Chapter 

Femininity isn’t femme
Appearance and the contradictory
space of queer femme belonging
Hannah McCann and Gemma Killen

Liberating femininity from its history in our bodies and communities is easier
said than done and we are used to being misread and unseen.
(Dahl 2008, p. 22)

Because appearance is always produced on the body, in femininity, the body is

read as truth.
(Skeggs 2001, p. 300)

Introduction
Historically, the term ‘femme’ referred to an identity that emerged within the
1950s lesbian bar scene in the USA and UK, where feminine-­presenting women
would often be seen paired up with ‘butch’ masculine-­presenting female partners
(Dahl 2010). However, since the 1990s femme has become untethered from this
pairing with butch, with femme communities emerging particularly in the USA,
Australia and in some countries in Europe. Though the ways in which femmes
define femme identity varies, as femme ethnographer Ulrika Dahl has identified:
‘feminine gender expressions and the politics of visibility and femininity are
central to their body politic’ (2014, p. 607). The femme attachment to feminine
aesthetics has complicated their relationship to LGBTIQ communities and to
the politics of queer identity. In contrast to lesbians who eschew normative
femininity, and are thereby visible as queer and labelled as ‘mannish’, femmes
often continue to embody the femininity expected of them as women. This
superficially normative femininity has produced tensions in relation to not only
femme belonging in queer communities but also in terms of who can belong in
the category ‘femme’.
Invisibility is a central theme in discussions of femme identity. The lack of
recognition of femme as queer within both LGBTIQ and non-­LGBTIQ spaces
is frequently cited as one of the reasons femmes need organised communities of
their own (Brushwood Rose and Camilleri 2002, Volcano and Dahl 2008).
While butch/femme identities were central to the lesbian bar scene in the 1940s
and 1950s, subsequent eras of feminism – particularly a lesbian feminism hostile
136   Hannah McCann and Gemma Killen

to butch/femme as a copy of heterosexual gender roles – challenged the legiti-

macy of such identifications (for example, see MacKinnon 1982, p. 534). The
issue of femme invisibility has been widely charted in the literature on femme
since the 1990s when a femme scene began to emerge in response to this lesbian
feminist critique. Femme literature highlights the different experiences of butch
and femme individuals in relation to gender and sexuality (Walker 1993).
Femmes are perceived as heterosexual because of their gender presentation.
Masculine-­presenting or gender-­crossing appearance is read as queer (Harris and
Crocker 1997). On the one hand this means that femmes are less likely to be
subject to homophobic violence or discrimination, as they are not easily per-
ceived as queer (Levitt and Horne 2002, Levitt and Hiestand 2004). However,
femmes face discrimination within LGBTIQ spaces as they are regarded as out-
siders, as Joan Nestle writes, ‘If, in the straight world, butches bear the brunt of
the physical and verbal abuse for their difference, in the lesbian-­feminist world,
femmes have had to endure a deeper attack on their sense of self-­worth’ (1992,
p. 15). Here we do not read Nestle as suggesting that physical and verbal abuse
directed towards anyone is less serious than mis-­recognition (or indeed, that
these cannot go hand in hand). Rather, Nestle’s point is to illustrate that the
queer invisibility that keeps many femmes safe from homophobic violence on
the street is also the cause of a more pernicious homophobia that can only see
queerness according to certain logics of self-­presentation. Accordingly, this logic
can operate within queer communities to mark certain bodies as ‘less’ queer
than others. Some have labelled this form of exclusion ‘femmephobia’ (Blair
and Hoskin 2015, Stardust 2015). In other words, the inability of feminine pre-
sentation to be read as queer, leads to femme invisibility and thus is an obstacle
to belonging in the LGBTIQ community. In response to these patterns of exclu-
sion, the contemporary femme movement has built itself and organised around
the issue of visibility. For example, the Sydney Femme Guild motto reads, ‘Visi-
bility. Solidarity. Celebration’ (Femme Guild n.d.).
We do however note that the ways that this issue of invisibility has been
responded to, has sometimes meant the re-­drafting of a ‘charmed’ inner femme
circle (following Rubin 1984), rather than an extension of queerness into a way
of seeing even the normative-­appearing ‘lipstick’ lesbian. In other words, our
concerns here are to ask: How might processes of group formation also inform
exclusion and the creation and reification of boundaries? Or: how might non-­
belonging perpetuate in tandem with processes of belonging? We wish to high-
light here how exclusion is often a response to exclusion. We must also
understand such responses as a reaction to the broader exclusions faced within
society at large. While we may be critical here of not only the exclusion of
femmes, but the femme exclusionary boundaries that have emerged in response,
we wish to take seriously the pressures that create these dynamics that are not
simply the inherent tendencies of those within the LGBTIQ community. Indeed,
just as being recognised as queer doesn’t work unless there is a ‘not-­queer’ to
define against, our cases below explore how a ‘not femme’ understandably
 Femininity isn’t femme   137

