In Nice Chinese Girls Don’t, Kitty Tsui recounts her emergence as a poet, artist, activist, writer, and bodybuilder in the early days of the Women’s Liberation Movement in San Francisco. She narrates her experience of arriving to the States as an immigrant from Hong Kong by way of her own original poetry and stories.
Tsui wrote the groundbreaking Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire, the first book written by an Asian American lesbian. She is considered by many to be one of the foremothers of the API, Asian Pacific Islander, lesbian feminist movement.
In 2018, APIQWTC, Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women & Transgender Community honored her with the Phoenix Award for lifetime achievement. In 2019, her alma mater, San Francisco State University inducted Tsui into the Alumni Hall of Fame. Her forthcoming books include Nice Chinese Girls Don’t, Battle Cry: Poems of Love & Resistance, and Fire Power: Poems of Love & Resilience. Tsui currently lives in Oakland, California, and is writing a screenplay, Unmasked.
Yes it is fucking weird that whatever you call a soft masc, feminine, dainty/delicate, androgynous, performative man and someone who “is not butch enough”—are just people who are emulating East Asian culture, trends and aesthetics. Or they’re East Asian people themselves.
It is fucking weird that you insult people who have yellow fever, not by calling out yellow fever but by further denigrating and infantilising Asian people and talking about their genitals. Or when you respond to an Asian person discussing a new love interest by saying “they probably have Yellow fever”.
It is fucking weird that you’re discussing how “Asian people are everyone’s preferences” without addressing Asian fetishism and Orientalism and how it has contributed to sexual violence, sexual slavery, shootings, the internalised stigmas contributing to underreporting and the belief that Asian people ask for it and are receptive to sexual attention.
It is fucking weird that you look at an Asian person’s body and names and start picking out which traits you want. And arguing it can’t be harmful or dehumanising because either it is just the beauty industry or it is gender affirming care [cis and trans people do engage in gender affirming care]. When these traits have been the same ones picked out by attackers as sexy to them and deserving for their taking, that they make an Asian person “good enough to be raped”.
It is fucking weird to be telling me that your whiteness is scary and ugly and masculine, and that’s why you want to adopt Asian features incl. posting clearly sexualised Asian fems in modified traditional attire as your “ideal type”.
Yes it’s weird when you see an Asian fem with curves and say that it’s probably fake, while at the same time idealising her body. When you tell an Asian femme, “white mascs / men will like you” because she is small, hairless, or flat-chested.
And no it is not progressive to go “you’re not my type” when you meet an Asian femme. No it is not fucking progressive to tell me you’d be willing to watch porn to re-assess your sexual attraction to an Asian person. Or that you have a preference for Asian people, or that you haven’t “tried Asian” before.
Yeah it is absolutely disgusting when you pinpoint the way an Asian person incorporates their Asian heritage and reclamations into their style, and you say “I want that”, as if it is a costume and accessory to take and discard whenever you want.
Yes it is completely out of line to say that an Asian person has denounced their culture when they reject your help and/or your advances, when they’re being assertive, argumentative, passionate, emotional or even, emotionally distant. When you’re extra punishing towards an Asian person for displaying these but give every other race a pass.
Yes it is weird when you say “you’re so attractive, you must be Japanese or Korean” to any Asian person, and when they tell you they’re SEAsian or Chinese, you look fucking shocked.
Some of you are fucking disgusting towards Asian people. You take and take and take from our culture and features, you hyperfeminise and sexualise us. As if Asian culture hasn’t been sufficiently exploited and when it’s brought up, you dismiss it as your right as a queer, feminist and progressive person.
And no IDGAF that you’re a leftist, why do yall keep talking about communism, kpop, nail salons and immigrant rights whenever you see me? 🤨
Btw studs, butches, femmes and stemmes of all ages can absolutely be in community and/or friendship, however they choose to define that.
It shouldn’t be the case that we see each other only as potential sexual or romantic matches.
It shouldn’t be the case that we fear relying upon each other for humane treatment, humanising respect, pragmatic and emotional support.
It shouldn’t be the case that we can’t trust people within our own community to respect our boundaries, our wishes, and/or to recognise and prioritise the person.
Some of yall genuinely think of Asian people only as those who keep their heads down and don’t stir up trouble, which is a fucking stereotype of the goody-two-shoes bootlicker grade A student, and that’s sinophobic and racist on its own.
Then you punish Asians who AREN’T quiet about shit and won’t sit down and tolerate it, who go against the status quo of their own people as well as yours. And no, just because you’re BIPOC doesn’t mean you can’t be fucking racist and Sinophobic and indulge in Orientalism. You’re contributing to a system of power that disempowers an ethnic group.
You disbelieving that Asian people HAVE stood together with other BIPOC historically to fight for human rights, against white supremacy, slavery and more; is swallowing Sinophobic bullshit that further paints Asians as passive bootlickers and assimilationists and that isolates Asian people and BIPOC ethnic minorities from each other. It erases our efforts and writes us out of history and that’s ideological violence.
Asians who have been revolutionaries in their own countries, against imperialism and colonialism. Their knowledge has expounded upon socialism and their ideas have been globalised so much so that it was Chinese thought which threatened the West and made its leaders fearful.
