Click here for the larger version.

In honor of the Femme Conference which starts tomorrow (more info at the Femme Collective site or my post a while ago) I thought I would post something gender-related. It isn’t exactly naked skin, so half-nekkid might be a little bit of a stretch, but sometimes clothes can make me more naked than nakedness ever could.

The above images (yes, there is a second image if you click on the image above) are representations of me, really a mixture of my drag king and drag queen sides, hence the title, drag quing. All of the clothing I am wearing is mine, the shirt is actually the same shirt I wore to my Junior Prom, all those years ago, though I had a different black suit (not pinstriped) and a pink tie on (which matched my date’s dress–also pink hair and pink socks to match). I love suits, both on myself and on others.

Gender is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, specifically my gender but also gender in general. Sometimes I miss the butch side of me, the side which used to be most prominent, but has now taken a back seat to my femme-ininity. I sometimes wonder where that butch went, the baby butch I was in high school has morphed into this femme identity, and sometimes I want to bring my butch back.

Recently I shaved Master’s head, and ever since I have been missing my own short hair, my own shaved head. At the same time I love the long hair that I have now, it is the longest it’s been since 8th grade, approaching where it was then, even. I have these mixed emotions about it all. It’s not like I think I have to pick butch or femme, that I have to be one or the other. I know that I settle somewhere in the middle, and that I can decide what gender I feel like expressing at any given moment, on any given day. But it is still hard to reconcile the genders within me, as society makes it difficult to be in that middle-ground.

So, this is my blending of my identities. The long red hair, red lips, red fingernails, with the black pinstripe suit and tie. You can’t tell from the way I’ve cropped it, but I also had on a fedora, a short black skirt, fishnets, and my black doc martins. Perhaps someday, once I get my tripod and a remote for my camera, I’ll show you the whole package. This is my genderqueerness, and I thought you all might like to see it.

One of the terms I have in my lexicon but also something that I could expound upon for quite some time. I was talking with someone recently about my idea of the gender galaxy and she said something about liking femininity, not wanting to give it up. I kind of balked at her and asked how that was what I was saying at all. I find it so ridiculous that people assume that taking gender off of a binary means that femininity must go away.

On one hand, it makes sense, because a lot of the work of the feminist movement has been, basically, to do the same work as patriarchy and discredit femininity only from the other side of it, discrediting it from the inside, because it’s constructed. One thing I love about the idea of performativity is that it names everything as a performance, the constructed nature about the way we think about gender, but it doesn’t mean that we all don’t have some sort of pull toward one or many types of gender expression.

But, I digress. The term “gender galaxy” first appeared in Expanding Gender and Expanding the Law: Toward a Social and Legal Conceptualization of Gender that is More Inclusive of Transgender People by Dylan Vade, published in 2005 in the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law. He says:

I suggest a non-linear alternative conceptualization, which I call the gender galaxy. The gender galaxy is a three-dimensional non-linear space in which every gender has a location that may or may not be fixed. For instance, butch woman is one particular gender location. Feminine FTM is another gender location. These are two different valid gender locations that are not linearly related.

The article is fascinating, and I highly encourage you to read it as well, for further information of his explanations. He mentions that generally when we try to go away from the two options of (he uses male and female but to me those are sex categories rather than gender, and so I would say masculine and feminine) gender we move it onto a spectrum instead of just a one-or-the-other option. However, moving it onto a spectrum means it is still grounded in that binary, and his idea of a gender galaxy is moving away from that, as mentioned in the quote above.

Gender galaxy is a term that Sinclair of SugarButch has written about and defines, and I highly encourage all you who haven’t to look at his brilliant writings on the subject. One of the best examples of his writing about the gender galaxy comes from his telling of his journey of learning how to navigate within the gender galaxy and finding his identity as butch:

It took such a long time for me to come to comfortably sit in this butch identity, for me to (if we’ll continue the metaphor) navigate the gender galaxy, and find a comfortable orbit around an identity label. Some of us don’t ever settle into that – some of us are radical little spaceships that explore treasures from all sorts of different worlds and words that we orbit. I guess the trick is, in my opinion, to simply find the routes that are the best to navigate (not necessarily the easiest, but the most satisfying), the orbits where there is plenty of oxygen, the alliances that create treaties and share resources and have excellent adventures.

