Where are you?
I’ve read a lot about the concept of femme invisibility in the past few months, and I’ve talked/emailed/chatted with a few of you who have told me your experiences with feeling invisible both inside and outside of the gay community. So as a butch (and someone who gets identified as gay pretty easily), I want to know more about something I don’t experience.
Some of this is motivated by my curiosity and desire to better understand your truth. What do you do to get noticed? When do you feel most/least noticeable? Who specifically do you want to notice you? What scares you about being invisible (or becoming more visible)? If you don’t feel invisible, what have you done to get to that point? These are just some of the questions I have, but feel free to add your own.
And let’s be honest, some of this is for personal reasons, too. I’ve seen you in the grocery store, the bookstore, the park, the gym … and I go through a whole process in my mind. What kind of energy is she pushing out? She’s making eye contact and smiling, but is that interest or courtesy? What is my gut instinct saying? There’s a lot to navigate on my part, too. I’ve approached women, not knowing if they were gay or straight, and the reactions stay pretty consistent no matter what: they’re either flattered or offended. I’ve had single lesbians be offended that I didn’t just automatically recognize, and I’ve had married straight women smile from ear to ear and thank me. So what do you do to get attention? What I can do to pay better attention?
To me, it’s not just about meeting potential dates. Sure, there’s that fringe benefit. But sometimes, isn’t it nice just to be out somewhere, share eye contact or a nod with someone, and just know? As in hey, I know what it’s like, and I’ve got your back. We’re in this together.
I can read about this all day long, but I want hear from you. Tell me how you feel, give me links to your favorite blog posts, share your experiences, etc. I want to see it from your side. (Or hey, butches, tell me your experiences with this, too.)
UPDATE: I compiled a few links to others who wrote about this here.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Yaaaaahhhh welllllll – I’m just coming out in my forties. This is a question I ask myself all the time. Partly because my discovery of my true nature was so exciting that I couldn’t believe ALL women weren’t really lesbians. LOL I remember in the early months, I’d be walking through like the grocery store. I’d see a young woman HANGING on the arm of her boyfriend and it would take everything I had not to go up to her and hollar “Save yourself! There’s still time! You can actually have a WOMAN!!!!!” LOL
Now I know I send off some kind of vibe, because when I tell people they’re not surprised. But I’m not butch, and I don’t think I’m really femme either.
So I guess the moral of this story is I haven’t figured out how to tell, but I have figured out how to hope. Yeah.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:48 am
I’m HERE!
I’ve actually been planning a blog post on this..
I’m very femme, I always pass as straight. I’m gay. I’m invisible.
I quite rarely get hit on by men, I think (for men at least) I must give off some vibe. And I am never ever EVER hit on by women because they always think I’m straight. I could be surrounded by ten dykes and people would pick me out as the straight one that got lost just because of how I look.
So me? I kind of fall between the cracks.
I feel like I’m stuck in never-never land.
Admittedly my gaydar sucks. But I’ll always make eye-contact with any gay women I see – I’m trying to be friendly ‘hey a fellow gaymo yay’ but they probably just think ’straight girl’ and don’t even notice.
It’s frustrating.
It would totally make my day if some random lesbian noticed I was GAY.
November 4th, 2009 at 6:20 am
For my friend’s grad school class she had to put herself in a situation where she was the minority and then write this huge paper about it. She thought about me right away so I agreed to help her. We went to a gay club and a lesbian club for the night. Then she had to interview me / ask me a whole lot of questions about me being a lesbian and my experiences and etc etc etc.
We talked at length about femme invisibility. What a concept in it’s own – sometimes difficult for my own people to get – let alone a straight girl :) But she understood what I was saying, as much as she could. It was a super thoughtful and intriguing conversation.
And this was just Monday night. What a coincidence!
