en femme
Language: English
Part of speech: adv
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɒn ˈfɑm/
note: reproducing the French pronunciation
ipa: /ɑ̃-/
ipa: /ɑn ˈfɑm/
ipa: /-ˈfɛm/
rhymes: -ɑm
rhymes: (one GA pronunciation) -ɛm
Forms: form: enfemme
Etymology: Borrowed from French en femme (“as a woman”) as in s’habille en femme (“dresses as a woman”), from en (“as”) + femme (“woman”).
Senses: examples: text: G., a crossdresser, lived on the second floor of the hotel at which she worked. Not wanting to walk through the lobby enfemme, she climbed the fire escape. Her heels got stuck in the catwalk and the police had to rescue her.
ref: 1997 winter, Jane Ellen Fairfax, “Chapter News Update: Dateline: New York, New York”, in Femme Mirror, volume 22, number 1, Houston, Tex.: The Society for the Second Self, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 28 Jun 2025, page 20, column 1:
text: They spend anywhere from a couple of hours with us to a couple of days, immersed in classes with a faculty of deans who teach the students individually how to do their own makeup, walk in heels, go out and about town en femme, probe their erotic yearnings, network with others, and in general share and appreciate this part of themselves that has inspired them to dress in female clothing (usually in secret) since they were children.
ref: 2002, Veronica Vera, “Introduction: Student Orientation”, in Miss Vera’s Cross-dress for Success: A Resource Guide for Boys who Want to be Girls, New York, N.Y.: Villard, →ISBN, page xiv:
text: Most of them also "love to shop"—especially en femme […]
ref: 2002 July, Jane E. Hegland, Nancy J. Nelson, “Cross-Dressers in Cyber-space: Exploring the Internet as a Tool for Expressing Gendered Identity”, in International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies, volume 7, numbers 2–3, New York, N.Y.: Kluwer Academic/Human Sciences Press, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 139–161:
text: Some wives sought limits on their spouses' cross-dressing as a condition for remaining in the marriage. A common stipulation was that the cross-dressers not do so in front of the spouse and/or the children. Other cross-dressing interviewees were permitted to present en femme inside their homes or out of town but had agreed to restrict their public cross-dressing locally in order to minimize the possibility of disclosure.
ref: 2011, Genny Beemyn, Susan Rankin, “Experiences of Transgender Identity”, in The Lives of Transgender People, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 69:
text: [John] Randell was himself a highly secretive cross-dresser, keeping a flat near Charing Cross Hospital to which he would invite selected clinical colleagues and junior doctors, to serve them cocktails while dressed en femme.
ref: 2021 November, Zoë Playdon, “A Death in the Family”, in The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN, part 2, page 102:
text: Under Susanna [Valenti] and Marie's stewardship, the slightly run-down, three-story house in the Catskill Mountains became a unique kind of bed and breakfast. Casa Susanna offered makeup, hair, wardrobe and comportment tutorials and 150 acres on which guests could roam freely "en femme," as they called it. For many of the visitors, it was the first time they had ever been able to become these versions of themselves around others.
ref: 2023 June 1, Kirstin Butler, “American Experience: We Were Never Meant to See this Photograph”, in GBH, PBS, archived from the original on 03 Dec 2024:
coordinate_terms: en homme
glosses: Of a cross-dressing, non-binary, or trans person: while dressed in feminine clothing.