We basically have to make our own gender galaxy maps. And while some gender mapmaking tools – queer theory, gender theory, postmodern theory, queer literature, smut and the language of lesbian desires – while some tools help immensely, I still couldn’t quite escape the praxis, the application of the theory, because of the ways that the social constraints and social policing affected my own process deeply.

I’m working on a post of my own personal galaxy map to femme, how I’ve gotten here, what it means to me, and I’m hoping to be done with that soon. In the meantime, you have Sinclair’s to reference and my ideas of gender galaxy to ponder, as follows.

Basically I see the gender galaxy as having lots of little solar systems, with the sun or focal point of that solar system being a certain gender identity. There are some people who stay in orbit around one sun. Some are closer than others, like the difference between Mercury and Jupiter, and some are farther away and have irregular courses like Neptune. Still others are asteroids or comets, moving around multiple solar systems, moving through the gender galaxy itself without one focal point or another. Some people may inhabit two planets or three or four. The beauty of the gender galaxy is the limitless amount of possibilities.

Obviously, as my own gender identity includes femme and therefore includes femininity (or, femmeininity) I am not anti-femininity, nor do I believe that gender should be abolished or that the gender galaxy is getting rid of gender, on the contrary. Gender is even more emphasized in some ways in the gender galaxy, except instead of confining it the gender galaxy makes gender overly available. Opening up gender from a gender binary or even a gender continuum to a gender galaxy makes it so that there are no expressions of gender that are considered incorrect. We would no longer be able to fail at gender, either, as there is no set limits as to what gender is or could be.

By Athens Boys Choir, “a gender-deviant, multi-media, spoken word/hip-hop extravaganza.” Found via Ellie Lumpesse and Feministing. I absolutely love it, and so even though many of you will have seen this already, I’m still reposting it for those of you who may not be reading Ellie (though you should be).

Pansexual is one of the identities I embrace, usually pan or omnisexual when I don’t want to get into my definition of intellisexual or my use of the word queer. I’m all about multiple identities that mean the same thing with slight differences.

It also features Team Gina who I’ve posted a video by before, AND who I am going to go see tonight! I’m so super excited about that. Go watch ButchFemme and Rock The Like by Team Gina on YouTube, or go to their myspace page and listen to some of their other songs. I love them. So excited!

Another wonderful femme resource found via Sinclair Sexsmith.

The FemmeCast is amazing, I’m listening to the third cast right now about fat femme self esteem. I absolutely love it. They just finished a segment about the Femme Conference which I still desperately want to go to! I wish I had money. Alas. If anyone out there needs a roommate I may be able to make it happen… I doubt it, though. Anyway, back to the cast info.

FemmeCast: The Queer Fat Femme Podcast Guide to Life is an audio newsmagazine for Queer Fat Femmes, Fatshionistas of all sexualities and Queers of all genders. Hosted by Bevin Branlandingham with a cadre of regular contributors, we’re discussing dating, fat fashion, social justice, friendships, sex, gender, tranny talk, culture, travel, community and feature new music by Queer artists. A whimsical This American Life meets a radical queer how-to novel with MTV generation timing, FemmeCast will keep listeners laughing, connected and inspired.

There is a lot of amazing information within this cast, and I can’t wait to listen to the other episodes. It has made me laugh and made me feel better about myself to hear all of these wonderful fat femmes and fat femme lovers talk about how awesome and fabulous it is to be/love a fat femme. I mean, how awesome is that? What would you rather listen to than something which will make you feel better about yourself?

Found via SugarButch here.

