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March 21, 2024

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Performance highlights femme women in LGBTQ community

In the LBGTQ community, there are a lot of different terms, identities and genders. Sometimes, people within that community feel ignored and not seen. A recent performance study highlighting that invisibility helped give students a way to be seen and heard within the LGBTQ community.
Tiffany Suscheck, senior at the University, presented “Can You See Me Now: A Performance Study of Femme Invisibility” in the Women’s Center on Wednesday, April 15. She aimed to shed light on femme invisibility within the community through performances of four conversations she has had with other women who identify as femme.
“I did this project because I wanted to reach out and see if other people were feeling what I felt,” Suscheck said.
Suscheck began by introducing herself and the presentation’s concept. She defined femme: a woman who is gay, but presents herself in a very feminine manner.
“I feel that it’s super important that I stand up and say, I’m femme, I’m gay, I’m important and I matter,” Suscheck said.
Suscheck described how she figured out she was gay two years ago. She was dating a guy at the time and “it hit her like a ton of gay bricks.” She broke up with him and began her transition, but never felt like she was gay enough.
“I friended all these lesbians on Facebook and went out and bought this rainbow necklace that I used to wear all the time, but I never felt gay enough,” Suscheck said.
She then went into the performance aspect of the program.
“I’ve had conversations with these women and decided to perform their conversations in a sort of monologue,” she explained. “All of these women are good friends of mine and I’ve given them all pseudonyms to protect their identities.”
Most of the women were white, cisgender, femme and in their early to mid-twenties. One woman was American-Indian and in her mid-forties.
Suscheck performed the women’s conversations, discussing how the women felt in undergrad and everyday life about being mistaken as a straight person, coming out, being labeled and navigating through life with their identity.
After the performance, Suscheck headed a discussion on the topic of femme invisibility and welcomed questions.
“How do you let people know that you’re femme without having to shout it from the rooftops?” a female audience member asked.
“First I’d assess if it was safe to do so, and necessary,” Suscheck replied. “I wanted a juicer and I bought it off of this lady for $15. I wanted to mention how excited I was because my girlfriend was going to buy me a juicer but then I had to think whether that was safe, like should I mention it,” Suscheck said. “It’s something I go through every day.”
The audience discussed how people could build a community if they’re not seen, being mistaken as a straight woman when they’re actually gay but just really girly, violence associated with the topic and judgments.
Suscheck refers to herself as a femme dyke and not a lesbian.
I don’t feel comfortable using the word lesbian. It doesn’t describe me. It would be like calling myself a man. I’m just not. Dyke is my way of reclaiming a slur and it’s the only word that makes me feel good,” Suscheck said.
Junior Chris Lanton enjoyed the performance and believes femme visibility is important.
“It’s almost like if you’re not straight, something has to be different,” Lanton said. “Like you have to wear a certain pair of pants or shoes. With femme visibility, I draw a parallel to colorism. We have to get to a point where it’s not a part of your identity.”
Suscheck believes the University can do a better job of supporting the LGBT community in inclusion.
“BGSU can make it normative to introduce yourself with your pronouns. Always. Also, stop assuming people are straight or gay or cis or trans based on how they look. That’s called compulsory heteronormativity. Stop that,” Suscheck said. “That creates unsafe spaces because you’re forming an opinion about someone based on nothing but what you want to see. Then that person is forced to decide if they want to come out, because you just assumed something about them. Wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t feel pressured to come out?”

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