Turning Rage Into Productivity: Transgender Day of Remembrance

In case you haven’t heard, there were two brutal murders of queer people of color this week (details below). The same week as Transgender Day of Remembrance. I can’t really articulate my feelings, mostly, they are a mix of rage, overwhelm, sadness, grief, irritation and helplessness–a lot of crying while reading twitter. I also can’t believe shit like this is still happening. Matthew Shepard was murdered over a decade ago. I remember those vigils, but for some reason these hit closer to home. Maybe it’s because I have been out of the closet so much longer, maybe it is because more of my friends and lovers are gender nonconforming now. Maybe I am more wholly in my body and self so I feel entitled to express the rage in my heart when it happens instead of dissociating.

Nobody Ever Died of Awkward: The Queer Fat Femme Guide to Battling Insecurity and Asking People Out

Half the reasons I’ve missed out on getting ass in my lifetime is by not articulating my desire. Insecurity, fear of rejection, fear of being made fun of… the list is endless. It’s hard to put yourself out there in a racist, homophobic, misogynist, binary gendered, anti-erotic, fatphobic, ableist, etc… society when you’re at one or many of those intersections of marginalized identities. Plainly stated, I’ve been a fat girl my whole life, shit from middle school runs deep and it’s hard to bounce back from significant early rejection.

Out of that insecurity can come a bevy of reasons to psych yourself out of propositioning someone.

After that moment I incorporated “Nobody ever died of awkward” into my regular on stage repetoire.

The Queer Fat Femme Guide to Breaking Up and Declining a Date Invite

‘ve had a hard time articulating a way in which I can turn my latest rage into productivity. In the absence of some flowery prose, I will tell you what is giving me the rage lately:

People who don’t know how to break things off with someone properly and/or who cannot gracefully turn down a date.

First, I will give you a list of real life examples from my life and my friends lives in the last couple of months to illustrate why my rage is at a boil.

Correspondence: Online Dating for High Femmes & Lovers of Same

I have seen you around before. I have a question, my ex is high femme, but other than that they are hard to find, where do i look for them? okcupid certainly does not seem to know. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Dear [Name withheld]:

I totally hear you. On my end it’s hard to find dapper butches, genderqueers and FTMs who are even into high femmes on these online personal sites. Like, first and foremost, how hard is it to have a queer gender clickie box? Like, M, F or Fabulous?

Femme Book Club!!

It’s no secret that my friends call me the Queer Oprah (and my career goal is to have a talk show). In that vein I thought about the ways I could have a Femme Book Club and use my media outlets to bring it worldwide and get other Femmes & allies reading and talking!

Here’s how it will work–FBC has its nexus in Femme Family NYC. We’re an open and inclusive Femme organization based in New York. We’re reading one book a month, selected by a member who wants to lead a discussion. If you’re in NYC you should join us. If you’re far away or can’t, I’ll post the discussion questions here at QueerFatFemme.com. If you have a blog, write them up on your blog and I’ll post a link on the entry. If you don’t, just respond in the comments section.*

On Femme Dates, Femme on Femme Action and Cultivating Both

If you read my definition of Femme Date, I say “In this context I mean it as a platonic event that is ultimately constructed as a romantic date is, but without the bumbling, attraction questions or all of the other baggage of a regular date. Itโ€™s specifically designed for Femme bonding time.” Femme Dates are all about not being romantic dates. NOT TO THE EXCLUSION OF FEMMES DATING.

Here’s the thing–if two Femmes go on a romantic date, it’s called a DATE. Just like if a Butch and a Butch go on a romantic date, or a Genderqueer and a Femme or whatever. Two Femmes going on a date is a date that, of course, increases the FOFA (god that’s such a great acronym) in the world, and, according to Cherry Poppins, when two Femmes do it they produce glitter that comes out of nowhere. It happened to her and her ladyfriend and they were very thrilled.

Correspondence: Aqueel or Michael

From the myspace mailbag:

Hi, Nice profile ๐Ÿ™‚

Just wondering, do u ever flirt with men ?
If not, would you ever flirt just for fun ?

Michael

The Queer Fat Femme Guide to Starting a Community Group

I guess what I was really wondering is if you could offer any advice on how to get started, a good way to find some femmes and to create an interest in forming a femme community for support, to open discussion and to hopefully create a loud sparkly place in Idaho for us.

The QFF Guide to dealing with social situations with a potentially fatphobic acquaintance

Bevin, my bright and compassionate role model, how would you handle yourself at a social event with an acquaintance who hates/dislikes/at the very least disapproves of you based on something as stupid and arbitrary as weight? You see, I’m going to an event and I just discovered that the person I was most looking forward to hanging out with is part of an online social networking website group about fat hatred.

Femme Lounge Wear

I decided to start challenging the notion that I had to save my lingerie for occasional and brief visits from suitors** and wear it around the house for me. Now, I’m not really talking about crotchless nothings or underwear that wiggles down as soon as you walk two steps, I’m taking cute camisoles with a little bit of support in them, vintage lingerie, frilly robes and the like. I have to say, it’s totally revolutionized how I feel at home.

Guest Post: Zoe’s Break-up Survival Guide

When FemmeCast was just getting started, Bevin decided to do an episode about breakups and she asked me to share with listeners my tips for getting over a broken heart. As, at the time, the self-described โ€œQueen of Heartbreak,โ€ I felt well qualified to address this issue.