As a child, my mother often painted my fingernails and sent me to school with glossy lips and lavishly perfumed hands. So began my confusing journey in discovering my gender identity and tipping along the jagged edges of sexual nonconformity.
Gender, as defined in sociology texts, is the social expectations attached to a person on account of that person’s sex. Sex is biological, while gender is social. Sexual and gender identity is currently a hot-button issue, with people quick to weaponize labels like gay, straight, queer, transgender, tough guy and snowflake. Essentially, if a man is labeled gay, he is thought of as feminine; if straight, he is masculine. Well, if only it was all that simple.
I remember the anxiety I experienced when I decided to become a male nurse. I worried about the implications of working in a field typically dominated by women. Today, there are many male nurses whose sexual identities are exclusively heterosexual, even though they have taken on a mostly feminine role and ignored the gender role expectations of society.
“Masculinity is what you believe it to be,” asserted Olympic medalist figure skater Johnny Weir. “I think masculinity and femininity is something that’s very old-fashioned. There’s a whole new generation of people who aren’t defined by their sex or race or who they like to sleep with.”
Black men struggle with masculinity so much. The idea that we must always be strong really presses us all down; it keeps us from growing. — Donald “Childish Gambino” Glover
And rightfully so. In the grand scheme of things, sexual attraction is about more than just wanting to have intercourse with someone. It embraces a combination of factors such as karma, aura, emotional chemistry, intellectual and spiritual compatibility and socioeconomic components; all can influence attraction between individuals.
Roy Simmons, a former offensive lineman with the New York Giants and with the Super Bowl-winning Washington Redskins in the 1980s, was the second NFL player to come out as gay. In his memoir Out of Bounds, Simmons had this to say: “To me, I am and always have been Roy Simmons. Labels are for people trying to define me — that’s their problem. The only insight I can offer into my sexuality is that I did exactly what everybody else around me did when I was growing up: when I came into my sexual maturity, I went with the flow, and for me the flow moved naturally to boys and girls. You don’t need a label to enjoy neither one. A label is for the outside trying to look in.”
We Are All Both Male And Female
Alfred Kinsey, a pioneer in the area of human sexuality research, published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948, one of the first recorded works that saw science address sexual behavior. In it, Kinsey proposed the Kinsey Scale that rates levels of sexual preference from 1 (absolutely straight) to 6 (absolutely gay), observing, “The world is not divided into sheeps and goats. Not all are black nor all are white. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sounder understanding of the realities of sex.”
Growing up in Haiti I was extremely close to my mother and had limited contact with my father, who was a traveling businessman living on the second floor of his retail store in the city of Port-au-Prince. Definite distinctions were made between me and my cousin Bob in relation to our levels of gender conformity. I was seen as the soft spoken, non-aggressive, overly sensitive, and not terribly athletic mama’s boy, whereas Bob was perceived to be the more tough talking, boisterous, athletic, man’s man. I was labeled “Temou” (Creole for soft core) and Bob was “Tedi” (Creole for hard core). Those labels with their pathological ideas of masculinity that you must be boisterous and not soft spoken, shaped how I perceived myself in the early stages of my psychological development.
“Violence has always been unfortunately embedded in masculinity, this alpha thing.” — Captain America star Sebastian Stan.
Why are men so afraid to be associated with the feminine? We are all made of both male and female chromosomes. Sometimes the female chromosomes can be more dominant in males or the male chromosomes more dominant in females.
As someone who grew up with five dominant women who exhibited both feminine and masculine characteristics in Haiti, I’ve grown to have immense respect for women and their abilities to communicate, empathize, endure and thrive over hardships. Why are those qualities recognized as a source of weakness if exhibited in males? Women tend to allow themselves to be emotionally vulnerable, whereas men tend to perceive vulnerability as a weakness. It takes courage and strength to be vulnerable, whereas fear and insecurity cause one to strive for invulnerability. I encourage men of all persuasions to claim all their gender bending rights!
Violence Is The Last Resort Of The Weak
Today, men are redefining their own manhood, and not simply acquiescing to pre-established and progressively antiquated prototypes of masculinity. Terminologies like “househusbands” and “stay-at-home dads” have become part of our mainstream lexicon. Today’s men also tend to be more expressive about their feelings, and famous men like the comedian and actor Chris Rock have publicly disclosed going to therapy.
It is becoming increasingly acceptable for men to find ways to address their feelings, which most of us were told we should not have or must not show. At the same time, society is moving away from drinking, drugging, physical violence, and the abuse of women and children as acceptable coping mechanisms. Official consequences are more strongly enforced, and those behaviors are no longer socially acceptable.
Today, you need not behave like a galoot with a cave man mentality to affirm your masculinity. Violence and intimidation — both associated with the archetypal male — are personal weaknesses. As Argentinian revolutionary writer Jorge Luis Borges noted, “Violence is the last resort of the weak.”
Some of the most influential men in history did not use force and fear to exert their might. Iconoclasts like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. changed the world through non-violent means. It is easier to react violently, like an unruly toddler, than it is to respond thoughtfully, like a mature man. Do not allow external forces keep you from experiencing the internal freedom to choose how to respond and act, regardless of society’s gender expectations. The only one who can define you is you.
Reprinted with permission of the author from You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self by Jacques Fleury.
Jacques Fleury is Haitian American poet, educator, author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” and other titles are available at all Boston public libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, Amazon and more. Visit http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.
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