November 4th, 2009 at 6:36 am
it’s amazing that i haven’t been slapped more often for flirting w/ straight girls
confidence is a huge factor here
the vibe a woman gives off is usually enough for the butch gaydar to recognize
November 4th, 2009 at 8:43 am
On my way home from ATL Pride, I saw 2 lesbians holding hands on the train in the airport. I got excited because they were older (read: about my age) and they looked all in love and stuff. I apparently looked at them too long because they just glared at me. I was *smiling* at them. It made me HAPPY to see them. The glaring made me sad on several accounts: one they felt they needed to glare at me like that on Pride Weekend in ATL. The second: that they couldn’t recognize a friendly smile for what it was. I feel like even if I try to “dyke up” the queers don’t recognize me unless I have as an accessory a big, butch dyke. People have asked me why I was wearing gay stuff, for fuck’s sake. Sometimes I get all existential about it but mostly I just say something like “I guess I have my straight girl look on today, eh?” I think I need to start wearing some sort of Big Queer Jewelry or something. Anyone have any ideas? Since I don’t have a Big Butch Dyke handy most of the time.
November 4th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I like to think of it as being “incognito”. I get to choose who knows and I get to get people to see Tina before they see the lesbian.
I’m the infiltrator. :D
But… it would be nice to see a hot butch while I’m out somewhere and have them SEE me for who I am and not just assume.
I used to wear pride rings for that… but I haven’t done that in some time.
I guess I just feel like it is, what it is and it doesn’t really bother me most of the time. :)
November 4th, 2009 at 11:26 am
i LOVE this post.
i feel like i don’t give off the super strong “hey, i’m a dyke” vibe but if i’m going somewhere with a lesbian crowd, i think i subconsciously (or maybe not-so-subconsciously?) tend to dress for the part. not super femme, a little more casual/androgynous. where you’d look at me and more-so think i was a dyke than a straight girl. a lot of my friends are more of the “noticeably gay” type of lesbians so i think that helps me when we’re out places, too. people see us and assume we’re all dykes. which, we are so that’s fine.
i think it’s more than just a vibe that someone needs to get in order to know if a femme is a straight girl or a dyke. far too many straight girls find it cute/funny to flirt with lesbians and that is enough to throw off anyone’s game. it’s not all about confidence here, dawg. not every straight girl can be turned gay by a hot dyke. ;)
i’m ALL about that “dyke nod/smile”. i love it and use it plenty. it’s so subtle, yet says so much. you described it perfectly. i also am not afraid to take the initiative if i feel someone isn’t getting it, whom i want to get it. ie: the cute little waitress at my favorite breakfast joint. ha.
i really like how tina said it. they see me as me, before just seeing me as a lesbian. but at the same time, that’s a big part of who i am so why should i care either way?
for the most part, on a day-to-day basis, i’m not concerned with how people see me or how i fit into the community. i’m just me and i’m pretty content with that. i know where i stand. that’s the big picture :)
November 4th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
This is exactly it: “As in hey, I know what it’s like, and I’ve got your back. We’re in this together.”
I mean, obviously I’m married, so I’m not hoping to be noticed, but it kind of sucks that the only time I’m really noticed / acknowledged as a lesbian is when my tomboy’s arm is draped over me. And I certainly don’t want to send the wrong signal(s) by being too friendly or whatnot. It’s tricky. Very tricky. Perhaps I’m imagining some broad visibility-based sense of inclusion that doesn’t really exist, but it must, mustn’t it? Alas, because I am (hella) femme, I don’t know!
Politically, it is also so totally frustrating to wear this lovely ring on my finger and resign myself to the fact that the majority of folks out there are going to assume that it means I’m straight, when what I want is for it to emit some sort of telepathic action that screams “I AM SO LEGALLY GAY MARRIED, BITCHES! RADNESS!” but, you know, in a nice, spreading awareness kind of way. Especially around other lesbian parents at my kid’s school, or at work functions, where I’m alone for whatever reason but inevitably am around other lesbians.
Still, I mostly agree with Lesbo, above, where she says, “for the most part, on a day-to-day basis, i’m not concerned with how people see me…i know where i stand.”