“The Femme Collective proudly presents “Femme2008: The Architecture of Femme,” an international conference celebrating queer femininities August 15th through August 17th 2008 at the Chicago Wyndham O’Hare: 6810 N. Mannheim Rd. near O’Hare International Airport. The conference will feature three full days of programming, including keynotes, workshops, panels, performances and even a film festival. Regular registration is $75 through July 15th, 2008 and then registration will go up to $95 for late registration, which is open through the conference. Registration covers all of the conference events and can be made by going to www.femmecollective.com.”

I would absolutely love to be able to go to this, but I doubt I will be able to go. Chicago is far away from me, and although I have been aching to go to a conference (mostly kink ones, but queer ones too!) I don’t really have the money to do so. Some of my favorite idols will be there for me to gawk at and drool over. I thought some who read me might be interested in this, although most of you probably read about it from Sinclair already, but, it still deserves repeating!

Like Sinclair, I’m going to repeat The Femme Collective’s mission statement, because of it’s fabulousness: Femme Collective is committed to creating conferences by Femmes, about Femmes, and for Femmes and their allies. We understand that Femme is more complex than just being a queer person who is feminine; it is a part of how we interact with and shape our world as queer academics, activists, artists, homemakers, parents, professionals, students, teachers, etc.

For all the details go to The Femme Collective’s site.

The paper I wrote for my Gender and Sexual Orientation class. It is rather long and somewhat academic.

Simone de Beauvoir (1949) states in The Second Sex “one is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one.” Judith Butler (1990) asserts in her analysis of gender in Gender Trouble that woman is to copy as copy is to copy, therefore there is no original when speaking of traditional gender roles or gender in and of itself, it is all a reproduction of something else. If these two statements are taken to be true, than anyone could become a woman, a man, or any other gender role which they desire. If women are not born then no other gendered identity is born either. Is gender, then, whatever we make of it?

Traditionally in our society gender roles are supposed to follow the sex which the gendered body is representing. Male bodies grow up to be men/masculine and female bodies grow up to be women/feminine. This isn’t always the case. Transgendered people throw off these two neatly defined gender categories which are socialized into us from day one. While multiple definitions can be applied to the term ‘transgender,’ it is generally and broadly defined as any gender deviance from the (two) traditional socially accepted genders (OutProud, 2007).

The term femme can have multiple meanings and interpretations as well: “[m]any femmes are lesbians, but femmes are also drag queens, straight sex workers, nelly fags, all strong women and sassy men” (Camilleri & Rose, 2002). Some have gone so far as to say “[t]rying to define femme is like trying to capture the essence of mystery” (Drinkwater, 2006) because it is an extremely subjectively defined identity, as all identities are. Specifically in this paper, however, the use of the gender femme in relation to genetic females who identify as femme will be examined. (more…)

I found this through my sister a while ago, and I just love it so much. We’re reading about butch/femme this week in Gender & Sexual Orientation, which made me want to post this for everyone, ’cause everyone needs to see it.

It’s simply called ButchFemme and by a pair in Seattle with wonderful lines like:
“you don’t see as many of them anymore, not like back in the day, you know, when they had to wear three pieces of women’s clothing not to be arrested…”
“I like butch girls and I cannot lie. You other femmes can’t deny, when a butch walks in all the femmes wanna fuss ‘cause there’s one of them and thirty of us”
“sometimes I miss the butch/femme dynamic”
“I like a girl whose pants hang off her ass. I like a girl with a little bit of body mass. I like a girl who knows she makes me gawk at her star tattoos, sun glasses, and mohawk.”
“Write me letters, bring me flowers, screw me all night for hours and hours.”
A cute little flag to the hanky code (“Hey butch girl i’m kind of having a problem, I see from your hanky that you’re flagging a bottom. It’s not that I want to be a sterotype, a passive femme girl, receptive, polite. But come on, is your bark worse than your bite? are you really gonna make me Top you tonight? i’m not trying to be predictable, but you’re going to have to pin me against this wall.” “Oh, is that what that bandana meant? Oh, no, I must have had that in the wrong pocket or something. No… no, no… I’m a Top, I swear!”)
and so many more.

Team Gina’s myspace page