Butch-Femme.com

A Self-Love Moment by Bevin



At the Femme Family meeting on Tuesday, in the middle of a terrible heat wave hitting NYC, our go-around topic was “Describe your inner body temperature.” Mine was the rage of a Disney villain. A fat one. (In the words of Dave End*, “Never fuck with a witch who puts on lipstick with a shrimp.”) I get heat sick pretty easily and almost fainted during yoga on Monday, so by day 3 of the heat storm I was so grumpy. So grumpy that I barely put on clothes. I picked out the thing that felt the least like wearing clothes that I could.

This is an old photo from an old queeraoke night, but this is what I wore. It’s a stretchy H&M large cotton tank dress (I want more but never seem to find them), which is slutty fat girl size. I was singing “Everything She Wants” by Wham!
How can a meeting with such empowering Femmes not raise my spirits? On my way home I realized how grateful I was to have done so much work over the last 11 years to unlearn the body shame that would have, otherwise, kept me hot and miserable and covered up in layers upon layers of clothes trying to hide my body. Feeling good about my body and sexuality is so much more comfortable, both literally and figuratively.
So this goes out to all of the amazing people in my life, who taught me early on the joy and value of loving yourself and moving in your body in ways that make you feel good.
Further, I’m still getting comments and emails about my post In Solidarity With Those Who Have Been Called Too Much. “Too much” to one person is another person’s “SO much”. Remember that and keep the faith.
To that end, happy birthday to Rachel Schiff, a protege of mine. She is a beautiful ray of light in this world and I am so happy she is in my life! At 22 years old she’s already a kick starter and a rabble-rouser for social justice and good times. San Francisco is lucky to have her.

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