November 4th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
@FFG: That story breaks my heart. You poor thing. If it makes you feel any better, anytime I notice folks smiling or even being civilly normal toward my wife & I, I return the gesture.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
same here.
I always seem to get a pass over from Lesbians.THey don’t think I”m gay, add to the fact that I’m one in four black girls in GSA makes it moer hard.
Sometimes it really hurts when I get passed over or even laughed at for being gay as if I can’t be gay….it sucks..
November 4th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Hmm. Sometimes the invisibility is okay. . . (like in a work situation. I work with kids). And, sometimes it pisses me off (most of the time). I hate that I have to “out” myself over. and over. and over. again. People, in my experience most often fall into two camps when this happens: they are either okay with it but then want to ask the 100 questions they’ve always wanted but never gotten the chance to ask a lgbtq person OR they get all uncomfortable and feel as if they have been deceived. And, that just gets tiring.
And, I would like to point out that I have been going through this same process when I state that as a femme I date/dated a transguy. Even with gay people still fall into the two camps listed above.
But, in a more exciting vein, I really do appreciate being recognized by butches. That is pretty killah awesome. Mostly I like it because, like you said, it is a way of stating “yup. I recognize ya!” And that seriously rocks my world. I wrote a blog post about what that feels like a few months back:
http://femmehinterland.blogspot.com/2009/04/butches-in-my-workplace.html
November 4th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
I’m coming back to comment, first of all, that I appreciate all the comments with folks who have life experience… and I want to say that I’m still so new at all of this that I tend to see lesbians around every corner. I guess because I didn’t know myself until the last few years, I assume there are a lot of people like me. Given that, I don’t look for butch/femme so much as a certain warmth/openness that seems to indicate a strong desire to connect deeply with another woman. I don’t know how else to describe it… and it doesn’t make me jump and and scream I’M GAY HOWBOUTYOU???????? or anything. I just wonder if, a few months or years down the road, I’m going to hear about this one or that one coming out. And really I have no visual or butch/dyke frame of reference here, since this is all happening in a pretty heteronormative context….
November 5th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Making Space, gotta say I love your enthusiam :) especially wanting to save the girls in the grocery store, lol. You’re fun to read. Do you have a blog?
November 5th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Aneke, thank you so much! I do indeed have a website, if you click on the underlined MakingSpace it should take you there. It actually takes me to my WordPress dashboard, which is weird, but even if it takes you to that same dashboard, continue clicking on MakingSpace and you will see my current level of coming out angst. There are also raffles sometimes. Just sayin. I don’t raffle off women, just chocolate. Heh.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Blog. I meant to say Blog, not website. I blog way too much to have time to learn how to make my own website. LOL
November 5th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Nuts! Can’t you raffle off women? I’m getting desperate here
November 5th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Raffle off women? Hmmm, it’s a thought… but since we’re all having such trouble finding each other, how would we know who to raffle off? ROFL
November 5th, 2009 at 1:28 am
You know, I’ve been thinking about how you might be able to recognize the femmes in your midst and to be honest, I have no freaking idea. This is kind of irritating because as a femme I love being acknowledged as gay and there is really nothing more cool than getting winked at by some cute butch, for instance, regardless of what happens simply because of that moment of visibility. The only thing I’ve noticed that tends to be a bit different for femmes than straight women in terms of presentation is that femmes tend to wear (not my term but I can’t come up with a better one) fashion that girls get and boys don’t slightly more than straight girls, but I can hardly blame you if that helps extremely little.
