This reminds me of a really good convo I had w mak abt gender recently, about what the path from “they/them” back to “he/him” may look like if accepting positive masculinity is in your future. We both speculated people might prickle at it for many of the reasons you talk abt here, but that it may be necessary if your nonbinary identity is (even partially) founded on wanting to be “not one of the bad men”. Good read as always.
Jesse, I love your idea of a non-toxic-masculinity being defined by what it *is* rather than what it isn’t! You’re so spot on! Defining it otherwise would simultaneously leave ya with, sure, an absence that’s ripe for experimentation, but it could also run the risk of being seen as treating the gender as if it can’t behave autonomously at all; as if the introduction of sensitivity into masculinity is inherently impossible and therefore hasn’t existed before (which smacks of gender essentialism, of course)! So what about all the modes of masculinity that have existed outside of/before the dominant western version was mainstreamed? Right? The way colonialism has gone and enforced gender stuff onto everybody who wasn’t white or otherwise prim-and-proper has severely limited EVERYBODY’S creativity, whatever gender they are!
… relatedly, this type of thing is why I actively update and curate a list of “actually wholesome male friendship” movies (lol stay with me here). There’s few but precious films out there like that, but boy are they nice💚 I love a story about dudes forming something tender with each other not necessarily because it is more “womanly” or even “subversively manly”— but because — to use your term— it just comes off as principled about wanting to feel more human. Not because they want to erase difference between genders, but because they want to form solidarity similarly to those similarly, negatively affected by norms (I.e; all genders, everyone to different degrees, of course, but still).
Forgive me for the very granddad-coded pick here, but, for instance… When John Wayne gives Dean Martin a stern talking-to for being a drunkard in public in the opening of “Rio Bravo” (1959), it’s not because Dino is betraying “what a man should be” : it’s because John just cares for this dang guy! There’s sensitivity there that is both timeless and genderless!😭
Systems of power (patriarchy) condition you, but you DO have a choice to build something different! And since you too have been limited by what came before — you have the right to be part of diligently practicing what comes after. It doesn’t just take rejection; it also takes reconnection to what’s been lost and what is possible. And that can take so many shapes. The “work” comes in the form of sculpting those shapes out, little by little… with your saloon drinking buddies of choice, of course.😋 I call dibs on Dean Martin though🥹 Reminds me of my grandpa.
(Thank you for reading this far if you have: lol this post just got me in the feels and I couldn’t not add my two cents)
This reminds me of a really good convo I had w mak abt gender recently, about what the path from “they/them” back to “he/him” may look like if accepting positive masculinity is in your future. We both speculated people might prickle at it for many of the reasons you talk abt here, but that it may be necessary if your nonbinary identity is (even partially) founded on wanting to be “not one of the bad men”. Good read as always.
Jesse, I love your idea of a non-toxic-masculinity being defined by what it *is* rather than what it isn’t! You’re so spot on! Defining it otherwise would simultaneously leave ya with, sure, an absence that’s ripe for experimentation, but it could also run the risk of being seen as treating the gender as if it can’t behave autonomously at all; as if the introduction of sensitivity into masculinity is inherently impossible and therefore hasn’t existed before (which smacks of gender essentialism, of course)! So what about all the modes of masculinity that have existed outside of/before the dominant western version was mainstreamed? Right? The way colonialism has gone and enforced gender stuff onto everybody who wasn’t white or otherwise prim-and-proper has severely limited EVERYBODY’S creativity, whatever gender they are!
… relatedly, this type of thing is why I actively update and curate a list of “actually wholesome male friendship” movies (lol stay with me here). There’s few but precious films out there like that, but boy are they nice💚 I love a story about dudes forming something tender with each other not necessarily because it is more “womanly” or even “subversively manly”— but because — to use your term— it just comes off as principled about wanting to feel more human. Not because they want to erase difference between genders, but because they want to form solidarity similarly to those similarly, negatively affected by norms (I.e; all genders, everyone to different degrees, of course, but still).
Forgive me for the very granddad-coded pick here, but, for instance… When John Wayne gives Dean Martin a stern talking-to for being a drunkard in public in the opening of “Rio Bravo” (1959), it’s not because Dino is betraying “what a man should be” : it’s because John just cares for this dang guy! There’s sensitivity there that is both timeless and genderless!😭
Systems of power (patriarchy) condition you, but you DO have a choice to build something different! And since you too have been limited by what came before — you have the right to be part of diligently practicing what comes after. It doesn’t just take rejection; it also takes reconnection to what’s been lost and what is possible. And that can take so many shapes. The “work” comes in the form of sculpting those shapes out, little by little… with your saloon drinking buddies of choice, of course.😋 I call dibs on Dean Martin though🥹 Reminds me of my grandpa.
(Thank you for reading this far if you have: lol this post just got me in the feels and I couldn’t not add my two cents)