-ness as well.

What intersections have you encountered between femme identity and trans status? What else affects how you, as a femme, are read by others?

things that needed to be said.