I went through a whole phase in college where I tried wearing rainbow jewelry and crap to try and be more visibly gay but a)that stuff is almost always heinously tacky and b)it never actually helped and people just assumed I was gay friendly or liked rainbows. I’m kind of okay going about my daily life without everyone on the street knowing I’m gay, although it’s irritating when they assume that I’m not, which is usual, so it’s mostly when I’m trying to catch the eye of some cute girl (usually I just try to make eye contact and smile) or at explicitly gay events that femme invisibility is really irritating. It seem like at lesbian specific spaces I am usually given some sort of benefit of the doubt but mixed events like pride are the worst. I frequently get looks like I’m suspected of being a tourist, told it’s great to have straight allies come, or asked where my gay best friend has run off to (and that’s a quote). I hope that helps, and honestly I wish there were some sort of easy guide to spotting a femme in the street, or something, even though that would be kind of ridiculous.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:56 am
I don’t have anything to say. Really. I have NO idea how to spot Femmes. I usually end up waiting for them to talk to me.
Shit, half of the ‘femmes’ I would talk to in the bars and clubs were just straight girls there with their gay boys.
I know it’s frustrating for me, so it must be twice as frustrating for the femmes out there.
Let’s just make this easy on everyone.
I think we need a password. Like a safeword, but not really.
How about ’snorkel”?
November 5th, 2009 at 11:08 am
SNORKEL!!! SNORKEL!!! SNORKEL!!!! I’m hollaring it, can y’all hear me????? LOL
November 5th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
snorkel!
ha. love it.
that’s totally the new femme safety word.
take note, butches.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:26 am
*chimes in* SNORKEL!! SNORKEL!!
November 6th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Am I the only one thinking that snorkel is awfully phallic for these purposes?
November 6th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
It’s moments like these that I am proud to know you Rebecca.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Rhett and others:
At Burning Man, to figure out who and where lesbians were, someone would shout out “marco” and then, the response you would hope for was “lesbo”… it spread like wild fire. you knew if someone answered “polo” that they were clueless. anytime i heard the response “lesbo”, it made me smile. i loved it. and am pretty sure it needs to start here in the non Burning Man world.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Wow, so timely. I’ve been planning to post my own femme invisibility thing sometime this week. You beat me to it!
The main thing I have to say is that I would LOVE it. LOVE. IT. if I got so much as a wink or a headnod from any dyke I run into on the street. I feel so fucking invisible. Even in San Francisco. And even with my short pixie hair! I just don’t have the proper androgynous hipster dyke look that’s a prerequisite for being gay these days. Sigh. :(
More on this chez moi. Soon.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
But have you tried wearing a white studded belt?
I’m kidding, I’m kidding. But a Mango or two ago, I swear to God there was a back table full of nothing but lesbians with white belts on. IT WAS BANANAS.
November 11th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I must’ve missed the white studded belt phase, but hell, if that’s what it took, I’d've done it had I known! ;)
November 5th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
“But you don’t look gay.” If I had a rainbow for everytime someone said that to me I would be rolling in pots of gold. Seriously, what does gay look like? There are femmes, butches, dykes, bois, androgs, punk, rocker, country, grunge, lawyer, nurse, caprenter, delivery the list goes on and on.
I look like me. Sometimes I wear gay gear, sometimes not, sometimes I go all femme, sometimes I wear my suit and tie with hat. Sometimes I wears sweats and a t-shirt.
I am me, I am gay so give me my rainbow so I can get my pot of gold.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:18 am
I love being a femme!!
I love expressing my individuality in THIS way! I love that I have changed people’s perception of what “Gay” or “Lesbian” looks like within their own biased stereotype.
I love that everyone ESPECIALLY MEN think I’m straight and I get to drop the bomb on em’…like “BOO YAH..I’m GAY…now what bithes??”
I love the courage that it takes to risk being invisible within my own community and that it is up to me to remain SEEN.
I did used to feel very invisible. Like I just wasn’t gay enough to be taken seriously. It took me a long time to turn it all around and to get to this point…but the very act of being an overly femme lesbian has shaped my experience and subsequently shaped me as a person.
I wouldn’t have it any other way!
