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so i’ve been back from the femme conference for 24 hours and every time i’ve tried to sit down and write about it, i’m too overwhelmed to do so. who knew that 2.5 days could really feel like a month, where being around people of various shared communities that are separate at times and converging at others could so quickly feel like home, that i’d go to chicago excited and leave with a heart full and achey with missing?
to answer the questions i’ve received from readers and from friends: the femme conference was amazing. it was validating and caring, but it was also intense and hard. there was support and there was community, as much as there were the reminders of how much further we need to go to be good to each other as femmes. as loving and thoughtful and supportive as we are to our butches and our bois and to our allies, we need to be good to ourselves and to each other.
i have so much to write about, but need a little bit of time to do so. staying in a hotel room with five other people, meeting new and inspiring friends around every corner, and trying to keep my game up with the handsome company who traveled all the way from cali to hang with me and my crew makes for little processing time. i promise that more is coming though. i’ve got the works of a creative non-fiction piece in my head, as well as a heck of a lot to say about allyship, about solid butches, the workings of a pastie-making how to, and about the improvements needed between us and this identity we call ‘femme.’ this identity that, after this weekend, i’ve never been more proud to call my own.
Filed under: chicago, femme, femme conference, femmes, wordpress | Tags: blogger, chicago, femme, femme conference, femmes, wordpress
well, thursday it’s off to the femme conference in chicago! this week has been so busy preparing – there are *twelve* of us from the femme mafia twin cities roadtripping together, not to mention another member meeting us in chicago, as well as a handsome out-of-state friend i met at an academic conference a few months ago. full reports when i get back! i’ll have access to a comp, but i’m guessing not much time to do on-site blogging. we’ll see!
also, i’m thinking of making the move of femme FATale over to wordpress. while blogger suits me relatively fine, i like the option of being able to keep posts private and only accessible via password. i thought this was some fancy html magic you were all using, but it turns out that it’s just another awesome wordpress feature! my readership has been increasing more and more and with it comes the possibility of people stumbling on here that needn’t read certain things, things i want to keep to a select audience, etcetera, thus the switch. i’ll have more info about the move as it happens, but i’m guessing over the next few weeks?
for now though, off to chi-town!
xo.
Filed under: bestie, chicago, femme, femme conference, femmes, yay | Tags: bestie, chicago, femme, femme conference, femmes, yay
Here’s a guest post from my fellow Femme Mafia Twin Cities member (and bff!) spreading the word about the femme conference! We can use all the publicity around this that we can get, so if you’re able to do so, please re-post this guest entry on your own blog and leave a comment here so that we can thank you from the bottom of our hearts. xoxo – hussy red
What: Femme2008 Conference: The Architecture of Femme!
Who: Femme Collective, along with speakers Dorothy Allison, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Julia Serano
When: August 15-17, 2008
Where: Chicago Wyndham O’Hare
How: Register online! Registration is still open, and is $95. You can get all the conference details at www.femmecollective.org.
Guest post by Charlotte Albrecht, Femme Mafia Twin Cities
For months now, I have been looking forward to attending Femme2008: The Architecture of Femme this August in Chicago. It has been just a few years since I started to claim a femme identity and only in the last year that I began to find community and connect with other femme-identified and femme-supportive people. As a mixed race light-skinned femme who grew up steeped in middle class white American culture, my models for femininity were clear and, like many other girls, I learned to examine all the ways that I deviated from this norm. When I started to acknowledge my desire for female-bodied people to myself and to those around me, I found myself wanting to be visible to those I desired. This desire coupled with my longstanding understanding of myself as “not feminine enough” added up to a gender presentation that was not true to myself. It wasn’t until a few years later when I met femmes of my age who encouraged me to embrace whatever feminine parts of me there were, that I ceased apologizing for dressing up and accessorizing, and, more importantly, started to think critically about the relationship between my own femininity and my sexual desire.
I see the Femme Conference as a unique opportunity to push myself further to think about the numerous forms ‘femme’ can take – shaped endlessly by each of our cultural and social locations, sexual desires, gendered selves, and outward appearances – and how I can support other people in their own journeys. I am particularly looking forward to meeting others from across the country who are organizing for femme visibility in their communities and actively connecting this work to radical liberatory politics.
You might be asking, but what is femme? Femme can mean many things, and if you ask a hundred femmes what it means to be a femme, chances are, you’ll hear a hundred different responses. Since femme is a complex, varied identity, it is frequently misunderstood. However, we can say that femme is based in a queer subculture of radical femininity. It can be both a sexual and gender identity. Femme is a queered, transgressive, stand-alone version of femininity that can be constructed independent of and/or intimately connected to biological sex.
Femmes have been both underrepresented and misunderstood within and outside of queer communities. The Femme Conference is an important and exciting time for femmes and allies of all walks of life to increase visibility and create radical queer femme community. It will be full of amazing performances and workshops, as well as a powerhouse keynote lineup: Dorothy Allison, Julia Serano, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Veronica Combs a.k.a. Vixen Noir.
So join me, and let’s create some radically affirming community together. It’ll be fierce
–Charlotte Albrecht, Femme Mafia Twin Cities
Filed under: butches, chicago, femme conference, femmes, fun, genderqueer, queer, trans guys, yay | Tags: butches, chicago, femme, femme conference, femmes, fun, genderqueer, queer, trans guys, yay
click the image above for some info. on the national femme conference, which is being held in chi-town this august! i’m definitely going to be there with the femme mafia twin cities and cannot wait to see the amazing keynotes that are lined up, as well as the variety of workshops and performances. also, the femme conference is all-inclusive, so all the hot non-femme queers out there are welcome too…especially all of you single butch/genderqueer/trans boy types! spread the word and let me know if you’re going! xo.
Femme FATale 