THE MORE YOU LOOK, THE MORE YOU SEE

In some realities of queer people, coming out—a concept that I find contradictory to one’s existence—is a removed experience. It implies that queer people are born hidden, concealed until they declare themselves in contrast to a perceived default. But what if your existence never aligned with that so-called default in the first place? What if, instead of bursting through a closet, you were simply living visibly to those who chose to see?

For queer people, read as those who are feminine-presenting non-men, this contradiction is daily, nuanced, and often lonely. In a society where heterosexuality is assigned unless aggressively proven otherwise, queer femmes are frequently rendered invisible. The world assumes their femininity is for the male gaze. Their softness is read as submission. Their beauty, when admired, is filtered through a lens of compulsory heterosexuality. And so, their queerness becomes a whispered presence that is felt deeply, yet dismissed easily.

In some ways, it’s easier to deny and conform. It’s less disruptive. Less dangerous. There’s a safety in being overlooked, in not having to answer the incessant question: “Are you sure?” And when femme visibility does arise, it’s often co-opted or questioned. As a result, many queer femmes communicate through a different language more so, a coded aesthetic, a practiced defiance, a curated softness that is, in itself, radical.

The entry into the queerness of a femme is often not through declaration, but through subtleties, flagging through curated choices that, to the trained eye, say I am here.

Accessories

Queer femmes have long used jewelry and adornment as soft signals, sometimes subtle, sometimes defiant. A carabiner clipped to a belt loop or one’s neck piece runs through generations as a legacy. In the 1970s, carabiners were widely adopted by working-class lesbians as practical keyholders, especially in blue-collar jobs where visibility had to remain coded. Over time, they became symbols of lesbian autonomy and butch/femme dynamics, even used to indicate “top” or “bottom” preferences based on which hip it was worn on.

Beyond the carabiner, vintage chains, lockets, and rings have also carried coded and personal information and meanings. In a conversation with Es, a queer femme in Nigeria, she explains her reach to the counter for particular colours of bracelets and earrings for the sake of signaling. In history, Lavender jewelry echoes  the Lavender Scare of the 1950s when LGBTQ+ people were purged from U.S. government jobs and was reclaimed as a symbol of pride and resistance. Nameplate necklaces, popularized in Black and Latina communities in the ‘80s and ‘90s, now double as a way for femmes to signal chosen names, pronouns, or identity in community-specific language. These accessories are cultural shorthand: a nod to lineage, love, and belonging.

Hair

Hair has long been a battlefield of control, politics, and freedom. For Black queer femmes especially, hair becomes an archive of survival and self-determination. In the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, queer Black women like blues singer Gladys Bentley wore close-cropped hairstyles and tuxedos to challenge beauty norms and express gender fluidity. During the 1980s, the punk and riot grrrl movements saw femmes and queer women shaving parts of their heads, bleaching their curls, and rejecting heteronormative grooming entirely.

Even braiding traditions, deeply rooted in African communities as forms of storytelling and identity, have been reclaimed as modes of femme resistance. Braids and lace fronts are statements on the femme body. A color-blocked lace front might flag queerness for those who know. Hair, then, is not always about rejecting femininity but about making it wholly one’s own.

Clothing Choices

Fashion has always been a quiet rebellion. In 1940s America, femmes like Stormé DeLarverie (a biracial drag king and queer icon) played with silhouettes; wearing tuxedos and fedoras by night, yet maintaining a nuanced femininity offstage. Later, in 1970s lesbian feminist collectives, women wore loose denim and army jackets not just for comfort, but as a rejection of patriarchy’s beauty standards.

Today, queer femmes blend references. Fashion choices carry echoes of ballroom culture in the 1980s where queer Black and Latinx femmes walked categories like “Femme Queen Realness” in thrifted glam and streetwear. To the untrained eye, it might look effortless. But each layer is curated in a dialogue between visibility, safety, and desire.

Makeup

Makeup, once dismissed as a tool of feminine compliance, has become a queer femme weapon of choice. In the 1980s, amidst the HIV/AIDS crisis and queer marginalization, club kids and drag performers like Leigh Bowery transformed makeup into high art using bold lines, outrageous colors, and full faces to declare existence in a world that refused to see them.

Femme queens in New York’s ballroom scene would apply precise, exaggerated makeup to win categories like “Face” or “Realness,” staking their beauty and gender on their own terms. Today, queer femmes carry that history with every winged liner. Glitter tears harken back to both protest and performance. A dark lip in daylight is a reclamation: of choice, of mood, of agency. To wear a full face at a protest, or even in spaces where queerness is unsafe, is not vanity, it’s a political act. It is refusal to disappear.

And still, despite these signs, many queer femmes remain invisible. Their queerness is constantly questioned, especially in relationships with masculine-presenting people or in solitude. This invisibility doesn’t negate their identity; it deepens their resistance. It makes pride something not always shouted, but often styled, walked in, carried.

Queer femmes deserve to be understood on their own terms. Their pride doesn’t always come in a parade; sometimes it comes in a quietly chosen outfit, a hair clip, a glance. In a world that demands proof, they remind us that queerness doesn’t have to be proven to be true. If you look, you’ll see us.

‍