emerges from attempts to define femme. The aim of this chapter is to explore the
ways in which belonging is constituted in queer femme communities. Here we
focus on the contrast between a utopian imaginary of femme articulations and
the lived reality of queer feminine identity. As scholars working on queer femme
identity who identify as queer femme ourselves, we feel the pull of the desire to
belong within queer communities on an intimate level. However, we have been
troubled by a certain form of femme distancing from femininity that we have
come across in our recent research efforts, which seems antithetical to some of
the stated values and aims of the femme community. Belonging is often shaped
through exclusion, and the case femme demonstrates a form of this logic, struc-
tured around distinctions between different forms of femininity.
Rather than imagining it as a fixed, either/or state, we approach belonging as
‘a dynamic process’ that centres on the negotiation of emotional attachments
and the political and social implications of those attachments (Yuval-­Davis
2006, p. 197). That is, belonging is about personal feelings of solidarity and of
being at home, but is also an integral part of producing socio-­political hier-
archies that are always being contested. Therefore, belonging is best articulated
in moments of precarity, when the feeling threatens to be lost. As Elspeth
Probyn observes, ‘while [belonging] may make one think of arriving, it also
always carries the scent of departure – it marks the interstices of being and
going’ (1995, p. 2). It is precisely these interstices that we are interested in, and
the contradictions that arise in the marking of a binary space of the femme/not-­
femme.
We begin by outlining the issue of femme belonging as represented in the
femme literature, where exclusion is coded as the problem of ‘invisibility’. We
then draw on two empirical studies to demonstrate the way belonging and
identity are understood and experienced by contemporary femmes. The first
study we discuss is a digital ethnography of popular queer women’s website
Autostraddle.com carried out by the second author. The second study is
interview-­based research of Australian femmes carried out by the first author. In
both cases, we focus on the discursive constitution of femme identity and its
separation of the femme femininity from the realm of heterosexual femininity,
the former being constructed as willfully chosen, the latter as unknowing and
disempowering.
We explore the role of this digital community in making sense of queer fem-
inine aesthetics and identities, and the potential for online spaces to articulate a
utopian imagining of femme. Our analysis of Killen’s findings looks at this consti-
tution of ‘what femme could be’ even as it is spoken as ‘what femme is’. We then
turn to interviews conducted by the first author in 2013 with 12 Australian
femme-­identifying participants, which unpacks the lived experiences of femme
belonging in relation to LGBTIQ and non-­LGBTIQ spaces. Our analysis of this
discussion reveals that in the face of a desire for femme boundaries to remain
open, femmes often discuss their identity as willfully chosen and as sitting in con-
trast to heterosexual femininity that is perceived (by femmes) as disempowered.
138   Hannah McCann and Gemma Killen

