Being a femme lesbian
Growing up, I used to think, I can’t be gay because I am not good at soccer or at basketball.
I was a kid and a teen during the 90’s and the 2000’s. Gay marriage became legal in my home country of Canada in 2005, 10 years before our neighbours to the south adopted this humane law.
So, I knew what gay marriage was, and I also knew that lesbians existed.
In fact, what I didn’t know was that it was still illegal to be a married same-sex couple in other places in the world.
I am very lucky to have grown up in Canada, because in a way, for my self-esteem and my self-acceptance as a gay child, that ignorance was bliss until I found out.
However, by the time I found out that the lgbtq+ community was not as accepted around the world comparative to how well they are accepted at home, I didn’t think I was eligible to be apart of the community. I didn’t fit the stereotypes that I believed allowed you to be a lesbian.
I wasn’t good at fixing things around the house or mowing the lawn for example. I would clearly need a man for that?
I went to catholic French school all throughout my life. Thus, gay people were not really a thing that I saw. I remember a teacher at school, Mme Tina, and she was a traditionally butch lesbian.
I didn’t look like her and I also wasn’t attracted to her. I liked Mme Tina a whole lot, but I’m still not sure I had a crush on her, like so many people who end up sleeping with women do on their female teachers growing up. But to be fair, I also didn’t have a crush on any of my guy teachers where as my girl friends would goo goo ga ga over them.
I feared something was wrong with me at times. I definitely felt more asexual than anything. I didn’t seem to be driven by sex like most of my friends were. I wasn’t dying to try things out or to touch each other’s private parts. To be honest, I was kind of grossed out about all of it when I was past the age where it was considered normal to think genitals were gross. I just wanted to go to my room and read books and try to survive the hell that was my parent’s divorce at the time.
I do remember the first time I kissed a girl and thinking, oh shit, we have a problem here.
I was drinking at a house party when my best friend and I kissed. I don’t remember how we decided we were going to kiss, but I do remember wanting to go all the way with her and wanting to go somewhere where we could be alone- whatever that meant at the time. I just wanted the moment to extend itself into more. I remember thinking, I’d love to be with her in this moment forever. I had never felt that when I was kissing boys.
I got sober by morning, and tried to forget the whole thing - chalking it up to being really tipsy. Until it happened again. And again.
At one point, I was developing a real drinking problem simply because it was the only time I allowed myself to be gay.
Because I am femme, I present in this heteronormative culture as someone who is straight. So, when it came to what people assumed of me romantically and or sexually, it was always assumed that I was a straight girl since I was a girly girl.
There’s a certain kind of pain that comes with someone telling you who you are for you, and feeling like there is no way to assert your truth, because you’re not even sure what it is yet.
You start to do what is expected of you to fit in and to belong.
There are stereotypes around being a lesbian that I think this generation is breaking more so than ever.
You’ve got Cammie Scott and Shannon Bevridge. Stevie Boebi.
Kate and Sarah who were just on Ellen this week getting engaged.
Fletcher who is writing hits on loving/ heartbreak with another girl and making music videos showcasing same sex relationships.
Femme lesbians are not only normalizing that a lesbian doesn’t have to look a certain way, but also that the way we present has more to do with our gender expression, than our sexuality.
In my last relationship, I got into some heated arguments with my girlfriend about this. She leans on the side of non binary and is a surfer lesbian type. You can hear us on the podcast here. She doesn’t wear makeup, can fix a shower leak, loves to hike — that kind of chick.
Whenever we would meet a woman who was gay or bi who was very femme presenting, even she, someone who sleeps only with women, and is ONLY attracted to femme women, would question their sexuality because of the way they presented in their gender expression.
Kind of like, is this too good to be true? You sure you won’t go back to a dude?
I’d end the discussion with, BUT YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT SOMEONE LIKES OR THEIR INTERESTS OR HOW THEY LIKE TO DRESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATION.
I think that’s the biggest mistake my mom made when I would try to come out to her as a teen. She assumed my gender expression had to do with my sexual orientation… honestly because she didn’t know any better. I’d say things like, “hey I think I might be gay.” And she wouldn’t judge me or tell me no necessarily, she’d just offer, “Babe, I don’t think you are. You’re such a girly girl.”
Back then, I didn’t have language to offer my experience as valid, and I was still confused myself about what I was feeling, so I’d just nod and agree and try to make being straight-ish work.
In college, I began to identify as bi, though I didn’t come out publicly or make a formal announcement on Facebook at the time. I never hid that I sometimes slept with women or that I was attracted to women and had romantic feelings for women if it came up in my conversations or if friends or partners asked me throughout my young adulthood. So in my mind, I was never straight, I just thought I wasn’t allowed or eligible to be FULLY GAY. I thought bi was representative enough, though I always felt broken in my sexuality if I was sharing it with men. I thought that was a me problem in the sense that I could overcome it if I tried hard enough.
