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Unlike butches, are lesbian women too feminine to be visible?

There are different gender expressions among women who love women. If we call the most masculine lesbians “butch”, we designate the most feminine with “fem”. Except that the latter are sometimes perceived as straight, sometimes as traitors playing the game of patriarchy. But why should their lesbianism be incompatible with their gender expression? Testimonials and decryption.

Taken for heterosexuals, far less identifiable than butches, their counterpart of male gender expression, the social identity of lesbian women remains difficult to assume in society. Victims of sexism, because they can be fans of makeup, long hair and heels, sometimes forced to masculinize themselves in order to remain identifiable with their community, a look back on an identity much more complex than it seems.

Almost systematic invisibility

“Dr Martens, is this to show your weird side?” When is the sidecut cut? enumerates Sara, a young woman who has long come out as a lesbian, regarding the comments she faces from other lesbians. A mother who still has a good relationship with her daughter’s father says she is having a lot of trouble finding her place in the lesbian community. ” On dating apps, I will always be offered threesomes with cis guys, because they should like me “, tells. This automatic suspicion of heterosexuality towards feminine-looking women is not new, it is even structuring patriarchy and the heterosexual system, according to the journalist and editor-in-chief of the lesbian magazine Good good goodMarie Kirschen:

Female identities are sometimes thought of – wrongly in my opinion – as less radical. They are seen as closer to the heterosexual norm. Obviously, we deviate less from gender norms for women when we have female gender expression. » If femininity seems less subversive at first glance, in reality it never was, as the authors Joan Nestlé explain in her book womenabout her lesbian experience in the 70s, Wendy Delorme in her autofiction fourth generationor even more recently Itziar Ziga in his documented essay Become a female dog. In these three books, the authors all tell us about the political and subversive dimension of this identity, still linked to many clichés.

An identity with a decidedly feminine gaze

In and out of the lesbian environment, I have the impression that there is a depoliticisation. You look dumber and less powerful, when you adopt feminine codes, it’s pure sexism. in turn deciphers the author Anne-Fleur Multon. In addition to the presumption of heterosexuality and the harsh or surprising remarks that this cliché can provoke, declaring oneself a lesbian and a sissy can be experienced as a double penalty, and therefore a double bill, adds the French writer of children’s literature. adult:

It’s hard to talk and claim to be a fem. Most of the women we have in mind are women who have a straight role model. In this expression of a genre that has been performed a thousand times, there is a form of visual shame in being in the closet. »

However, the subversive side of the straight order of female lesbians comes from the idea of ​​exhibiting a femininity that is not meant to seduce the male gaze, unlike straight femininity. For Marie Kirschen, “ there is something radical in affirming femininity, but to seduce women and not men, for whom it is classically intended » :

” Being a woman is a very thoughtful construction of gender : it is not the same approach to dress ‘naturally’ as a woman to seduce the male gaze, or to think about how we will dress as lesbians, to feel good about our identity and to seduce women. It requires distance: the female gaze is not thought of as an expression of a female ‘nature’, but as a social construction. »

In addition to proposing a re-appropriation of feminine codes with a lesbian gauzefeminine looks also include queer roughnesses that challenge public space, such as keeping your hair in a dress or having long hair but a undercut.

Female identity among lesbians // Source: Filadendront from Getty Images Signature
Source: Getty Images Signature Filadendront

An overlay of the stigmata

For Audrey, a black lesbian mother in her 40s, claiming to be one hasn’t always been easy:

Sometimes I felt like I had to justify who I was, why I came here [dans des espaces lesbiens] about my physical appearance. I have all the feminine codes, long hair, nails, makeup, jewelry. Being a mother immediately puts me in the straight category. At first I wanted to date girls who have children, but it’s not necessarily easier, because different problems come into play, being a parent can also be a hindrance. »

Claiming that you are a lesbian and a girl when you are at the crossroads of different forms of discrimination, racism, transphobia, validism, classism or gross phobia, adds another obstacle to coming out and to a peaceful social life, continues Anne-Fleur Multon:

There is a lack of representation of lesbians, but also of women, with many girls very standardized, little diversity. When you close your eyes and picture a typical lesbian, you don’t have a sissy in mind. I’ve already tried in one of my works to show a young, affluent, racialized girl doing ballet. He has never been represented anywhere. »

Because, obviously, if representations are lacking, the few that exist rarely diversify. And that goes for all other lesbian identities as well. On the question of the keys to remedying this, Marie Kirschen concludes:

“Of course, they should be made visible. Talk about these identities, show their richness, analyze them to update how they play with norms. For all the reasons already mentioned, very little work is done on these issues in France. There should be many more. »


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Source: Madmoizelle

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