Many Asian countries have defeated their colonizers. Some have had to negotiate for the most favourable outcomes because of the state of affairs wrecked and instigated by colonizers, while others have suffered defeat.
I think many Asian people are visible revolutionaries with evidence of success and yall cannot fucking stand it nor perceive us as autonomous agents involved not just within our own homelands but also within our countries of residence.
⚠️TW: some of these screenshots contain the t-slur and the f-slur used against gnc fems.
It is widely believed that High Femme = “stone femme or a pillow prince/ss” but this is a misunderstanding of how ‘High Femme’ as an identity came to be. This was unfortunately popularised when people made counter-responses to the equally misinformed “Futch scale” diagram which infamously decontextualised butch and femme into aesthetics.
I went through my trove of butchfem(me) books to pull quotes regarding what a high femme is, and it deviates greatly from the solely sex-position identity or the stone-butch-dependent identity it has become today. I am unclear how this reductiveness came about, but I’ll add a calculated guess at the very end.
BEFORE YOU DISMISS THIS— Read below the cut for a compilation of butch femme quotes, resources and my analysis thereof, that support my claim.
TLDR;
My definition: A High Femme refers to a person of any gender, sex and sexuality, who constructs their feminine-centered (but not exclusive) gender in the glamour of their unique sociocultural experiences. A High Femme emphasises their gender non-conformity and/or sexual signature, in a confrontational transgression to “normative” femininity. High femmeness is a tightrope of invincibility and vulnerability, in holding onto the integrity and significance of one’s own erotic voice, independent of partnership.
🌸 Are you a High Femme, or know any High Femmes? Wanna meet and discuss with Femme friends?✨
📌 Check out The Leather&Gold Bar Discord for more pertinent discussions !
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Firstly, ButchFEM =/= FEM(ME).
Most who study ButchFem(me) culture, have proposed a split between the pre-70s ButchFem versus the post-70s ButchFemme. This has been summarised best by Obviously Queer’s YT video on Femme who states that there was no evidence of 'Femme' within the mainstream usage within the pre-70s context of ButchFemme lesbians.
Beginning timemark 56:15:
From 1930’s to sometime in the 60s, Fem as in F E M was used in the butchfem dynamic. It's sometime between 1960 and 1980 that writers start to use femme, as in F E M M E, instead.
I’m not sure why. Joan Nestle, who is a fem icon, has continued to use the spelling F E M because she identifies that femme (f e m m e) has grown too large and to separate fem as a part of a butchfem from just, other femme identities, she continues to use its original spelling. “That was how we spelled it F E M. It’s not a French word. It’s a working class descriptive word,” Nestlé says in an interview with JSTOR. Nestlé is not alone in this choice. Other academics, such as quoted Sally Munt, also uses Fem, F E M, long after its mainstream shift.
The author of “Old-Fashioned, Old-School: A Beginner’s Guide for Butches & Fems” (2018) a text i’ve seen been thrown around in well… old school butchfem communities, writes this on her website: From the birth of butchfem to around 1960, beginning of 1970 this was how it was spelled. F E M. Femme is a complicated term, because it holds so many different meanings, as I hope you’ve learned from this video so far.
Policing who can and cannot use Femme is… honestly impossible. But people do try. Many people talk and educate as if this Fem/Femme divide is the truth. It’s not the truth, it's a new concept. This is the truth only in a small, created filter bubble. There is no clear separation in real life and this divide, differently from what is occasionally claimed, has no historical value.
The historical value is the opposite. Femme has been a word for ballroom queerness in the black community, longer than it has been a word for butchfem dynamic, because the butchfem dynamic used F E M.
So policing someone that Femme is and always has been a lesbian exclusive word is incorrect. Many Fem(mes) today obviously need a word that signifies that their identity is a sapphic woman who is exclusively into butchfem.
Well here I give it to you. Femme as short for feminine. Fem(me) for those who study femininity. And Fem for those in dialogue with butches.
This is also corroborated in “Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: A History of the Lesbian Community”, by Elizabeth Kennedy & Madeline Davis (Note that the authors have expressed regrets for excluding bi femmes and butches from their book). P. 685/776, footnote 2:
We have chosen to use the spelling “fem” rather than “femme” on the advice of our narrators. This is the spelling they have always used. They also feel that “fem” is a more American spelling and that “femme” has an academic component that is too high-toned for their liking. For reference to butch-fem roles in pre-1970s communities see, for instance, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Lesbian/Woman (New York: Bantam, 1972); Audre Lorde, “Tar Beach,” Conditions 5 (1979): 34—47; Joan Nestle, “Butch-Femme Relationships” […]
📘Stone Butch Blues (1993)
The 40s ButchFem culture was a pre-political underground development via cultural exchange amongst the African American and European American working class, SW, drag queens & kings, trans women and transfems, and most importantly, BIPOC communities. Some of the butches AND fems were married to men and had boyfriends, but came to the bars and house parties to form Lesbian community and embraced the erotic dyad. Lesbianism was non-exclusive to monosexuality and its culture involved people of different genders, sexual orientations and backgrounds. [ Scroll down to “📗 Femme : Feminists, Lesbians and Bad Girls” analysis for more.]
