I wrote the notes for this blog post on an empty evening flight home from Toronto, having just left my first Playground Conference. Fully intending to relax, listen to podcasts, and beat my Tetris high score for the duration of the flight, I instead ended up reflecting on workshops, friendships both new and old, relationship structures, power dynamics, and what it felt like to explore a new city. There’s one thing that kept knocking on the door of my heart throughout the flight, though: femmes.

Femme friendship. Femme solidarity. Femme power. Femme resilience. Femme understanding. Femme brilliance. Femme anger. Femme tenderness.

My mind flooded with memories of my community, the femmes I love and have loved—from Playground to past years’ Woodhull conferences to college and everything in between—and I was reminded that I feel the most held, the most seen, the most validated, loved, and supported, when I’m surrounded by femmes.

• • •

Our world in general doesn’t value femmes, and so often the “safer” communities that are supposed to hold space for us don’t value us either. Femme is inherently queer, but we’re devalued, exploited, and invisibilized in countless queer spaces. In sex-positive or sex-affirming spaces, femmes are often expected to do the bulk of needed work and to respond favorably to cis men leaders’ whims. We’re demanded to hold space for others and rarely afforded the “luxury” of space or time for ourselves. Our labor is taken for granted, our contributions minimized. The layers and intricacies of our lives are ignored in favor of a one-dimensional view of who we are.

Femmes of color, trans and non-binary femmes of all genders, agender femmes, disabled femmes, mentally ill femmes, fat femmes, and femme sex workers are further exploited and marginalized, expected to educate everyone who doesn’t share their identities (including white, cis, able-bodied, neurotypical femmes) without compensation for their labor or consideration for their emotional, mental, and physical well-being.

Among fellow femmes, though, so much of the pressures and expectations of the outside world are alleviated, even if just for a little while. This isn’t at all to say things are perfect—power dynamics are alive and well in femme communities and white femmes often demand labor from femmes of color, for example—but femme solidarity and support runs deep in our relationships and connections with each other.

• • •

Femme friendships are unique and beautiful and intimate.

It’s usually femmes who check in with me and ask “Hey, do you have space to talk about [insert topic here]?” before delving into a difficult or potentially triggering subject that may require emotional labor.

It’s usually femmes who process trauma with me, who understand the complexities of queerness and femmeness and socialization and emotional labor and power dynamics, who help me feel like I don’t have to say “sorry” while I’m working through my own internalized guilt and shame about what I did or didn’t do when I was harassed.

It’s usually femmes who check my lipstick for smudging, who encourage me to spend extra time to get that perfect picture, who laugh and say “don’t worry, remember that selfie I took earlier? I’ve got at least 100 pictures on my camera roll that didn’t make the cut,” who celebrate the 7 outfits I brought for a 3-day conference—without attaching accusations of vanity or self-indulgence to any of those interactions.

It’s usually femmes who say: Thank you. I appreciate you. I will hold space for you. I can’t hold space for you right now but I affirm and support you always. You are important. I believe you.

It’s usually femmes who go to bat for me, throw down for me, demand accountability from people who hurt me.

It’s usually femmes. Femmes know. Femmes validate. Femmes affirm.

• • •

With my femme community, I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not. I don’t have to settle for eagerly showing up with my full self and having to leave parts at the door, bringing my shame inside instead. I can enthusiastically celebrate all the parts of me; I can show up wholly and authentically.

I can disarm.

As a survivor, it is incredibly difficult for me to find spaces where I can disarm myself. This isn’t to say I permanently shed all of my armor—I can come off as having a hard exterior, and I like it that way—but it does mean I can lay some of my weapons down and share my heart, my tenderness, and my softness with others.

The femmes I love and who love me see that tenderness and softness. They see my complexities and intricacies. They see my spooky femme aesthetic, my unapproachability, my severity. They see my silliness, my ridiculous jokes, my laughable dance moves, my weird faces, my absurdity. They see the sensitivity I’ve been shamed for my whole life. They see the illusion of the impenetrable shell I crack when I’m around them. They see my rage, my tears, my righteous anger, my passion, my drive. They don’t see all these parts of me as impossibly or distastefully mixed—rather, they affirm it all.

I love all the parts of me. And the femmes who love me love all of those parts too—and I love all of theirs.