The age-old queer flame war: gender conformers vs. nonconformers

It was inevitable: The Neogaf gay thread has finally erupted into conflict between the gender noncoformers and those who act more in line with social expectations. While, as with most online debates, they're generating more heat than light, the discussion over the past page or so has at least been enlightening, and it's interesting food for thought.


I think it should go without saying that all gender expressions ought to be acceptable, and that we ought to take them as legitimate expressions of identity rather than a disingenuous piece of rhetoric in the culture wars. Feminine guys act that way on the whole because they feel more comfortable acting that way, not because they want attention; masculine guys are acting the way they do on the whole because they feel more comfortable doing so, not because they're desperately seeking the approval of hetero society. At least, that's what the vast majority of each group tells me, and claiming that you have transcendent insight into another's condition better than they themselves have is just hubris, and fails to treat people with the respect they are entitled to as members of the human species.


And yet I have to own that I've got a dog in this fight, and that my natural sympathies incline toward the nonconformers. I've been exploring my feminine side quite a bit, after all. Despite my bisexuality, I find myself in queer social spaces more often than not, largely because they are far more accepting of gender diversity than most places, especially where it comes to romance. If my desire is split between the sexes but I have been almost exclusively homosexual behaviorally, it's almost certainly because I feel like I have to put on an act and become someone I'm not to inhabit the heterosexual male gender role, while I can just be myself when I'm with a guy. All of which leads me to be defensive in such debates even where it is irrational or unfair; when a gay guy mentions a perfectly fine tendency to prefer masculine men or that they prefer not to associate with the feminine, I feel like the fragile safe spaces that I've created where I can be myself are in danger.


I'm certain that my opposition feels the same way, and that all the talk about how queerness affects perceptions of gender makes them feel profoundly uncomfortable in their own social groups. They're perfectly fine taking the normative gender expression, and I imagine, fear that such compulsory noncomformity may make them outcasts within their own community, suspended between a queer community that hates them for being normal and a normal community that hates them for being queer.


So, of course we've got to learn to get along, and I don't think it would be that difficult, provided that we don't see someone else's gender expression as a threat to our own. And hell, I'm generally attracted to masculine guys, so it would be pretty unwise to try to chase them out of the community!


But there's an elephant in the room here, and I don't intend to pull my punches: Western hegemonic masculinity is a toxin, and if there is to be any rapprochment between the two camps, I think it needs to be eviscerated from our cultural lexicon.


That needs some clarification, obviously, especially if it is to square with the above acceptance of all gender expressions. I don't here mean particular traits that have been associated with masculinity. I've got a Chase Daniel autograph on his Sports Illustrated cover hanging on my wall, after all. I was a debator, with all the competitiveness that entails, and part of my process of self-actualization has included adopting at least some masculine traits, jettisoning my social timidity for a more manly courage (admittedly, this is more likely than not to manifest in having the courage to express my feminity in social situations that may be hostile or asking a guy out, but still: manly courage). Courage is a legitimate virtue, no less so for having been associated with toxic machismo.




What I'm referring to here is much more closely tied into homophobia, effemephobia, and sexism. It's all well and good to claim that we ought to respect other gender expressions, but western hegemonic masculinity is constructed in such a way as to discourage this acceptance, and as such without modification presents a threat to the very diversity of gender expressions we're attempting to protect by offering it a safe space.


At first I was merely bewildered by and felt some pity for my peers who were so controlled by their masculine identity that they refused to play Paper Mario and thought "Celda" was for fags. If they were so obtuse that they'd deny themselves some of the most excellently crafted experiences in their favorite hobby for the sake of not appearing feminine or gay, their loss. Pity turned into a sort of condescending anger when they made it clear that my own enjoyment of such entertainment placed myself beneath contempt, as I knew that they were pathetic but had no way of turning the social tables on them.


In truth, I have to own that my own exploration of my feminine side dervies much of its motivation from the desire to avoid that sort of patheticness. Let me never, ever, be so insecure in my gender identity as they were! Anything at all to prevent myself from being anywhere near the target audience of this sad Super Bowl ad.


So my cards are on the table and my biases are known: I find such an identity aesthetically repulsive and unvirtuous. Quite apart from my subjective value judgments on the matter, however, I feel the argument that such an identity is injurious and destructive to the cohesion of the gay community stands.


The overriding feature of such an identity, it seems, is not any one particular trait but its reflexive defensiveness and hatred of anything that lies outside of itself. Intellectuals may hate the yokels and liberals conservatives, but nothing produces so much anger as a masculine man being accused of being feminine. This anger extends to association with anything feminine.

The problems for cohesion in the gay community and respect for all gender expressions ought to be obvious. It's unfortunate that it's come up in the NeoGaf debate so often.


So there's nothing wrong with liking football, talking like a straight guy, being completely ignorant of fashion, or not wanting to wear a skirt. But for the love of tolerance, keep the instinctive defensiveness and antipathy that so characterizes modern masculinity out of it.