I borrowed this idea from Ada, who made a great post on c/MTF about this. The discussion was very interesting and I wanted to bring it to a wider range of perspectives across the spectrum.

  • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    10·
    8 months ago

    Femininity is confusing to me. I understand it conceptually, but I don’t “feel” it the way many trans fem folk seem to. It doesn’t relate to my sense of who I am, and it never played a part in my self understanding. So I don’t know what it means to me :)

      • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        9·
        8 months ago

        I mean, I didn’t escape that. I feel performative femininity as a pressure, but I felt that as a negative. As something I had to do, because the societal norms told me that’s what I have to do.

        But that isn’t the sole experience of femininity for most trans fem folk. By and large, other trans fem folk find empowerment in it too, they want to reclaim it and express it on their own terms. They find that understanding their relationship with femininity can help them understand more about themselves…

        And it’s those bits I’m really talking about. Not the external pressure of femininity, but the internal relationship we so often have with it.