Since then a cis gay, lesbian, and bisexual conservatism has replaced liberation organizing with efforts towards assimilation through marriage and the military. There was little possibility to be anything but actively in opposition to the straight and cis society around us. North American queer and trans folks-especially white ones-who came up in the 1990s and early 2000s couldn’t help but encounter “fem” as part of a queer history of building our lives on our own terms. The stakes are high because the particular politics that “fem” named in its original contexts, and for trans women since then, is something we need right now. This depoliticizing move is rapidly expanding into many trans spaces. “Fem” matters right now because for cis gay, lesbian, and bisexual folks, that politics has largely been replaced by a version of queerness that retains only the label, substituting aesthetic markers for any actual pursuit of liberation. “Fem” matters because it comes from specific queer contexts and lineages that have a politics woven into their aesthetics. Lately, “fem” is having a moment-sometimes as an umbrella term (“trans fems”), sometimes as a subcategory or add-on (“women and fems”), but almost always with a certain vagueness to it. They fall in and out of fashion and sometimes reappear for another moment in the spotlight, with or without the tingle of nostalgia. Sometimes the words have crisp edges of meaning sometimes they’re blurred or shapeless. Words for different flavors of trans people come and go, gathering different assortments of us together and drawing different lines between us.
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