It was so isolating to feel like I wasn’t taken seriously when I wanted to discuss or unpack my sexuality during my college years that I just completely disconnected from my sexuality. Dudes would tell me it was hot I wanted to hook up with girls (if they were also femme eye roll) but would get mad at me if I would get serious about it. Whereas lesbians told me I’d end up with a man and to stop wasting their time. And therapists who were not LGBTQ friendly would tell me my feelings of homosexuality were stemming from trauma and not from my truth.
My ex partner who was a cis man often gaslit me when I would bring up my concerns around my sexuality - telling me I’d want to have our sex life be lively with time as I healed my sexual trauma. No one knew what to say when I’d say “but I felt like this way before I was raped.” They’d mutter something about maybe how my dad fucked me up or something and that’s why I hated men or felt turned off sexually. But I never hated men…
And it was complicated because I am panromantic, which means I can be in love with anyone regardless of gender, but I am generally asexual toward men.
What I found out when I let myself explore is that I am not asexual when it comes to women. I’m both sexually + romantically attracted to women. So if you want to get official with labels, I am a lesbian who is also capable of being panromantic in the right cases. Sexuality, and romantic attraction, much like gender, is on a spectrum. It’s actually quite rare to be 100 % gay or 100 % straight. But yet, we expect ourselves to be either or. OR we have that weird option in society to be bisexual the way it is prescribed in stereotypes as well, which we thinks means, 50 % dudes, 50 % gals. And if you’re a woman, it’s like … you like to hook up with girls but you want to end up with a guy. I know multiple bisexual women who are married to a woman, so that last societal expectation is also incorrect. Bisexuality itself can be on a spectrum too. You can be bisexual and feel like you’re 90 % into women and 10 % into dudes, or vice versa.
But this is the important bit to retain right now: Sexual orientation (who you love + who you are attracted to) and gender expression (how you present) isn’t the same thing, and is not indicative of each other.
Yeah maybe a more masculine presenting woman will end up being a lesbian, but it’s not a prerequisite. I know quite a few masc women who love to do all the stereotypical lesbian stuff who are happily into cock.
But here’s the thing:
When I came out last year as gay officially after doing some gruelling inner work for years that ended up in my ultimate liberation, I feared I wouldn’t be accepted into the community as a gay woman because I was so femme - sort of like what happened when I tried to figure it out properly in college. I was terrified that I’d be bound to have to stay within my bi girl limits.
I thought, maybe I need to dress differently. Wear less red lipstick. Be less me. Hide the fact that I was engaged to a man before. Pretend I always knew clearly.
I secretly crave that people assume I am gay. I come out constantly because no one does.
When I walk in the airport, as an example of somewhere public, men look at me, double takes or ups and down, trying to connect with me.
Women barely ever do and it makes me straight up sad. (Though it’s changing. Last night I caught a girl looking at me and when she saw me looking back, she waved and apologized for starring stating I was very pretty. I said thank you and then happy danced because I HAVE MADE IT!!!)
I joke that I have to wear key items to get women thinking OH MY GOD MAYBE SHE IS GAY so they will hit on me.
Typically, if I am interested in someone, I will have to do the first move, because they’ve already assumed that I am straight. And unlike straight cis men, women don’t feel entitled to your time and space if they don’t know you are interested already. ;)
But for real… I decided that I wasn’t going to change who I am to be who I am.
I am bold and I go after what I want in all aspects of my work and business life, so I channel that energy in my private romantic life as well if I need/ want to. Which also brings me to my last share of this post, the way we express our masculine and feminine energy doesn’t just have to do with what we choose to wear or if we are into make up or not.
I consider myself pretty dominant and masculine in the way that I operate in the world. I was that way even when I was in relationships with men. I like to earn money, provide for my family, and do more traditional male gender roles in that way.
Before I came out as fully gay, I often ended up in relationships with men who were more home-making than me thus carried the traditional female gender role more evidently than I did.
So I will leave you with two main takeaways:
1) Believe people when they tell you who they are.
First, it takes immense courage to define our identities if we choose to do so. So don’t be that asshole who invalidates a person right off the bat by asking a question like, “are you sure, because in 2016, you were SO INTO CHAD?”
I think this goes both for allies and lgbtq+ community members, when someone tells you their experience, and who they are, don’t question it or put your unconscious bias or stereotypes onto them.
2) Gender expression doesn’t have anything to do with sexual orientation.
I love being a cis woman. I feel extremely cis and a trans friend once joked about me saying, “Emily is as cis as they come, and happily as gay as they come.”
I can’t speak for the trans experience, though I care about protecting my trans brothers and sisters so much - even when they aren’t present.
But I can speak for the gay experience. I love makeup-especially red lipstick. I can’t play soccer, and I will marry a woman one day.
xoxo,
Ya Girl Emily Beatrix (proud femme lesbian)