SBB was set in the mid-20th century, supposedly in the pre-70s ButchFem culture, during which time many spaces incl. LGBTQ ones, just getting over segregation. Feinberg uses Femme, likely because SBB was written and published in the 90s (and again in the 00s), which means the butchfemme Feinberg knew of, already had influence from the eras before.
‘High Femme’ in SBB was used by trans femmes and femmes, and as Jess says—regardless man or woman. High Femmeness were associated with activities concerning gender affirmation and romance as a femme.
Peaches, a trans femme character, codifies her high femmeness in the moon and in sensual lingerie.
Controversially, Edna’s high femmeness conflicts with the stone of her butch partners, Jan and Jess. She is described by Jan to be able to “seduce any stone butch love”. Her sensuality begins comfortingly and complementary with Jess, yet is indivisible from her desire to melt a butch’s stone. This renders her relationships with her beloved stone butches, fraught. Regardless of Edna’s relationship status, she is still identified as a high femme.
Safe to say in SBB, High Femmeness ≠ Stone Femme or pillow prince/ss reliant on the stone butch identity, but refers to the construction of femininity and a person’s sensuality.
📕Butch Queens Up in Pumps (2013)
The ButchFem(me) community in America and internationally, must recognise how entwined it is with African American and Latine American ballroom culture.
The American Ballroom scene we know of today, arose in the 19th century and has been around for a really long time. It is far older than even the first iteration of the 40s ButchFEM culture. But Ballroom, while popular amongst Black and Latine American membership, was only popularised into mainstream culture in the 90s.
The mainstream has very little access to this history (respect that). This is partially due to academic racism which presides over the presence of POC voices, and priorities on “formal” written literature. We have to acknowledge the limitations in accessible resources on Ballroom culture.
BQUiP has been indispensable for this reason.
While a lot of QTPOC efforts and pioneering roles are often erased, severed and whitewashed from global and American queer consciousness, BQUiP is amongst a corpus of QTPOC resources that challenges this.
It tells of queer history through information and oral history gathered in retrospect, and respects stories passed down through connection between the members and performers of American Ballroom communities and Kiki houses. In doing so, it clarifies its place in the lineage of queer identities and consciousness.
Ballroom was comprised of three dimensions.
1st—Gender System; sex, sexuality & genderdiversity which formed the basis of kinship, as well as competitive elements and categories. These helped to create visible “archetypes” to move towards or away from.
2nd—Houses; kinship structures of social/chosen family, who bonded and cared for each other across locations. These families were formed around mottos, symbols and haute culture references. Its members varied in age, sex & genderdiversity, race & ethnicity (mostly African American & Latine American), and backgrounds.
3rd—Ballroom Events; Ballroom activated families to prepare for competitions, including supporting and training protégés for realness, voguing, body presentation and fashion. It brought together the families to gather community, and accelerated the development of Ballroom across America and even, globally. This provided sanctuary to youths of colour who were marginalised by society for their identities.
The terms Butch and Femme already had identities to them. These identities had purposes tied to American Ballroom culture.
To serve “Femme Queen & Butch Queen Up in Drag realness”, participants had to present boldly and fearlessly as convincing women, with minimal deviation from the gender & sexual norms of cisheteronormative society. To be seen as a real woman is “Realness”. Whether the competitor was for transfems or trans women (Femme Queens) or a gay men performing as a women (Butch Queen Up in Drag). Butches, different from Butch Queens, were recognised as trans men, transmascs, or masculine lesbians or female persons.
Often, the Butch Queen was an exaggerated and flamboyant presentation, and is known as drag, while the Femme Queen is not necessarily drag as their gender identity matched their competitive realness. Both groups of participants, their families and communities shared in the visible performance of gender and the self-fashioning which transformed normative categories of sex, gender and sexual identity.
Fem(me), as an identity, began percolating in ButchFem culture especially catalysed by 2nd wave feminism and LGBTQ rights movements (late-60s—70s) which encouraged sexual autonomy in every queer arena.
It is likely that Fem(me) was inspired by the mid-20th century Ballroom’s spirit of gender reconstruction, gender affirmation, drag, and sexual autonomy, as well as the defiant protective qualities of the pre-70s Fems. It likely also promoted the focus of community-building, irrespective of the dyad.
The current general queer Fem(me) is not the same as the Black & Latine American Ballroom Femme. It has developed its own multiculturalism, communities and experiences beyond Ballroom. Nevertheless, the inspiration/lineage must be recognised for how Black and Latine communities pioneered American queer consciousness.
[ And if I may add from a social studies lens, BIPOC have typically been the reason that community building is a strategy of unity, solidarity and resistance, as well as the catalysis of (sub)culture independent of the wider society.
This is why governments know that if they must strike, it would be to isolate persons from each other and reinforce the nuclear family model (the dyad). It is no surprise that BIPOC influence has shaped the Femme & High Femme identity. ]
Racism within ButchFem communities
Black communities were legally allowed to enter into what were once “white-only” spaces, only following the dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the mid-60s. This did not necessarily translate into immediate acceptance and social allowance. Different regions varied in how safe and receptive they were towards integration regardless (or often because of the complicity) of law enforcement.