Defining the utopic femme online

As physical, in-­the-flesh, lesbian and gay spaces have begun to disappear, many
young queer people have turned to online communities as both refuges and
sources of information about sex and identity (Gray 2014). The accessibility of
online spaces is particularly important for LGBTIQ people in rural or remote
areas but also for those that might have felt excluded from more traditional,
geographically specific queer communities. Indeed, the online universe can
enable femmes to overcome obstacles to belonging, within the wider LGBTIQ
community, especially those related to invisibility as queer. Online spaces
support more flexibility and fluidity in self-­presentation than offline spaces as
many of the traditional indicators used for ‘reading’ gender (gait, mannerisms,
voice pitch and so forth) can be eliminated or re-­negotiated. Though they are
not entirely gender-­free, disembodied or democratic spaces (Pham 2011, Cover
2014), online worlds can offer the potential for more creative gender self-­
expression (Connell 2013).
To investigate the role of online communities in queer women’s lives, the
first author carried out a digital ethnography of Autostraddle, currently the most
popular queer women’s website in the world. Autostraddle describes itself as a
progressively feminist online community for ‘multiple generations of kickass
lesbian, bisexual & otherwise inclined ladies (and their friends)’ (Autostraddle
2017). The primary audience for the site is queer women between the ages of 18
and 34 and most of the writers fit within this category as well, with the editorial
team all in their mid-­late thirties. The site is financially dependent on com-
munity participation, through membership, merchandise sales and event attend-
ance. Therefore, fostering a sense of belonging and community is vital to its
viability and success. Autostraddle explicitly describes itself as a welcoming and
accommodating space for femmes through article series such as ‘High Femme’ or
‘Femme Brûlée’. It also sells t-­shirts printed with slogans such as Lazy Femme or
Tomboy Femme.
The work presented in this chapter is part of a larger, ongoing ethnography
that explores the role digital and online technologies can play in producing
community and affirming belonging for queer women. This ethnography has
involved long-­term (3 years) observation and engagement with Autostraddle,
through their website, social media channels and in person, at official and unof-
ficial meet-­ups and social events. This engagement has included informal inter-
views, participant observation, textual and visual analysis and autoethnographic
reflections. This chapter draws on that work and focuses particularly on an
article titled, ‘What We Mean When We Say “Femme”: A Roundtable’, pub-
lished in Autostraddle in 2016, and a Facebook discussion with community
members about selfie practices and how they relate to visibility.
In the online space of Autostraddle the articulation of femme belonging
seems  to hinge less on aesthetic visibility than it does in femme literature.
The  ‘Roundtable’ article includes eight self-­identified femmes discussing their
 Femininity isn’t femme   139

understanding of the concept of femme. Key points included whether femme is

related primarily to aesthetics or to emotional and care work, and whether the
femme identity and associated aesthetics could or should be ‘claimed’ or co-­opted
by people who don’t identify as queer women. There was no consensus among
the writers about what it meant to identify as femme or enact that identification
in everyday life. For the most part, responses were esoteric and lyrical rather
than descriptive or precise, with one contributor, Yatta, writing that ‘Femme
means that you’ve got some sensitivity that doubles as strength and you are
down to aestheticize it, commune over it, or fucking fuck about it’ (Autostrad-
dle 2016). Yatta’s comments suggest that femme identity can be about aesthetics
but is also about emotions and communal belonging.
Interestingly, contributors constituted their femme identities in terms of
emotional and care work instead of aligning themselves with any particular aes-
thetic or style of presentation. For example, Rudy writes that femme is about
‘allowing a particular kind of tenderness to be part of your identity’, and Mey
adds that, ‘for me, my femme-­ness is tied a lot to my emotions. I use it to find
myself and center my mind and my heart’. These responses de-­centre feminine
deportment as an essential part of identifying as femme, but they also speak to a
broader desire to locate femme-­ness within community relationships. Bryn notes
that their experience of femininity is enmeshed with empathy and under-
standing, particularly for other feminine identifying people, and Cecelia writes
that practicing femme rituals ‘reminds me how important it is to comfort and
protect each other’. Each of these responses reflects a sense of belonging for
these femmes, where belonging is not constituted by who can be seen and ‘read’
as femme, but rather, is discussed as constituted by shared emotions as well as
experiences of intimacy.
Some of the contributors were hesitant to align femme identity with any par-
ticular aesthetic performance or presentation. Some femmes explicitly dis-
avowed aesthetics as a motivating force or signifier for identifying as a queer
femme. Rudy, for example, stated that ‘Having something based on just aes-
thetics is really dangerous because it removes the politics from things’. Other
femmes mentioned fashion, but stressed that femme-­ness extended beyond
aethetics, while Bryn wrote that ‘taking ownership of my existence as a femme
is more than the way it looks, it’s a revolutionary act in itself ’ (emphasis added)
and Mey commenting that ‘If I’m not being a femme, I’m hiding more than just
my fashion or my attitude or my personality, I’m hiding my essense’. Instead of
focusing entirely on fashion, the writers described femme as a way of being in
the world and of connecting with other members of the community.
Surprisingly, even where these writers did highlight aesthetics and feminine
presentation as central to femme identity they did not explicitly link appear-
ance with invisibility or a sense of queer non-­belonging. For instance, Cecelia
described her feminine presentation as ‘armour’ that was anything but invisible
or even subtle: ‘Purple lipstick and scrunchies and too much glitter and baby
pink harnesses and chokers and five shades of rainbow hair and iridescent
140   Hannah McCann and Gemma Killen

