Femcel Memes

"Please tell me why this is toxic, I don't think I understand ;-; "

I am probably not the best person to respond given that I'm not actually subscribed here, but I get bad vibes from the image so I will take a crack at explaining why it feels somewhat toxic. Please bear with me as I fumble towards the right words.

So the main thing is that it feels weirdly dismissive of femcels. "Femcel" as a category is something that is hard to sum up, likely because femcels aren't spoken about nearly as much as incels, but there is something there — a common experience that a bunch of people have, evidenced by this community. I wouldn't call myself a femcel, but there's been a lot here that I relate to. A key component of it, to me, is the notion of abjection — of being cast aside, or discarded. Lesbians and femcels are both marginalised groups, but the manner of marginalisation is different in a way that's significant.

Of course, the image isn't saying "all femcels are actually just lesbians", but it still feels dismissive of the distinct experience of being a femcel, not least of all because I don't see why someone couldn't be both a lesbian and a femcel.

Probably the biggest thing that makes me be a bit "hmm" at the imagine is that it is reminiscent of a TERFy kind of lesbianism that tends to present men as being the ultimate problem. I think this kind of ideology is harmful to all men and women, both cis and trans, because of how it builds a notion of biological essentialism. This image, by itself, however, isn't especially toxic in my view — these problematic things are "down river", to speak, and I read OP as sort of saying "images like this risk going down a path with very bad stuff", which I would agree with.

The image does capture an experience that a bunch of people have, where embracing being a lesbianism can be an escape from the feeling of abjection — comp-het did a number on me as a bi woman, so I can't begin to imagine how rough that would be as a lesbian, and I imagine there are late-bloomer lesbians who would relate to this meme and that's not a problem — those experiences are certainly not wrong, or problematic. However, if I look at this from the perspective of this community rather than individuals, I can see why memes like this, if they became commonplace here, could lead the community to drift in a negative way. That's the tricky thing about community culture: it's hard to point to individual instances of things being wrong until things are so bad it's too late to prevent the shift (which is why I appreciate OP trying to bring these discussions into the forefront).

I have another bit that I am trying to figure out how to say, but it's difficult to translate "vibes" into words, so thanks for sticking with me while I try. Earlier I said that the femcel experience is one of abjection, and I alluded to how being a late blooming lesbian can be liberating. This juxtaposition of liberation and abjection is one of the things that feels most off to me, and that's why I think looking at it from the perspective of the wider community is useful. Like, what is this page for? Femcel content for femcel folk, I would say. I've heard some argue that identifying as a femcel or otherwise participating in femcel meme culture is harmful, and whether that is the case or not is beyond the scope of this comment (because idek). But I do think there is power in a community like this, in a sort of solidarity through abjection. I personally enjoy the memes here because although I'm quite far from a femcel in many respects, I have also regrettably been shaped by notions of what I should be, as a woman; I'm never going to do the typical "get married, have kids" thing, and there's a weird part of me that grieves something because of that. It's not that I grieve that experience, because I'm infinitely happier as a queer, polyamorous weirdo, but I grieve the fact that I'm marginalised because society has its rigid idea of who counts as legitimate and valid. I am proud of the life I have scraped together in the fringes of society, but I will always be a little bit sad. Julia Kristeva, whose 1980 essay was formative for the concept of abjection, writes that since the abject is situated outside the symbolic order, confronting the reality of being an outsider is inherently traumatic, and I really relate to that. I like femcel memes because they recognise this trauma within me and make it feel okay to be sad. Because of this, the image asking if they're "just a lesbian" feels quite dismissive, as if it's a simple binary. It also feels low-key dismissive of lesbianism too, though this may be me reflecting on specific bad experiences I've had with women who advocate for political lesbianism.

I hope this helps to give perspective on why someone might find the image toxic. I hope you can understand my perspective, even if you don't agree with it. My perspective is only my own; Perhaps other people may find the image somewhat toxic for different reasons

Edit: typo