Prior to this, the general Black queer and ButchFem(me) communities of NYC Harlem and Buffalo ( hotspots of ButchFem history ) had their own segregated spaces or else favoured underground house parties, where they had built their own subcultures and engaged in the circulation of Ballroom terminology and concepts.
Black communities have always presented themselves in many different ways and understood presentation as a tool for social mobility, and resistance. This includes but is not limited to Black Dandyism since the 20s which involved the classy sartorial formal wear, nouveau riche “new money” aesthetics, and many more postmodern fashion subcultures since.
Embodied by Black Butches and Fem(mes), this contrasted against white pre-70s ButchFem fashion which consisted of predominantly flannels, jeans and attires associated with the blue-collar working class.
As far as racism and cultural ignorance went, Black lesbians’ gender expressions have been derided, mocked and appropriated by white lesbians including but not limited to those of the lesbian separatist crowd and the pre-70s ButchFem crowd.
Make no mistake. This extends all the way to present day racism, mockery and appropriation by white queers against Black queers.
Most BIPOC diasporas in USA necessarily had later, slower, more cautious and fraught transitions in diversifying binary and dyadic gender norms in their unique ways, because of the more severe marginalisations they faced and the ways race and gender intersected living under the Eurocolonial Cisheteropatriarchal hegemony. However, they have been consistently shamed for their traditions and cultures, cast as opponents to white liberal and leftist politics.
The Butch’s hypervisibility and the Fem’s invisibility that white ButchFems prided themselves upon, were not treated the same on Black bodies. Black lesbians including Fem(me)s were harassed, and far more frequently and violently targeted by racists, homophobes and law enforcement.
Simultaneously, QTPOC were moralised against for their greater reliance on dyadic dynamics and gender norms, which were tools of resistance against the state-designed killing machine that is white supremacy and its pervasive multi-level effects. They were often condemned by the ignorant crowd of white lesbians dismantling dyadic and binary norms, which included (but were not solely) radical feminists.
The late-60s was rife with radical feminists. The 2nd wave feminism was overrun with TERFism from predominantly white and cis women incl. lesbians who pushed for lesbian separatism, biphobia, transphobia, androgynous appearances and the exclusion of masculinity including any phallic associations. This often muddied the agendas and motivations for others in finding themselves and their belonging in lesbian spaces.
📗Femme : Feminists, Lesbians and Bad Girls (1997)
The pre-70s lesbian communities were governed by clear rigid norms about stone identities, with the “Butch only topping” and the “Fem only bottoming”, and the strict Butch-Fem pairing which pushed for a “queer-amatonormativity” to be upheld. When they were within the lesbian bar spaces, there were strict masculine and feminine roles to observe, including in appearances and the dyadic pairing. Beyond the bar, the roles in private sex lives may have deviated (ie Butch4butch, fem4fem, aroacespec butches and fems), but many were pressured not to talk about it due to its taboo nature.
While this provided safety and simplicity for a handful of butches and fems who required and/or desired clear outlines of this new gender binary to navigate society then, the Butches and Fems of the later decades had the means to encourage diversification.
Some, special mention to those of colour, were in favour of inclusivity for diversifying the strict binary enforcing of queer-amatonormative and sexual expectations. They challenged how the dyadic priority could be controlling and exclusionary.
While the impositions of OFOS ButchFem still affects butches and fem(mes) to this day, it would be incomplete to look at this without also addressing 2nd wave lesbian separatism and radical feminism, as well as the racism targeting the different progressive routes taken by QTBIPOC communities.
The ButchFem communities have historically already understood how gender style decides existence, and is always a matter of bodies and lives at stake. However, the pre-90s focus of queer validation was typically reserved for those who socially presented differently to their assigned sex, such as trans femmes and butches.
Butches were seen as the signifier of “obvious” lesbianism and the ButchFem dyad. Fems were sidelined as only tending to experience the “rawness” and risk by extension of the ButchFem dyad, and as such were often seen as “straight-er”. Femininity and androgyny were both seen as “not subversive enough”. Thus, Fems were often kept from claiming oppression and gender transgressiveness under the white cisheteronormative patriarchy.
Femme: FL&BG (1997) showcases interviews from Femmes who recognise the stigmatisations from “traditional” ButchFems as well as the radical feminists.
Butch Mystique (2003) interviewing nine African American butches addresses these stigmatisations too, and provide insight into how these interviewees deviate and transgress racialised cisheteropatriarchal norms and queer norms.
Between the 60s to 80s, Black lesbians and trans persons including transmasculine persons, Bulldaggers, B.D women, Bulls, Dykes, Butches, Fem(me)s, Studs, Fish, Drag Queens and transfeminine Femme Queens were the likely influencers for the Fem(me) identity flowing into the mainstream. Especially since Fem(me) was earliest used by the Black Ballroom community.
Stirring up of change and novelty in the traditional ButchFem dyad, the post-70s Fems began to incorporate Fem(me). They challenged the notion of “privileged passing”, addressed invisibility as oppressive, and argued against the invalidation of their struggles. By the 90s, the feminine-constructionist femme came to be someone who embodied their own unique signature, empowering themselves in the power and comfort of their own body.