combat boots’. She conjures a very specific image of femininity here, one that is
joyful in its excess and not at all aligned with heteronormativity or even with
notions of how heterosexual women engaged in femininity. As the first author
has argued, ‘Excessive femininity is troubling because it blurs boundaries, is
unruly, and difficult to contain’ (McCann 2015, p. 249). Overt markers of femi-
ninity helped these women to recognise one another in the offline world and
they became something enjoyable to commune over online.
The taking and sharing of selfies also emerged in the digital ethnography of
Autostraddle as a central practice of femme identity and community building.
Selfies enable femmes to make themselves visible as members of the queer com-
munity. The #femmelesbian tag on Instagram has more than 40,000 posts
attached. Indeed, the literature on selfie practices among minority groups,
including people of colour and queer and trans people, suggests that sharing
selfies online is also a key way in which people make themselves visible to the
wider community (Pham 2015).
As a part of the digital ethnograhy of Autostraddle, members of a site-­related
Facebook group were asked about their motivation for taking and sharing selfies.
Many of the responses mentioned the desire to contribute to conversations
about queer visibility and to document experiments with gender presentation.
Maryanne explicitly claimed selfies as a femme practice: ‘As a femme and a
chronically ill/disabled person, selfies, makeup, all femme rituals really are
vitally important parts of my queer identity’. They also noted that selfies were
particularly important for them when confined to home due to illness. Selfies,
and all of the associated social media, allowed them to continue to feel as
though they belonged to a specifically queer community as well as allowing
them to challenge perceptions of chronic illness and gender identity.
These conversations show that the online space offers femmes an oppor-
tunity to negotiate and reconfigure their position within the LGBTIQ and
broader communities without relying solely on specific aesthetic cues. Here the
issue of femme invisibility is rendered somewhat moot, as the very presence of
posting images or having discussions online ‘as a femme’ marks femme as intelli-
gible. This marking negates the need for others to ‘read’ for signs of queerness
and allows an upfront and immediate expression of identity. Regular participa-
tion in online spaces that are specifically queer as well as open discussion about
their sexuality and identity produces a form of visibility that is not completely
possible in everyday offline life.
Given the well-­versed problem of femme invisibility, the visibility offered in
these online discussions and spaces marks them as potentially utopic spaces for
femmes. Here, femmes can, seemingly without bodily limitations, discuss,
explore and wax poetic about what femme could be. This utopic imaginary
centres on intimacy and connection, but also on self-­expression unhindered by
social expectations. The online arena is one in which the utopian ideal of
femme-­ness as open, unbound and universally accepting, can be articulated and
explored, even if that ideal is not completely realisable in day-­to-day life.
 Femininity isn’t femme   141