November 6th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
*waves!* I’ve been secretly following your blog for a bit now, and keep thinking I ought to chime in to feel less like a stalker. *laughs*
I’ve only recently found femme as an identity (and I’ve been posting about it like crazy on my LJ), but I’ve identified as bi for quite a while, and I’ve been dating the same woman for a year and a half, now. That said, I’m highly invisible to both gay and straight folks. I live just south of San Fran, and I wear a rainbow bead necklace all the time, but somehow even people who know I’m dating a woman constantly forget. I get, “But you don’t look gay,” from both sides of the spectrum on a fairly regular basis.
I have yet to have anyone recognize me as gay, actually, including my girlfriend. (She says it’s obvious now, but at the time she was nervous and therefore unsure. I figure that’s fair. ;-D)
I’ve tried all sorts of things to get noticed, to no avail. I finally stopped trying and just live my life, and say it as often as I can. It’s hard, though; to join a conversation among lesbians, I first have to come out as lesbian. Otherwise I get looks. And even then, I often get waved off because I pass as straight, and/or because I’m bi. It’s a bit like being tossed out of all communities, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me.
I’d like for other lesbians/gays to notice me, of any sort. I’d like that sense of community people share, that I don’t feel part of (though now that I found femme and have started to go, “Ohhh… yeah!” I’ve found a bit of that community). I’m more noticeable with my butch girlfriend, because she’s obvious, but she can’t be around all the time. ;)
Being invisible is alarming. You asked what scares us the most, and for me it’s the idea that I’ll never be a part of things. I’ll always be having to fight my way in, and once I’m there I’ll still be waved off because I “look” straight. For a long time, there was a voice in the back of my mind that asked if I was sure I was bi; after all, if no one else picked up on it, maybe I was wrong. That terrified me, but it’s finally eased off. I’m also hopeful that as I get more involved with this community… *laughs* I don’t know what will happen, but at least there are now other people I find that are having the same problems I have, and butch women who say they see us, even if most lesbians don’t. I’ll just believe that for the time being. ;)
And, hey — I love your blog. Thanks for letting strangers poke around and read it. ;)
J
November 8th, 2009 at 1:17 am
“I’ll always be having to fight my way in, and once I’m there I’ll still be waved off because I “look” straight.”
so true. and incredibly frustrating. and kind of heartbreaking.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:27 am
And that’s my lesbian life in a nutshell.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I want people to know I’m gay because I’m PROUD of who I am. I believe without a doubt that being visible and letting people know who we are makes it better for the other gay people around us, especially those who aren’t so easily mistaked for straight. My entire life–my beliefs, my activism, the things I do and even a big part of my personality–revolves around my sexuality, and to be mistaken for heterosexual (because I often look very much like a femme) can be difficult.
I also sooooo hate it when people say, “…but you don’t look gay.” I wish for that very reason that I did look a bit more masculine (because I know that’s what they mean when they say “gay”)…it’s just not who I am.
November 8th, 2009 at 1:37 am
okay, so here’s the thing: invisibility makes me feel like i’m not “doing my part”. i feel badly that i get to – for the most part – breeze through the world unscathed, when those i love the most (truly he most masculine of butches, trans- and genderqueers) are preyed-upon and targeted every single day in the world-at-large.
i have witnessed, all too many times, the stares and glares. people choosing to move away, to shield their children from, to cross to the other side of the sidewalk. i have watched my butch or trans partners visibly wilt whilst realizing that it is their very presence in the room that is causing these reactions, this discomfort, a dis-ease. i have seen the shuttered look that follows, the closing-off – from me, and from the world – that can happen. i have tried to be the soft place to land when the world gets too heavy for altogether-too-visible shoulders to carry any longer. but i still want to be more.
i want to share that burden fairly, until such point in time when it’s no longer anyone’s to shoulder. i want for it to not only be those i love who have to take it on. i want to do my part, not just by holding on, being with, and supporting during- and after-the-fact, but by absorbing some of that which hurts, harms, scars. i want to never again have to see that look of utter despair that follows a confrontation or careless comment.
i want to be seen, so that it’s not always you who has to be. to take the pressure off, even just once, so that you can feel the freedom of just being while i take on the world. for you. for us.