Some Femmes pushed for the acknowledgement for their inherent gender non-conformity as separable from the erotic relationship with a butch. They were recognisably Fems, even beyond the Butch-Fem dyad. These Femmes coined the identity of the High Femme as a category of a transgendered femme experience which fucked with the ideas of normative Fem-ness and femininity. Many from diverse race and ethnic groups, and other subcultures, reached into their own sociocultural experiences to inform their gender performances. They likened this to a form of drag especially where it became a hyperreal self-emphasis. Like the Femme Queens of the Ballroom, they designed and publicly flaunted their own “girl-ness”.
The High Femme and the Femme were crucial to the creation of an independent Fem(me) entity, as an equal to the butch in all matters of visibility, gender non-conformity and lesbianism.
Fem(mes) emphasised the importance of creating community and solidarity with other fem(mes), which not only improved their partnerships with butches, but also challenged the discourse of a Femme’s independent relevance. They motivated Fems to claim their sexual and erotic autonomy beyond the ButchFem dyad, and voiced new perspectives in the transgender and genderdiverse consciousness of the ButchFem subculture.
It is evident that both Butches and Fem(me)s both white and especially QTBIPOC, have invested efforts through the many decades and revivals of Butch and Fem(me) consciousness, to balance the stigmatisations they face, challenge the social pressures of stone identities, and push for diversification and autonomy in gender reconstruction.
Closing Words
Today’s Fem(me) identity has fluctuated between recognising this legitimate divergence from the traditional ButchFem, versus lumping it together with the dyad’s emphasis.
I suspect that those who spread that High Femme = Pillow Princess or Stone Femme, were likely repeating what they heard from those within the community, who themselves either did not recognise this, or refused to witness this history.
The reductiveness of the High Femme identity as dependent upon the Stone Butch, takes away from this history. Not to mention the limitations on others to define high femmeness for themselves (verbally, physically, lifestyle choices +++) constitutes label-policing.
Decontextualising it from the Black Ballroom influences is whitewashing and ahistorical which contributes to academic racism, especially when QTBIPOC butches and femmes were frequently marginalised by white butches, femmes and lesbians, and have been consistently written out of American history unless as victims, dependents or threats.
It erases the feminist movements within ButchFem subculture that had little to do with the erotic aspect, and minimised the credit of fem(mes) who took the strides for autonomy in their gender and sexuality non-conformity.
Especially with High Femmeness once again being mistaken for Pillow Princess and many seeing it as inextricable from Stone Butches while shaming others for using it in the traditional (or other) ways.
Some attempt to re-assert a “sexual hierarchy” of Femmeness any which way, hindering sex positivity. It erases the work that Femmes throughout time have put into gender and sexual autonomy, to impose onto others pressures and standards to only see Femmeness and High Femmeness in the context of the dyad. This is comparable to how the prejudiced Gold Star Lesbian identity has been weaponised against people within the community.
Personally, I encourage people to defer to adopting the identity of the High Femme, in all of its historical glory, and separate it from the Stone Femme or the Pillow Prince/ss.
Doing so not only empowers Femmes, credits our Femme predecessors and challenges the white-washing of ButchFem history, but it potentially presents a strong counter against the criticisms of many lesbians who are not a part of ButchFem(me).
As many outsiders assume the “cisheteronormative” nature of it, the High Femme and Femme identity provides evidence contrary to the dismissal of Femme’s autonomous constructions of their own femininity and masculinity. Furthermore, it challenges the generalisations of “passing = privilege” for femmes, and diversifies the recognition of transgendered experiences.
l assure you it's fine to acknowledge that some femmes incl. BIPOC femmes, can and want to be masculine. And that their presentations don't have to be feminised to "respect that they are a femme".
Femmes can be masc-, men-aligned, androgynous or xenogendered (cannot be defined by current gendered schemas).
Femmes can have short, long or textured hair. Have any physical features and statures. Wear makeup or be entirely makeupless. Have the most gorgeous manicured acrylics, or bite their nails into choppy tips. Dress to their heart's content or not care about fashion at all. Wear stiletto heels or worn-in boots, long swishy skirts or a suit and tie.
Femmes can have straps, packers, penises and any genitalia—and they can call these whatever they want, too. Femmes can sweat, curse, have a voice like a foghorn. Have any kind of personality and take up space. Be emotionally and sexually unavailable. Have financial independence and even oversight. Be strong, body build, do the heavy lifting, or not do physical exercise at all. Engage in physical and gruelling labour. Have body hair or none at all. Not be great with kids or to love taking care of them. Be family-centric, or have no ties to family at all.
Some femmes see these as feminine things ( and yes your packer/strap/penis can absolutely be feminine if you please ), others as masculine things. Some might be genderfluid and see these as characteristic of multiple genders. Others might not associate with gender at all. Some prefer masculine compliments, some feminine, some neutral, and others dependent on the giver & the context.
None of these makes them less femme, all of these can be of any gender or a-gendered. None of these require a white person's gender-detection skills to be validated and absorbed into Eurocolonial standards. And sometimes what you believe to be a compliment, may contain oppression, erasure and violence to another. Insisting otherwise is Racism, Femmephobia and Exorsexism.