Despite this ‘opening up’ of femme potential in online spaces there are still
contentious discussions about who can lay claim to the identity. In the ‘Round-
table’ article, contributors were asked about the expansion of the femme com-
munity to include those who do not identify as queer women. Most were critical
of the idea that the femme identity should be available only particular people,
namely women, can identify as femme. Aja, for example, writes: ‘I find that kind
of restriction on ‘femme’ to be abhorrent and willfully cruel’. Similarly, Erin
notes: ‘Everyone is becoming so indecipherable that the inclination to label
yourself or someone else is pointless. I think it adds a richness to the femme
identity, really, that we’re more complex than a separatist identity’. Instead of
segregation and labels, the writer argues for more inclusion within the femme
community – for trans women, for men and for non-­binary people. Though the
community seems to be moving in this inclusive or welcoming direction, Bryn
writes, ‘In my experience, many cis women of all ages feel that my identity as a
non-­binary femme somehow invalidates theirs’, suggesting that there are still
some boundaries within the community that are sharply felt.
While in online spaces such as Autostraddle there is increasing acceptance of
non-­female queer people into the folds of femme, there is resistance to non-­
queer identifying people adopting the label. In the ‘Roundtable’, Cecelia writes
about the negative effects of the increasing popularity of femme aesthetics
within mainstream culture. In the first mention of invisibility in the article, she
argues that by adopting an aesthetic that might otherwise have been clearly read
as queer, heterosexual women promote femme invisibility. Similarly, Alaina
writes, referring to straight, white women: ‘It’s like, they steal our aesthetic, they
steal our identities, and they steal our ideologies … but they water them down’.
According to this criticism, femme qualities might be attractive to straight
women, but because they engage with queer styles with a seeming disregard for
their historical basis, their practices are understood as both mimicry and theft.
Femmes online imagine femme in utopian terms: in this context, it is
described as an expansive and unconstrained identity, yet one that is clearly
marked off from heterosexuality. For these femmes, femme exists as a utopian
imaginary, as much as an identity marker, a way of forging community and con-
necting with queer others. Websites such as Autostraddle offer a sanctuary and
place of belonging for queer women, where they do not have to rely on aesthetic
codes and cues to find one another or participate in community. Social media
also enables femmes queer visibility. However, the celebration of femme online
spaces as open and inclusive co-­exists with the production and policing of
boundaries. Non-­queer women are not permitted access to the bonds and sense
of belonging of femme identity, indeed their encroachment is seen as a form of
illegitimate appropriation. As we draw out in the remainder of this chapter, we
need to think carefully and critically about why drawing such lines in the sand
is so important to the meaning of femme-­ness, and what kinds of belongings and
community are being limited through such an approach to identity.
142   Hannah McCann and Gemma Killen

Embodying femme offline

So far we have discussed the utopian imaginary of femme inclusivity found
online. This notion of femme as an open and unrestricted identity is enabled
by the way online identities are formed on self-­definition and curated self-­
presentation rather than external evaluation of visible cues. Yet, despite this
inclusive vision of femme, ‘straight’ feminine women are excluded as their
heterosexuality is understood as antithetical to queerness, even though the
work of identifying who is straight and who is queer enough may compromise
the utopic image of femme as a radically open and flexible category. In this
section, we turn to an analysis of interviews with 12 self-­identified Australian
femmes conducted by the first author in 2013, to draw out this tension of
belonging to femme. The contradiction between boundary drawing versus
maintaining ideals of an open and flexible identity were further apparent in
these interviews.
Many of the femmes interviewed raised their anxiety about appearing ‘queer
enough’, and the problem of their feminine presentation being read as ‘straight’.
For instance, Gemma said that she was assumed to be straight in both LGBTIQ
and non-­LGBTIQ spaces because of her feminine presentation, ‘Last time that I
went to a lesbian event, which rarely happens anyway, I was told, someone was
like, “oh are you being supportive for your friend?” ’ Daria who was only recently
‘out’ noted that there was no universal code for femmes to signal queerness to
others: ‘It’s like you almost need to wear a badge like “yeah, I’m not straight”.
It’s really difficult. I don’t know how people do it’. Along these lines, Daria
talked about how cutting their hair short sent a signal that they no longer
wanted to receive sexual attention from men, and while this felt like a powerful
way to communicate their sexuality, it was also distressing because it reaffirmed
conventional gender norms: ‘It also makes me a little bit mad at society. Like
they just see short hair and assume that you’re gay’. They extend earlier findings
in femme literature, showing that many femmes continue to feel that feminine
presentation is a barrier to being recognised as queer.
Many participants explicitly talked about feminine surface presentation as
central to femme identity, for example Chloe stated, ‘I guess it’s such a general
category, it’s really hard to say exactly what it means, but probably just wearing
more typically feminine clothing’. Or, as Rachel reflected, ‘It’s outer, one’s outer
expression’. Julia also suggested, ‘It’s about presenting in a feminine way and
taking joy and power out of presenting in a feminine way’. However, despite
offering ways of defining femme as intimately bound to feminine styles of the
body, many of the participants also wished to leave open the possibility that
others would define femme differently. For instance, Julia argued that, ‘[G]ender
I think is something that is a personal thing, and for me being femme is very
personal. It’s not about other people, it’s about me’. As Liz also reflected, ‘We go
“oh my god I feel like that” with each other, and then there are other things
that are completely our own that are just our things about being femme’. This
 Femininity isn’t femme   143

