FemmeCast Video Blog #1: Activist Stretches
During the last terrible no good very bad Mercury Retrograde, my pink desktop computer bit the dust. It was a shame, especially because I had just gotten comfortable using Audacity to edit FemmeCast, and also I have all of my backlog of podcast recordings on there.
This is me and Taueret, my new Ferocity Correspondent. We’re doing a stretch she taught me that she learned on the Equality Ride.
Making My Pageant Dreams a Reality
Thinking about my desires and what I dreamed about when I was in high school… a lot of it was pretty simple stuff. I wanted love. I hated myself so much I couldn’t even recognize how much I hated myself. I wanted so desperately to fit in and feel comfortable with my body. I wanted access to all of the cheesy girl stuff like the cheerleading squad, dance team and running for homecoming queen. (Being perky, loud and wearing matching outfits? That is still my thing.)
I didn’t feel like I was allowed access to even try out for any of those things, since I believed what everyone told me about my size–that I wasn’t beautiful and had to rely on my personality and smarts.
I also really loved beauty pageants. I have always had a thing for them. I like watching people perform, I like sparkly outfits, I like good hair and ritual.
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. 😉
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?
Additions to the Queer Lexicography: Relatables
Codefriendant: If you meet any of the following criteria, you might be codefriendant. 1. You text every morning when you wake-up? 2. You rarely do anything on your own if you have the option of your friend being there? 3. You are so close that everyone you meet thinks you’re a couple? 4. You fight like you’re in a relationship? 5. You had sex a few times and it made you feel really complicated? 6. They had sex with someone else and it made you feel really complicated? 7. You have bad boundaries?
Girl You Look Expensive: Alysia Angel
In 20 years I haven’t changed a thing about my approach to buying
nearly everything second hand, making it my own, reinventing what
personal style means. I have dedicated myself to fashion without ever
looking to magazines or books for help. I have dedicated my body to be
a canvass, a color palette, a target for material. I am a slave to a
“perfect” dress, a perfect pink shell top, a kitschy vintage pin, a
large and gorgeous clutch, a hot pair of heels, an accordion skirt in
an interesting color.
Turning Rage into Productivity
When I get enraged about stuff, especially frustrations with dating and the like, I take my rage and channel it into productive things. Usually my community building work, my writing or performance. I got the greatest email this morning from my friend Jessie Dress.
Girl You Look Expensive: Taueret
Femme cannot be bought. Period. But the process of putting together a style that makes you feel comfortable in your skin does sometimes take some scrappiness and bargain shopping. I love bargain shopping–I call it Femme Hunting. Half the time the process of getting together an outfit is fun in and of itself.
So it is in this spirit of opening dialogue about Femme Hunting that I present my new blog series: Girl You Look Expensive****. I’ll find a fierce fat femme, interview her about her outfit and post it here. The idea is how you can look fierce and fashionable without spending a lot of money.
Philly’s FleshMob!
First, a flash mob, or rather a FLESH mob. The idea is that we’ll gather at the Philadelphia Art Museum, where scantily/flashily/fabulously clad self-identified fat folks will run, walk, skip, waddle, ride, saunter, sashay, etc. their way to the top of the famous stairs, Rocky style. Fat folks who don’t do stairs can be waiting at the top for the mob. All of this while allies are cheering, holding signs, and handing out fat liberation literature.
New Minisode of FemmeCast Now Available!!
After a brief hiatus, FemmeCast returns with a minisode all about the sweet stuff (or the not so sweet stuff we turn into a good story)!!
Host Bevin Branlandingham is joined by Femme Shark Correspondent Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, hosting live from a road trip journey earlier this Spring.
What’s the Fattest thing you’ve done today?
Right now I’m on Gaycation with my Bestie Rachael (The founder of Femme Mafia International and FemmeCast’s Sexpert), which basically means I get a cheap flight to Atlanta and come live down here for a few days, going to parties and living life cheaper than in the Big Apple. Plus I love the South with a great passion.
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.
For the Love of My Wardrobe
here’s nothing like having to take literally every article of clothing you own to the laundromat to remind you how much you own. That’s 2 Prius loads full. And I got rid of 12 white garbage bags of clothes during the Fat Girl Flea Market, so it is extra crazy realizing how much there is.
When I think about my wardrobe, though, I do realize that I have a lot of different aesthetics to maintain.