I am a femme-identified queer woman, and I am overwhelmingly intimidated by other femmes.
Not in the fun, sexy, “they’re so kickass and make me blush and I trip over my words when I look at them” kind of intimidation. I’m constantly comparing myself to their minds, their bodies, the precision with which they apply their makeup, the tenor of their voices. I underestimate them when I’m feeling confident, and overestimate them when I’m feeling insecure. I avoid gaggles of them the same way I avoid mirrors on days when I haven’t had time to shower.
I’ve been holding this in throughout the entirety of my adult queer identity, carrying the weight of my discomfort throughout the years like a devastating breakup you never quite recover from.
To be honest, I’ve never found kindred spirits in other femmes. Media taught me at an early age what feminine friendships were “supposed” to look like, and I immediately knew I wanted no part of it. The catty, exclusionary nature of them–the constant rulings on who was in favor vs. who was to be ostracized. The superficial preoccupations with fashion and appearance. The extreme emotional highs and lows.
Society projects what female friendships should look like, and we listen. They tell us that they’re exclusionary to divide us and keep us from recognizing our worth. They tell us that they’re rife with time-consuming cattiness to distract us from succeeding. They tell us that we should be in constant competition with one another for the attentions of men–that rare, invaluable resource–so that we’re preoccupied with being the “best” wife or girlfriend, making heartbreaking sacrifices in order to be more available to support our male partner’s choices.
Society is so exceptionally practiced at this; female competitiveness invades even the queerest, most radical communities. I rarely see other femmes as viable romantic or sexual partners, and I recognize that much of it has to do with capitalism and the patriarchal prioritization of femme on femme sexuality as a commodity. Which wouldn’t be so bad for us femmes if the system didn’t simultaneously devalue our relationships with one another outside of the consumption of sexual content. This makes it incredibly difficult for feminine women to make sense of their attractions and desires for one another, particularly when trying to separate them from the expectations of the male gaze.
I know how fucked up my feelings about femmes are. I’ve always known. When I’m out and about in the world, I challenge myself to make eye contact with them and conjure up an accompanying positive thought or affirmation, such as, “Damn, that femme is slaying it today!” or “She looks so powerful-what a badass femme to be a part of our community!”
I fly my femme flag high, and I put on an excellent show of encouraging others to do the same. I lie, actively.
Despite the vast work I’ve put into recognizing and interrogating jealousy as a polyamorous person, I’m still completely undone by my partners desiring other femmes. When I learn of an attraction, I’m entirely consumed by my perceived inadequacies in comparison to the femme in question. I’m always less attractive, less driven, less intriguing than they are. I literally make a living off a combination of my intellectual prowess (writing) and people wanting to fuck me (sex work); our insecurities are anything but logical, and as much as I enjoy the sex industry, it breeds female competitiveness even more fervently than society at large.
If the other femme is younger than I am, I anxiously pull taught my imaginary wrinkles. If she’s in graduate school, I spend entire afternoons rethinking my decision to not pursue higher education. It’s a miserable existence. Only when my partners desire more masculine folks do my insecurities subside, as I don’t feel threatened by someone I have trouble comparing myself to. This in turn places undeserving pressure on my partners to step outside the authenticity of their own desires and pursue either exclusively MoC dates, or none at all. Their sacrifice then only furthers a misogynist queer narrative of femmes being too much maintenance–a stereotype which I otherwise try to avoid at all costs.
This emotional clusterfuck isn’t sustainable, and my relationships suffer as a result. Femme competitiveness is a victory lap for patriarchy.
MoC individuals in queer non-monogamous arrangements are in a unique position to both encourage and combat femme competitiveness. While the idea of being a MoC person in the middle of two femmes vying for your attention can make you feel wanted and loved, that makes you the antithesis of a femme ally. There is often a conflation between masculinity as an aesthetic and desiring to share the same privileges and systemic power than a man has, and a lot of queer and/or trans masculine folks don't contemplate this too deeply. Unchecked, it has the potential to put femmes in the same position as straight women: feeling as though they need to compete for the comfort, safety and validation of male attention.
Masculine folks’ commitment to demolishing femme competitiveness is crucial to dismantling the patriarchy and elevating the sisterhood, as well as building stronger, more diverse poly relationships.
How you can help:
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If you have two or more femme partners, encourage them to share space/get to know/form a connection with one another. Make it clear that while you want this, do not make any presumptions of your inclusion in these spaces, i.e. don't set these up with the faint hope that the increased emotional intimacy will lead to a threesome.
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Watch your language when talking about one femme to another - make sure you’re presenting each partner as a well-rounded, nuanced human being first and foremost. Are you constantly singing Partner A’s praises to Partner B, encouraging resentment to form? Or are you constantly complaining about Partner B to Partner A, encouraging the kind of divisive cattiness that feels natural for women to fall into?
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“It's important to keep in mind everyone's history when competitiveness arises, and to remember all the ways femmes have to act while out in the world to be taken seriously, not all of which might feel totally authentic to them,” says Mariella Mosthof, Sex & Relationships Contributor for Bustle, “It's burdensome to have to fight that hard to be seen and heard all the time, especially if it goes against your nature. Ideally, your relationship(s) should be an oasis away from that.”
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Reflect and interrogate the ways you and your other MoC friends/partners talk about the femmes in your life. If you wouldn't permit two men to say this about a cishet woman at your job, it doesn't suddenly become okay when it's two butches or trans guys talking about a femme.
I know that I am not alone in my struggle, yet I wonder what continues to silence us. Is there a stereotype threat at play, where queer women don't want to have these discussions for fear that straight people will laugh and say "told you so" at our attempts to exist outside of their society? Are we all just trying so hard to get along with one another and be perceived as anything but “dramatic” and “emotional” by our own community that we teeter around on our stilettos with heavy hearts wearing a charlatan’s smile, avoiding potential conflict?
When things get really bad, I sometimes pretend that the roles have been reversed-that I’m engaged in consoling conversation with another femme who is struggling with their feelings of being intimidated by me and all I represent in their mind.
“I’m flawed. I’m human. I need you,” I reinforce with slight exasperation.
Now I can just tell them to read this.