idea of femme as something that is at once a common formation but also

uniquely individual, is also found in the literature on femme, for example as
Jennifer Clare Burke argues: ‘Above all, my femme is not your femme’ (2009,
p. 11). Similarly to the Autostraddle participants, many of the Australian femmes
were very reluctant to give definitions of femme, and instead tried to leave their
explanations very open. This notion of femme suggests an opening up of space,
making room for different people to identify as femme in their own way, rather
than prescribing what is ‘femme enough’. However, as these perspectives some-
times also revealed, focusing on the individual aspects and definitions of femme
sometimes took precedent over reflecting upon possible commonalities that led
to feelings (as Liz described) of ‘oh my god I feel like that’, that is, the sense of
shared identity.
Furthermore, while many participants refused to draw a sharp boundary
around femme, the interviews revealed a strong belief that the queerness of
femme required the mindful and willful adoption of feminine styles. While
online spaces can more easily mobilise such willfulness through the explicit use
of identity labels, in offline spaces the body is usually read by others before such
statements about identity can be made. Despite this, many of the femmes inter-
viewed commented that femme reading strategies were possible. Daria for
example suggested that they recognised other femmes because they made a
‘statement’ with their femininity, ‘using femininity in a really different way, and
expressing yourself through that, but not in a way that’s conforming to the ways
society wants you to be’. For Monique, femme felt like a way of taking charge of
the social expectations of femininity, ‘in a way it’s kind of challenging norms.
There’s a bit more consciousness about how to express femininity and that kind
of thing’.
Monique’s claim that ‘consciousness’ is key to femme identity reflects two
central ideas. First, it suggests that most women’s feminine presentation is a
matter of false consciousness, an obedient following of norms. Thus, hetero-
sexual women who are expected to be feminine and are feminine cannot be said
to be ‘queer’ in their feminine presentation. Second, it also suggests that femi-
ninity can be recuperated and made subversive through willfulness, even if this
subversive feminine presentation does not appear different from normative fem-
ininity from the outside. This construction of femme paradoxically reinforces
traditional feminist critiques of femininity as a false masquerade that is the
result of oppression and conditioning (McCann 2013, p. 147). This produces a
conundrum for femmes because it suggests that one form of femininity is more
radical and subversive than another form, even if these forms look the same. But
prescribing how to present as queer femme in ways that make apparent the
distinction between queer and heterosexual would entail the prescription of
femme norms, which contradicts the utopian vision of femme as an open
and inclusive space. Indeed, some participants reported that queer femme norms
did exist, what Rebecca Ann Rugg refers to strategies of ‘something wrong
with this picture’ (1997, p. 186). In other words, femme in offline spaces faces a
144   Hannah McCann and Gemma Killen

difficulty: willfulness cannot easily be conveyed when one’s bodily aesthetics

‘appear’ before one’s identity claims can be expressed. However, defining ‘how’
to look femme may exclude those femmes who feel invisible because of their
gender presentation, who seek inclusion on this basis in the first instance.
A commonly expressed understanding of femme was as a form of willful femi-
ninity. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s work on willfulness as obstinacy (2014), we
might see this understanding of femme as a refusal to enact femininity in the
‘right’ (that is, heteronormative) ways. This construction of femme as willful
consequently suggests another, less willful femininity. This kind of femininity is
perhaps seen as willing rather than willful, in that it does not stand in the way of
heteronormativity. Where the queer potential of femininity is seen as some-
thing that must be mindfully enacted, a bind emerges when feminine presenta-
tion that looks ‘straight’ is inevitably read as heterosexual, cementing into place
what queerness looks like. This reinforces the femme invisibility that many
femmes seek to challenge.
Even as participants talked about the pain of not being read as queer in
LGBTIQ and non-­LGBTIQ spaces, they simultaneously reinforced notions of
appropriate femme appearance. For example, Natasha explained, ‘There’s such a
divide in Melbourne between North side and South side. Like Southside lesbi-
ans, or queer girls, are really … there’s a really strong divide between butch and
femme. And femme girls are really … they look kind of like straight girls.
There’s not much … that is really queer about Southside lesbians’. Although
Natasha has described the difficulty of not being acknowledged as queer, she
constructs a category ‘southside lesbians’ who are not ‘really queer’ because of
the way they look. Natasha further argued that a sharp line had to be drawn
between straight women who saw themselves as feminine (sometimes using the
descriptor ‘femme’), and queer women who were femme: ‘If you’re feminine and
you’re a straight woman, you’re just a woman. That’s how people read you, and
there’s no, there’s nothing subversive about it’. For Natasha, it was sexual desire
that changed the meaning of femininity and made it queer. However, overall,
the interviews revealed that ‘belonging’ as a queer femme entails not only
having queer desires, but also presenting oneself in a particularly queer way
(even if that in itself is difficult to define). Here the boundaries between straight
and queer, queer and not queer enough, can be seen as fundamental to many of
the ways that femme is currently conceptualised, in spite of the utopian vision of
femme.
While interacting in online spaces might overcome some of the obstacles of
invisibility, as we saw in the case of the Autostraddle participants, discourse can
be employed to maintain a sense of separation from seemingly heterosexual fem-
ininity. In part the Autostraddle participants did this through distancing them-
selves from concerns with feminine aesthetics and focusing instead on emotional
care work. Though each discussed the need to broaden the horizons of
femme, to become more inclusive – particularly of non-­binary and trans femmes,
some also criticised a heterosexual appropriation of femme style. Yet while
 Femininity isn’t femme   145

