By: Rami Mansi
I was 8 years old when I was told boys can’t like the color pink.
I had chosen a pink marker to color in my drawing, to which a boy at my table began criticizing me for not choosing the blue. This exact scenario—another cisgender heterosexual (cishet) boy telling me I can’t do something because it makes me “less of a boy”—would be rewritten in different fonts as I grew up.
As a queer man who embraces his femininity through clothing, aesthetic choices, and by embracing the women around him, I find it almost painful to connect with my straight peers. Not because we lack common interests or personalities, but because they frequently belittle and disregard me as a person of substance.
Cishet and queer men have always had difficulty building friendships and bonds with each other due to patriarchal standards ingrained in both groups from childhood.
Queer men can be anyone whose gender identity connects with being a man, whether cisgender or transgender, along with their sexual identity such as being gay, bisexual, or any other sexuality that falls within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual/romatic (LGBTQIA+) spectrum.
Through the historic rises and falls of orthodox religions and far-right political viewpoints, various aspects of the queer lifestyle have not only been banned but seen as a reason to be institutionalized. Aspects such as homosexuality, identifying and dressing as the opposite gender, and relations between same-sex people have been criminalized for generations, and still are in many regions of the world.
Although queer identities have been degraded through time, the aesthetics that queer people wish to express naturally are seen as humorous endeavors when used by cishet people.
A huge reason why queer men expressing their femininity has never been appreciated in mainstream culture is that identifying as a man but dressing in women’s clothing, “cross-dressing,” has been seen as humor or a joke. But when feminine fashion is taken more seriously, as is the case with feminine men, there is immense backlash against that person,
“[…] male perpetrators of aggression against gay men frequently cited men’s feminine dress or behavior as instigating factors for aggression,” according to National Library of Medicine.
While cishet men dressing in feminine clothing will always be seen as a joke, like men at weddings wearing dresses as a “joke.”
Men appreciating their femininity has only recently become a topic that is widely talked about, with the rise in the dissolution of “men don’t cry”.Yet, cishet men are the first perpetrators of community acts that tear down femininity.
Boys are taught from a very young age that they cannot be associated with feminine things. They are Red Power Rangers, play around with the monster truck playset, and the Nerf gun-wielding soldiers.
When young boys are taught to dissociate from femininity, they are taught to disdain and look down upon feminine people or things. When someone is introduced to a new topic or subject, it is natural for humans to be curious. But when that new person or thing is everything you have been taught not to be, visceral reactions and an outpouring of hate against them tend to surface.
It should not come as a surprise that the patriarchy has taught us from young ages to look at the other gender differently: men have been taught to despise femininity, yet women are associated with being feminine. What comes out of this are generations of men who grow up with an internalized fear of being associated with femininity that is expressed as a hatred against women and all things feminine.
Straight men externalize fears of being seen as queer through a variety of ways. However, cishet men tend to fall within two categories.
One type will use homosexuality and male intimacy as a joke. Being overtly touchy, flirting with each other, historically speaking, showing off a man’s buttocks is the peak of male humor. Now, friends playfully being flirty with each other is natural and a very mainstream thing to do. Cishet people tend to associate masculinity with being a man; therefore, in an effort to look more masculine, the men join in on these jokes in an effort to prove themselves as secure in their sexuality as cishet men. Men have been shown to post homophobic rhetoric online as a way of defending their heterosexuality online.
“[Researchers] found that the majority of tweets that contain [homophobic language] were actually not used to convey a dislike of homosexual individuals. Rather, it was being used as a defense by males concerned how such comments would reflect on their masculinity,” according to the University of Oregon.
But for a culture of cishet men who have built entire communities off their shared disdain towards queerness and homosexuality, their humor falls flat on the eyes and ears of observers.
The second type is the complete opposite: cishet men who isolate themselves from physical touch and intimacy with the same gender completely. These men are the “no homo”-sayers, hyper-masculine, and overly sensitive around queer men.
Anti-queer language appears in many vocabularies of the public, but cishet men tend to use these terms more frequently in their vocabulary, according to the University of Houston. The term “No Homo” is said to be a way of disarming the suggestive queerness in a statement. However, the term uses the word “Homo,” which is a slur towards gay men; the term makes being gay a negative thing that cishet men have to defend against.
According to Outsports, multiple players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) have been fined for using the term “No Homo” during press conferences within the past two decades. If these players are using this term in an open-to-the-public event, what are the attitudes these players have behind closed doors?
This prejudice against queerness is prominent, but it lies deeper than language and jokes. Cishet men and queer men having tension and difficulties talking is an intersectional problem.
First, all children must grow to be comfortable with the understanding that femininity and masculinity are not inherent to certain objects; Pink is not just for girls, science is not just for boys, and anybody can listen to female singers.
Second, cishet people have to be exposed to queerness just as much as they are to heterosexuality. Mainstream Hollywood has increased queer representation through shows like the legendary reality show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “Heated Rivalry,” and recent queer movies such as “Club Kid,” “Bottoms,” and “Red, White, and Royal Blue.” Many people’s problems with queer representation are that people often associate queerness with being sexual. To advance our society’s acceptance of queer people, we must understand that being a part of the LGBTQIA+ community is not inherently sexual.
Lastly, men have to be comfortable with femininity. Understanding that men being feminine doesn’t make them a commodity or a joke; it’s just them being themselves.
On a spectrum of people I have interacted with, cishet men stay on opposite sides of some of the kindest, yet also rudest people I have interacted with. No matter what happens moving into the future, I, along with the millions of other queer men around the world, will continue to rise above and live our truth; for our queerness is the unsung truth in our pride.