~k
November 8th, 2009 at 10:34 am
“i want to be seen, so that it’s not always you who has to be. to take the pressure off, even just once, so that you can feel the freedom of just being while i take on the world. for you. for us”
Beautifully put. You put into words what I couldn’t. I’ve felt this before. I’ve wanted to drop kick assholes making obviously butch women uncomfortable all the while screaming ‘we’re exactly the same, her and I, doesn’t that make you think, just a little, that your prejudice is pathetic?’ I’m ok to these people, because I pass. I want to smack them.
December 4th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I identify with this so hard. I think you put it so eloquently.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
On the flip-side as a boi (butch) I find myself invisible in other ways.
Yes, you can most likely pick me out of a crowd due to my clothing, length of hair or general appearance as gay.
However, in my world — the minute I walk into a lesbian bar, I disappear. Here in LA I find lots of femmes to look at and lots of femmes who “eewww” at the idea of dating a butch woman. From cold shoulders at the club, to long annoyed looks in the restroom and even online ads including “NO BUTCHES”. It hurts. So when I walk into a bar I tend to disappear because at first glance, most women think I’m a guy or they are not interested in me based on my appearance.
Should I walk into a gay men’s club I tend to get hit on left and right because they recognize me as male. Which in some cases makes for a hilarious evening, but in the end — I’m female and I like women.
I’ve been the victim of hateful glares, of harsh words, and felt more alone even though I might be surrounded by queer women. I think it stinks for both femmes who feel invisible to butch women like me who seem to just disappear in certain settings.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
so many interesting thoughts here. my girlfriend, quite butchy, often is bothered by how many people automatically assume she is gay, (even though she is). we have discussed the possibility of it being more about people staring, wondering if she is male or female, more than the assumption she is gay that bothers her, but anyway, i am on the other end of that spectrum, often bothered by people automatically assuming im straight. ive joked about getting it tattooed on my forehead “im gay too, but i still like to wear dresses!” its definitely an interesting situation, and im not sure i have many answers. but i enjoy hearing peoples thoughts. thanks for this dialogue!
November 10th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
When I was about twelve, my grandfather told me he wished that lesbians would get the letter L tattooed on their foreheads, so that he wouldn’t waste his time. I probably laughed nervously when he told me that because I wished they would be easily identified for the opposite reason.
http://breathingmoss.wordpress.com/?s=hypocrite
November 17th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I’m a femme lesbian and I finally learned that I had to be the one to go up and talk to a woman that I found attractive because they weren’t going to find me.
I actually blend in better in the straight world than in the gay world. I’ve had to basically convince several people that I am, in fact, a lesbian. People think I’m joking. It gets a little frustrating at times.
I’ve gotten flack from people that I’m not a “real lesbian” because I’m so foo-foo, girly, lipstick. I’m really amazed at how much prejudice there is in our own community.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 am
[...] feed, or not. This warning will self-destruct.G at “Can I Help You, Sir?” asked about femme invisibility recently, and the topic has gone around the gender/queer blogs a bit, with some great posts and [...]
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I love this article, so here’s my response.
Not really the same, not really on topic but perhaps another facet of invisibility for femmes (or even every queer person still finding themselves).
http://theitidentity.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/should-i-write-it-on-my-forehead/
- Cal.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:07 pm
I’m right here. But that doesn’t help you, does it?
I like the fact that you’ve asked femmes to share their experiences. I’ll try to post something in response, but in the meantime I’ll just say this: For me, recognition is all about eye contact. It’s so simple and yet so powerful.
Thanks for the great post & discussion.
xo
SF
January 8th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
[...] — yes, I DO have a post on that to write up at some point, but in the meantime go read what G and her commenters and linkspam said — but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this obsession [...]
February 5th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
[...] Femme, shaken. G at “can i help you, sir?” posted on femme invisibility a while ago, and is now collecting links on it of things other people have [...]