A girl who's a boy who's a girl: On Femininity
- cryptidkidsideshow
- Mar 2, 2025
- 5 min read
I worry that I'm a closet femme-phobe.
As far back as I can remember, I've felt like I've failed at femininity, and as a result felt deep-seated resentment at being seen as a girl. Even now sometimes, when I'm around feminine people, whether they are cis, trans, or nonbinary, I feel an intense anxiety rise within me. I feel scrutinized and on-edge. I hyper-fixate on my appearance, my body, my skills as a performer, comparing myself to femmes and finding myself sorely lacking. I find myself thinking unkindly about femmes, trying to ascribe flaws to them that don't exist.
Femme-phobia is very common among queer men. George Frederick Leeder describes in his article, "Masculine, independent, and 'not acting'," how the men he studied conceptualized masculinity to be in direct odds with femininity. For these men, a necessary part of what masculinity means is devaluing and rejecting femininity, resisting at all costs the association of queerness with femininity.
I am acutely aware of this. I in no way consider femmes beneath me, and I try to uplift and support the femmes in my life. I am in love with one. But I can't seem to completely shake off the feeling that I find refuge in masculinity because I want distance between myself and femininity, which I feel like I have failed at. I want to be freed from the expectations and standards of femininity, and adopting masculine style gives me space to breathe.
Kelsey Snoot, a Black transmasc writer, and Lisa Fouweather write that we need a new masculinity that is not built upon the degradation and rejection of femininity. As Lisa calls it, an "antithesis to toxic masculinity." Kelsey and Lisa describe a masculinity characterized by emotional intelligence, vulnerability, openness to physical affection with other men, and desire for connection.
I am all for this concept of masculinity. I like that it teaches men to respect women rather than coerce or dominate them, to connect with them instead of being willfully ignorant of their needs and desires. If I'm going to be masculine, I want to be masculine in a way that doesn't essentially position femininity as "other."
And yet, on some deep level, I still can't shake the feeling that I'm using masculinity to keep femininity at arms length.
I think my femme-phobia comes from a different place than it does with cis and queer men. My impulse to reject femininity comes not from male revilement for women, but from AFAB anger. In her essay, "Female Rage Is Here To Stay," Nonkosi Tazibona describes feminine rage as a response to the oppression and violence women have been subjected to. As an AFAB person, I am acutely aware of the subjugation of feminine people, and I am angry. In the words of an anonymous writer, "I may not be a girl, but I carry the anger of all the women who came before me." I want to escape violence and cast off oppressive roles as much as any feminine person does. But Maya Angelou says:
"You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure."
And when I feel the impulse to mute hyper-feminine performers on Instagram, when I cringe at girls wearing flimsy pink collars and cat ears, when I resent nonbinary people for successfully performing femininity.... that's bitterness. That's me wanting to cast off society's feminine role for me so badly that I recoil from femininity completely. That's not kind to femmes and not healthy for me.
I could have wallowed in this bitterness forever. But then something amazing happened.
I joined a rock and roll dance troupe.
When I auditioned I was nervous. There were only two men there out of more than two dozen dancers. I was expecting the dances to be split into strictly masculine and feminine movement styles, like all the dance classes I had taken. I was preparing to compare myself to all the feminine dancers and consider myself severely lacking in talent. But I had a blast. The choreography was fast and energetic, with plenty of head whips, hip thrusts, and isolations. Think Cell Block Tango meets Coyote Ugly. Think heavy metal Pussycat Dolls. And everyone was as kind as they were talented. I got cast for the show, and months later I joined the troupe.
Our logo is a middle finger, and appropriately so. We will flip off our audience, twerk in their faces, and kiss each other in our opening act. If we're not dancing to classic rock, we're dancing to anthems of female strength and rage.
And the thing is, even though all of my troupe-mates are femme-presenting, I feel more empowered than I ever have been performing with them. I feel no discomfort with their femininity, in fact I slot in right alongside them. Their femininity and my masculinity complement each other perfectly. When people misgender me when I'm in their company, it stings and it's annoying, but it doesn't send me into a gender dysphoric spiral.
What our troupe reminds me most of is bands of the early 90s Riot Grrrl movement, spearheaded in part by the all-female punk rock Bikini Kill. Riot Grrrls were female musicians who aimed to bring awareness to feminist issues framed through the lens of punk rock. In addition to denouncing misogyny in the music industry, they fought against capitalism, commercialism, mainstream beauty standards, and oppressive gender roles. Their fuck-you attitude was encapsulated in both their music and their clothes. When one of the singers from Bikini Kill was on stage, she would often wear nothing but a bra top, with "Slut" written on her torso. She'd fit right in in my dance troupe.
All this to say, on stage with them, I feel in touch with a femininity in defiance of misogyny that empowers me and brings me joy. It is a femininity that encapsulates an anger without bitterness. A creative punk rock anger, inspiring me to take up space and speak my truth in defiance of all who seek to stifle me. And as an enby, I feel an intense relief that a femininity exists that I'm not seeking refuge from or defining my own masculinity in opposition to. Finally, femininity can co-exist with masculinity in me, without antagonism or contradiction.
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