Some of you with your femmephobia and ignorant white feminism, will insist that some BIPOC femmes' practices and attributes are "very feminine". When the whole point of BIPOC allyship is to not generalise gender, feminise nor masculinise BIPOC practices.
At this point, some of you are repeating the inverse, while believing that's allyship. Meanwhile it's your voice and generalised POV centered over a BIPOC's individual voice, and you're rewarded for your ignorant impositions. This is still white-centrism as arbiters of multicultural genderdiversity.
We are typically misgendered and stereotyped under Eurocolonial standards, when we each have unique associations with our own cultural practices and traits that might differ from people within the same culture.
We don't have to do away with our intracultural AND intercultural genderdiversity, just to fit white-dominated discourse.
We don't have to be reduced to a monolith, to please white performative activism.
And while we are at it, we can, but don’t have to participate in your language and terms if we don’t want to.
Edit made: 21 Dec 2025 to add pictures without the “watery” filter bc that’s what’s triggering the content thingy. You can repost this version for visibility !
Also I did type "Fuck off with the "White Mexican" bullshit" in the first blog of this, that was an error as I had meant to type "Fuck off with the "White Mestizo" bullshit" in reference to OP's blog in the screenshot. The post has been corrected to reflect that. Apologies on that front. Please continue.
@mephorash You can block me all you want but this post is vile and you are simply behaving out of whiteness which continues to prove my point. You continue refusing to change your post to remove the racism towards East Asians. You peeked “Yall white people” and stopped reading because it offended your WHITE sensibilities to be called out for your WHITENESS and WHITE PRIVILEGE and how you’re weaponising it against BIPOC, even BIPOC queers. You centered your whiteness at ALL times. You hid my post from the reblogs and refused to take any accountability for your actions, while complaining that your experiences with racism as a white person wasn't centered by the BIPOC you were racist against.
Other East Asians have called you out on the post and you still refuse to take action.
You are a white person, you are behaving and embodying whiteness and using your white privilege to continue perpetuating harm against people. Fuck off with the "I'm a White Mestizo" bullshit. White Latine people are STILL WHITE as you have proven so well. You can talk about Xenophobia, but claiming that you have experienced racism enough and using these experiences as a get-out-of-racist-jail free card when you’re being racist to others is just weaponising your whiteness and white tears.
My original response, copied/pasted below for easier reblog: @this-is-sinophobia-orientalism @this-is-orientalism @this-is-sinomisogyny tagging, please repost.
Look I get that you want to talk about an issue that deserves a platform—transmisogyny, transandrophobia and transandromisia are absolutely problems that need to be addressed and we should be protecting our trans siblings.
However, using BIPOC as a talking point when you are a white American-born Latine person, is not only inappropriate; You are completely misconstruing BIPOC politics and promoting racist rhetoric. Your post spreads whitewashed, eurocolonial misinformation and racist stereotypes, which only adds to the notion that it truly isn’t your place to talk about BIPOC/racism as a comparative to trans issues when you’ve reduced BIPOC nuances to racist shambles. My main decision to interact with this post is on the blatant Sinophobia.
Many whitepassing people such as myself are not clearly the oppressors or victims of racism, but this does not invalidate discussing general concepts of people who are and who are not targeted by racism. The majority of lightskinned East Asian people would not consider themselves "of colour" but are very clearly affected by racism so directly that anti-Asian sentiment is its own category of oppression and study.
As a E/SEAsian Chinese femme & trans person myself, these highlighted portions promote racism and stereotypes. You’re talking about whitepassing people, and in the same paragraph talk about EAsian people identifying as not “of-colour” ; presumably white.
And while your message was perhaps intended to focus on “East Asians face racism”, the way this was built off the thinly veiled White-centered disguise of “even if they don’t identify as POC. Just like me, a White American-Born Latine person”, is claiming the same struggles of a POC by whitewashing them—when there has been history of racist rhetoric against this group using these exact talking points as embedded deceptive beliefs.
Seriously—you genuinely believe a majority of East Asians who live in East Asia, diasporic East Asians in UK/US/Aus/Canada and other parts of the world, and East Asian immigrants globally; don’t consider ourselves POC? And you thought this was a well-rounded take enough to publish it?
We do not stand with Whiteness, Eurocolonialists, and we aren’t White-Passing. We RECOGNISE we are BIPOC.
Asian people have been subject to the Model Minority myth for centuries due to white people claiming Asian people have honorary white-passing privileges, inclusions and status markers; which we factually do not have. Our people and our struggles were subjected to Whitewashing over and over again, which you are now repeating.
Studies have argued that the US, UK, Canadian and Australian government intentionally erased and invisibilised Asian activists and their LOUD activism AGAINST Eurocolonialism and Whiteness, for Asian rights as well as in solidarity with other BIPOC esp. the Black community. This propagates the false notion that Asian people are Apolitical and stand separate to BIPOC.
This was engineered to keep BIPOC divided and to reward assimilationists from ANY BIPOC group with 2nd-class temporary profits. While Eurocolonial capitalists continue to profit off the creation of a divided working class and salvage their thrones as the dominant racial and capitalistic hegemony upon Indigenous land, where Indigenous sovereignty was never ceded. This doesn’t just happen in America, but all over the world, anywhere with colonisers and BIPOC.
