In Praise of Femme Lesbians

 

Image from Alexander Krivitsky
on UnSplash.

Back in the day, femme lesbians were known as “lipstick lesbians” and were usually in heavy demand from butch and super butch women in the community.

As I write this post, it brings back many unique and even pleasant memories for me. Why? It is because during that time in my life, I was desperately seeking where I fit in on the gender spectrum. As I drifted from point A to point B, I discovered the only place I really fit in was with the lesbian community. If I could only be accepted which was far from a given.

It all started with me when I was going to several mixed, male and female gay venues in Columbus, Ohio years ago. One night I was in a very crowded venue trying to get drink when I very butch lesbian offered to buy one for me. It was the first time I felt as if I was in the right place at the right time and someone appreciated me for who I was. It all started me on a path I still am on to this day with my third wife Liz who identifies as a lesbian. She was the one person and only one who had told me she never saw in male in me, but I am getting ahead in my experiences on how I arrived here.

It all basically started seriously when I started to go regularly to two small lesbian venues in Dayton, Ohio. One I was accepted in and one I was not. The one I was not accepted in showed their dislike for me in many ways, including shutting off the juke box when I played Shania Twain’s “I Feel Like a Woman”. No sense of humor at all! The other venue was the total opposite, and I even discovered I knew one of the bartenders from my male life. It was there that I had many exciting adventures into a terrifying world I did not know much about except when I was drawn to it and it was drawn to me. Going all the way back to one of the many diverse parties I went to in Columbus, Ohio when I hit it off with another woman and we took off and visited a very popular gay night spot called “Wall Street”. Since I was still married at the time, nothing happened except again I learned where I really belonged on the gender spectrum.

Through most of it, I was playing the odds, I could explore the world as a femme lesbian and still get home and cleaned up before my wife did. One night in particular was rough when a butch in a cowboy hat demanded that I sing karaoke with her, make no mistake that I am a terrible singer and wanted nothing to do with her but she was convincing and I thought of the only song that I knew to sing to was “David Allan Coe’s You have Never Even Called me By My Name.” And here I was sharing a microphone in my blond wig and tight jeans with a butch in a cowboy hat doing my best to let her do most of the singing. By the way, “David Allan Coe” just passed away recently in his eighties, and after I was done singing, I got the hell out of there when the butch said my voice was lower than hers and I never saw her again.

Other than my brief singing career, I had many more interactions with lesbian women and even my first time I was asked out to dinner came at the request of a super butch who went on to transition completely to a transgender man. Even though I was scared to death, I still managed to have a good time which set me up for future successes when I went to lesbian mixers with my friends. They were shy but I was not and ended up in several interesting situations when one woman said she should buy me a drink and take me home with her (I got the drink but did not go home with her) and the night I was caught kissing a strange woman by the pool table in a venue we were in.

Perhaps, other than the karaoke experience, the evening I was asked by my friend to be her “wing person” and approach another woman about getting her phone number for my friend. I never got that phone number, but I did get a once-in-a-lifetime experience to remember.

Being accepted the way I was by other women saved me from having to consider my sexuality at all. In fact, I was enjoying much more attention as a transgender woman than I ever had as a man when it came to other ciswomen. I think it was because I represented an alternative to many lesbian women who had experienced men in their past and did not identify as “Gold Star” women. Gold Star lesbians identify as women who have never been with a man sexually. To all the ones that did not wear their “stars” proudly, I represented a unique gender middle ground. It helped me too, when the ciswomen I encountered did not have the same sexual hangups that most men seem to carry around with them along with their fragile egos.

Maybe the best part was that I did not have any problems fitting in with my image as a lipstick or femme lesbians and was well aware of all they had in the LGBTQ community to make societal inroads which we always desperately needed. I desperately needed it too as I searched for where I belonged in life. All along I was a femme lesbian hidden behind layers of masculinity waiting to get out and enjoy the world. It was quite the coming out process for me. As I learned I could validate myself as a person without the help of a man which was exceedingly difficult for me to do sexually or mentally. Thanks to all the women I met, I never had to do it.