ABSTRACT
If, in a queer and lesbian time and place, the late 1990s can be described as that of drag kings and of queer/female masculinities taking theoretical and representational center stage in Anglo-America and Western Europe (cf. Halberstam 1998; Rosenberg 2000; Volcano and Halberstam 1999), perhaps legendary lesbian poet Joan Nestle3 is right: the early 2000s is the decade of the femme and of the queerly feminine. While femmes have certainly been part of both queer and feminist formations over the past 40 years, the scale and visibility of contemporary Western femme organizing is striking. In Western metropolitan pride parades it is not only drag queens who demand recognition in high heels and elaborate frocks. For instance, the London Bird Club (see Volcano and Dahl 2008) invites with the slogan ‘join us if you want sexy without sexism’, and in Sydney’s Mardi Gras, members of the Femme Guild carry placards with brazen statements like ‘see how straight I look with my fi st up your cunt!’ This chapter offers some preliminary refl ections on how different feminist conceptions of agency are deployed by femme (activists).