It has done irreparable damage in stranding the Asian community from BIPOC solidarity. In silencing, erasing and invisibilising the unique racism we face BECAUSE WE ARE BIPOC. NOT because we are a third, White-passing, non-POC group. This isolation has contributed to the decline in Asian people’s wellbeing, protection and experiences of community.
This has enabled the world’s Sinomisogyny and Sinophobia, to invalidate sexual violence, labour exploitation, child slavery, sex slavery, human trafficking, hate crimes and more done against Asian people. It has also dismissed anti-Asian crimes as though they were freak accidents, and not systemic recurring consequences of the Eurocolonial Cisheteropatriarchal, Capitalistic system.
Saying a majority of East Asians are “white-passing and identify as non-POC” could not be further from the truth. Asian people recognise how we are treated globally, especially in Anglocentric regions such as the US, Canada, UK and Australia, but also many other parts of the world where Eurocolonialism has had their grimy hands in.
Racism isn’t just colourism, and it isn’t just anti-Blackness. Global systemic racism include Sinophobia and Islamophobia, and so much more, which CAN be seen in the context of Anti-Blackness but also benefits from being seen as unique oppressions on the basis of race; on both a local-national level and an international level.
All of these are heavily targeted and perpetuated by Eurocolonialism stemming from the Anglosphere, and travelling outwards to influence international politics. These are NOT any less serious or less pervasive or less damaging, and they’ve all been subjected to horrific colonial history and racism specifically on the grounds of being non-White.
Being a person of colour is not just colourism ie skin tone of darker shades than pale; it is specifically referred to ethnic minorities who would be considered racially non-White. Although it originated from American critical race studies, it has now been globalised to other parts of the world. It involves phenotype, but when in the context of facing racism, deals with prejudices upon associated character attributes, spirituality, symbols, cultural attires, cultural norms and values, national identity, and more.
And colourism isn’t ONLY about the skin tone that the “average person of your ethnicity” is born with. Colourism was also affected by things such as class, due to the indentured labourers and coolies who were typically Chinese, being far darker skinned than White people.
But Colourism will not explain why the Chinese suffered lateral and vertical racial violence under darker-skinned Malaysians & Indonesians governments. Nor how Sinophobia as tied to Anti-Communism and capitalistic strategies has harmed the East Asian diaspora and immigrants in the Anglosphere because they are NOT WHITE.
Even within China; colourism there was enacted on the basis of class and occurs very differently, from untanned persons presumed to be rich, against farmers working under the sun with tanned skin. And when the Japanese colonised China, they performed atrocities upon our people on the basis of racism, colourism, eugenics and a desire to destroy an “inferior” culture/civilisation, which they felt threatened Japanese Colonial conquest.
And how so much of the world STILL sees Chinese people as more inferior to Japan, given the constellation of skin colour, and other forms of racism.
All of these tie into racial stereotypes, and more, all associated with skin colour. “Yellowskin” is seen as sickly, cowardly, passive, hyperfeminine, infantile, and mongrel-like. All of these are racialised, with the dehumanisation extending to other parts of the culture.
So when I see you saying that “a majority of light skinned East Asian people would not consider themselves of colour”, you are contributing to the Sinophobic racism that invisibilises East Asian people who ARE people of colour, and most of us who do recognise ourselves as such.
I checked your account which is pretty damning in terms of how you’ve used hypothetical Asian people to as a bulwark for white-centered posts to defend against Anti-Racist call-outs from other BIPOC. How you said you were TransJapanese which I can’t tell if it’s a joke given your primary idealisations of East Asia are based on anime, and you’re quite serious in whitewashing East Asians and culturally appropriating (while butchering and mixing up) East Asian spiritualities [not gonna tell you how & you don’t deserve to know]. East Asian spiritualities aren’t interchangeable and you’re engaging in Orientalism in doing so FYI. And if it isn’t a joke and you’re actually TransRace, then that would just be…unsurprising.
The disappointing threadbareness of East Asian activism, combined with claiming Asians are “light skinned”, is just so typical of a White Orientalist. “Light-skinned” is literally a term for Black or Black-biracial people who have paler skin, relevant to Eurocolonial history with chattel slavery, slavery, colonisation and Anti-Blackness. Using it to describe Asian people is inappropriate.
And I hope you’re not gonna argue with me on this as a White person yourself, or to do any fuckoff microaggressions against me for this, but sit down and correct your essay. And take a good hard look on how you treat and exploit Asian culture and its people for your own White-centered gains.
You will NEVER separate Asians from BIPOC solidarity, no matter what you do to us, or what lies you want to spew about us.