articulation of femme willfulness is relatively easy to carry online in a space

where self-­definition takes precedence over bodily aesthetic, embodying and
identifying as femme offline presents a challenge to these articulations.

Conclusion
Analysis of femme belonging in both online and offline spaces reveals conun-
drums for femme queer identity. In both spaces, there are contradictions inher-
ent in attempts to produce and enact a sense of belonging that relies on
particular forms of gender presentation and yet also ideals of openness, inclusiv-
ity and self-­definition. Femme belonging relies on a specific kind of exclusion –
maintaining the queer, excluding the straight – that may inadvertently cement
what appears to be ‘queer enough’, thereby undermining the potential to see
feminine presentation as queer in the first instance.
By looking at how femme belonging might be engendered in a way that pro-
motes solidarity rather than an individual focus, perhaps we might overcome
some of the contradictions of the exclusivity of femme. Here, the common
ground between LGBTIQ and non-­LGBTIQ identifications and experiences of
gendered embodiment might be discussed and unpacked, to make room for
rethinking femininity broadly. While this might feel like dangerous or difficult
ground for many femmes, given that this might risk diluting difference in favour
of sameness, it also offers the possibility of uncovering the potential queerness of
femininity that does not rely on unstable and problematic notions of willfulness
alone. For example, one might look to the shared experiences of enjoying par-
ticular surface presentations, and experimenting with makeup, hairstyles,
fashion and so forth, that might exist for femme and non-­femme identifying
people alike. For many femmes, being read as ‘straight’ feels marginalising
because it erases their queerness, however another tactic might be to extend
queerness rather than confine it to ever-­smaller spaces. In other words, rather
than suggesting that the queerness of the femme ought to be questioned (an
idea that is unfortunately reproduced by femme norms and ideas of what is
‘queer enough’), perhaps we ought to start questioning the straightness of the
non-­femme. Here we might find space for belonging together through shared
material experiences of embodiment, presentation, style and affects, and extend
queerness forth in ways that make room rather than foreclose possibility.
The existing femme criticism of ‘straight’ femininity marks an ever-­present
return to the aesthetic when thinking through the meaningfulness of femme
identification. The problem here is that a denigration of particular styles of fem-
ininity arises in the production of femme. That is, in claiming femme, one is
also pronouncing a not-­femme, whose femininity is complicit rather than
willful. The question that emerges in each of these cases is whether the con-
struction and enactment of femme belonging relies on exclusion and how we
might best deal with that exclusion. Femmes in each of our studies expressed
desire for a more inclusive community, to extend the realms of belonging, but
146   Hannah McCann and Gemma Killen

consistently draw the line at welcoming the heterosexual woman into the fold.
Femmes then, seemingly reside in that complicated and precarious space
between femininity and heteronormativity, between willfulness and complicity.
In order to answer a specific ‘yearning’ to belong (Probyn 1996, p.  19), it is
imperative that they continue to define and negotiate the boundaries between
these terms. Identifying as a femme means living in the contradiction, caught
within and between the desire for belonging and the need for exclusion. We
should be generous to these desires and the emotional investments associated
with femme identities and recognise the attachments that such identifications
produce, but perhaps we also need to be critical of the role of boundary work
and exclusion in producing belonging.

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