The term '''''en femme''''' {{IPA-|fr|ɑ̃ fam|}} is a [[lexical borrowing]] of a French phrase. It is used in the transgender and crossdressing community to describe the act of wearing feminine clothing or expressing a stereotypically feminine personality. The term is borrowed from the modern [[French language|French]] phrase ''en femme''<ref>{{Cite web |last=Butler |first=Kirstin |date=June 1, 2023 |title=We Were Never Meant to See this Photograph {{!}} American Experience {{!}} PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/casa-susanna-we-were-never-meant-to-see-this-photograph/ |access-date=2024-03-24 |website=www.pbs.org |language=en |archive-date=2024-07-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240718121100/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/casa-susanna-we-were-never-meant-to-see-this-photograph/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Julia Serano's trans, gender, sexuality, & activism glossary |url=http://www.juliaserano.com/terminology.html |access-date=2024-03-24 |website=www.juliaserano.com}}</ref> meaning "as a woman." Most crossdressers also use a [[female]] name whilst ''en femme''; that is their "femme name". In the cross-dressing community the persona a man adopts when he dresses as a woman is known as his "[[femme]] self".<ref>{{cite book|last=Boyd|first=Helen|title=My Husband Betty: Love, Sex and Life With a Cross-Dresser|year=2004|publisher=Sdal Press|isbn=1560255153|pages=64|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vCT70HjI_a4C&q=en+femme}}{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
Between 1987 and 1991, JoAnn Roberts and CDS published a magazine called "En Femme" that was "for the transvestite, transsexual, crossdresser, and [[Drag queen|female impersonator]]."<ref>{{cite web |last=Roberts|first=JoAnn|date=December 1990|title=En femme magazine |url=https://archive.org/details/enfemmemagazine21unse/page/n1/mode/2up}}</ref>
'''''En homme''''' {{IPA-|fr|ɑ̃nɔm|}} is a similar [[anglicized]] adaptation of a French phrase, used to describe the act of wearing masculine clothing or expressing a stereotypically masculine personality.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Scott |first=Joan Wallach |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1smjv00 |title=Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man |date=1996 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-63930-0 |pages=140–141 |language=en |chapter=The Radical Individualism of Madeleine Pelletier |jstor=j.ctv1smjv00.8 |quote=To re-dress the female body 'en homme' was to signal its autonomy and its individuality . . . . She herself wore closely cropped hair, a starched collar, tie, and suit coat long before these had become fashionable attire for 'modern' women after World War 1. . . . She understood her transvestism as a transgression of prevailing norms, a way of establishing her individuality in the face of a disapproving crowd |chapter-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1smjv00.8}}</ref> The term is derived from the modern colloquial French phrase ''en tant qu'homme'' meaning "as a man" and the anglicized adaptation ''en homme'' literally translates as "in man". Most crossdressers also use a masculine name whilst ''en homme''.