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🀄️𓏶། ྀིྀ⠀ ⠀@this-is-sinophobia-orientalism — Asian Activism. 🩸
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MUSIC. TASTE
( reworking section )
流行 LiuXing, Ballad-Pop, Mandopop, C-Pop: 周興哲 Zhou XingZhe/Eric Chou • 隔壁老樊 Ge Bi Lao Fan • 李荣浩 Li RongHao • 周杰倫 Chou JieLun/Jay Chou • JJ Lin • 蔡蔡子 Tasia • 高旭 • 田馥甄 Tian FuZhen/Hebe Tien • 苡慧 yihuik • 王靖雯 Wang JiWen • 董唧唧 • 王力宏 Wang Leehom • 陶喆 David Tao • 吴克群 Kenji Wu • S.H.E • 王翊恩 “en” Wang YiEn • Tay Kewei • 杨胖雨 • Kaho Hung • Evangeline Wong 王艷薇 • 胡66 • 陈粒 Chen Li • 卓文萱 • LBI 利比 • DIOR大穎 • 薛之謙 • 派偉俊 Patrick Brasca • Tr33 • BK/Bill Kang • 雪二 Xue Er • 蓝心羽 • 不是花火呀 • Zkaaai • Joysaaaa • 我是土豆 • 颜人中 • 杜宣达 • 鄭潤澤 • 张紫豪 Zhang Zihao • 周星星 • Bomb比爾 • 吳卓源 Julia Wu • 呆呆破 • step.jad • aMEI
Sino Hip-Hop & Melodic Rap: PPlin 林芃逸 • 齊翔 XIANG • YANGCh!ll • 刘柏辛 Lexie Liu • 马也 Crabbit • Lil RAD • COY6OI • JaS52 • Ensie • Seluu • 林達浪 Lin DaLang • 王子明 Wang Zi Ming • Lizi 栗子 • 寒冰 Ice • JERRYZ • 永彬 Ryan.B • Lambert凌 • Tyson Yoshi • WYAN 王毓千 • 高爾宣OSN • 制造热搜 • XMASwu 吴骜
Goth, Dark Pop & Darkwave: She Wants Revenge • Lebanon Hanover • Mr. Kitty • Mareaux • Social Order • Nyxjvh • Astrophysics • Jah PHNX • Witchz • Depeche Mode • Twin Tribes • Joy Division • London After Midnight • Johnny Goth • Kwasi Kai • Artemas • Isabel LaRosa • yeule • Korine • She Past Away • Baby Storme • Vestron Vulture • MGMT • REDCHINAWAVE • The Bravery • Interpol • Ashley Sienna • Witchz • Goldfrapp • UNKLE • The Masqs • The Cure • Violent Femmes • MOTHICA • Pale Waves • Sinnerella • The Violent Youth • Asal • Ari Abdul • Dionnysuss • Royal & The Serpent • Elita • Night Club • ULTRA SUNN • Blind Seagull • French Police • cutouts • phyllzx • Cult of Venus • Vlad Holiday
Pop & Rock: Glass Animals • Peach PRC • ADÉLA • FEYI • NIKI • COBRAH • Ashnikko • bludnymph • Doja Cat • PVRIS • DPR IAN • Ayesha Erotica • Kim Petras • Nessa Barrett • Dutch Melrose • Olivia Rodrigo • Dove Cameron • BENEE • XTINA GG • Honey Revenge • CHAII • The 1975 • SNOW WIFE • Cassyette • Chandler Leighton • tiffi • MAY-A • arya x • FINNEAS • Imagine Dragons • Fall Out Boys • Nasty Cherry • MNEK • A.i.Jones (Adrian McKinnon)
Alt Rock, Indie Rock: Sons of Silver • Nine Inch Nails • New Order • U2 • AC/DC • Beth McCarthy • Saint Motel • Woodkid • Crystal Castles • Arctic Monkeys • Gorillaz • Empire of the Sun • Charlotte Sands • emlyn • Lauren Sanderson • The Aces • ZELA • KiNG MALA • NO CIGAR • The Warning • The Wombats • The Cab • The Bleachers • The Killers • RIELL
Baroque Pop: Hozier • Florence + The Machine • The Last Dinner Party • Son Lux • Missio • Woodkid • Cosmo Sheldrake • Erin Lecount
Southern Rock: Alabama Shakes • ZZ Ward • Stela Cole • Fleetwood Mac • Noah Cyrus
Alt-Indie, R&B, Soul: Blackstreet • Leon Bridges • Sade • Gigi Perez • Chance Peña • Leonard Cohen • sombr • Japanese Breakfast • Ogi • The Cab • RINI • JADE • Millie Turner • Griff • Spacey Jane • Coldplay • thuy • Stan Walker • SZA • H.E.R • Khalid • Daniel Caesar • Frank Ocean • Rachel Chinouriri • Lyn Lapid • The Beaches • The Velvet Underground • Blondshell • King Princess • SEB • RAYE • The Regrettes • Teddy Swims • Ella Mai • Chloe × Halle • Miguel • JYYN • Pink $weats • BaggE
Hip-Hop & Boom Bap Rap: Wutang Clan • Jeru The Damaja • Metro Boomin • Blackway
Afrohouse & Afrobeats: 0.griot • Tems • Dave
Psychedelic, Surf, Hazy, Downtempo, Ethereal: Nusantara Beat • Jungle By Night • Cocteau Twins • Sabrina Claudio • Alina Baraz • Frank Ocean • Esha Tewari • ARK IDENTITY • Alan Chang • Saint Avengeline
