Femme

Femme is a term that refers to a queer person whose gender expression is considered to be feminine. It was originally used to distinguish feminine lesbian and bisexual women from butch women, and it is still one of the main uses of the term. It is common for trans and nonbinary individuals to use the term to refer to their identity or expression even if they do not identify as lesbian or bisexual women. However, this last usage is has been gatekept by trans-exclusionary members of the lesbian community.On the appropriation of femme on Lesbians over everything (lesbiansovereverything.com) Archived on 17 July 2023 A common definition of femme is someone who queers or subverts femininity, as opposed to a butch person, who rejects femininity. Femme is also sometimes used as a gender in itself.
International Femme Appreciation Day is celebrated on the first Saturday of July.
== Usage ==
Some argue that the word femme Note that, in French, femme means woman. The pronunciation is also different ([fam] in French, [fɛm] in English). This article is about the English usage of this word. can only be used to describe people in the LGBTQ+ spectrum, and it can be a synonym of the expression lipstick lesbian in some cases. Because there are many stereotypes surrounding femininity, the term femme is often used to subvert cultural expectations about how a woman should look like. For this reason, many (but not all) people that identify as femme do not try to adhere to these stereotypes. This is similar to how the word queer was reclaimed by the LGBTQ community.
Femme has been used for women as well as men, and also for people outside of the gender binary.Twitter hashtag #FemmesCanBeThems Nonbinary femmes struggle against the misconception that nonbinary people must have an androgynous expression, since their own expression is feminine.
Some people claim that in the same way that nobody uses the words bear or twink unless they are gay men, nobody should use words such as femme or butch unless they are women. Therefore, they consider it appropriation.
==Flags==
There is no universally-accepted flag for the femme identity, but several have been proposed. Below are some of them. 
File:Femme flag by disasterbisexual.png|Created by tumblr user disasterbisexual.
File:Femme flag by momma-mogai-sphinx.png|Created by tumblr user momma-mogai-sphinx.
File:Femme flag by 0biz.png|Created by tumblr user 0biz.
File:Fem(me) flag by butch-pentious.png|Created by tumblr user butch-pentious.
File:Femmegender2.png|A flag for "nonbinary femme" from Beyond Mogai Pride Flags.
File:Femme_kiss_flag.jpg|Creator unknown.
File:Femme flag - Rebecca Bettencourt.jpg|Created by Rebecca Bettencourt.
File:Femme by nbgender.png|Created by James/Ocean (tumblr user nbgender).
File:Femme by sweetjinxii.png|Created by tumblr user sweetjinxii.
File:Femme by ShippyGoodness.png|Created by reddit user ShippyGoodness.
File:Femme by kenochoric.png|Created by tumblr user kenochoric, who nicknamed it the "sea femme" flag.
== Notable femme people ==
There are many more notable people who have a gender identity outside of the binary. The following are only some of those notable people who specifically describe their own identity by the name "femme," "fem," or a close analog to it, and who do not identify as just men or women. 
* Dev Blair is a multimedia artist who is a nonbinary femme.
* Niecy Blues is an American musician who describes themself as an agender femme.
* Kate Bornstein (b. 1948) is an author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist. Bornstein is "a non-binary femme-identified trans person".
* Sand C. Chang, PhD., is a Chinese-American clinical psychologist and educator. Dr. Chang is one of the authors of A Clinician's Guide to Gender-Affirming Care: Working with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Clients. They are nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, demiboy, and femme.
* Sharon daVanport is an activist who founded what is now the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (formerly Autism Women's Network). DaVanport is a nonbinary femme.
* Ericka Hart is a sexuality educator and activist. She is a Black queer nonbinary femme.
* Sassafras Lowrey is an author and journalist, known for hir books about dogs. Lowrey is genderqueer, trans, femme, queer, polyamorous, and asexual.
* Nikkita Oliver, American attorney, poet, and activist, is a genderfluid femme.
* Mauree Turner, American politician and community organizer. Turner is a nonbinary femme who was the first nonbinary person elected to a state legislature in the USA.
== See also ==
*Butch
*Demigirl
*Boi
*Femmegender
==Further reading==
* (note: article contains reclaimed slurs)
*
*
*
== References ==
== Notes ==
Category:Nonbinary identities