I am who I am – I don’t need instructions.

[sparkindarkness]

This piece originally appeared at Womanist Musings where Renee has very generously allowed my random musings to appear on her excellent blog

This is probably going to be less reasoned than my average post. Largely because it comes from a whole lot of anger that has roiled in me.

I am so very tired of being told how to be me. I am tired of being told how to be a man. I am tired of being told how to be gay. I am tired of being afraid of “doing it wrong” and I deeply regret the foolish things I’ve done in the past in an attempt to “conform” to some standard.

I am a man. All I need is what is in my head that tells me I am male. I am not any less of a man because I am gay. Yes I’m short and yes I’m slight. I’m not going to bulk up in the gym because it would look awful on me. My slight stature doesn’t make me less manly. I’m not going to cut my long hair to fit some narrow definition of what a man is supposed to be, because men don‘t have long hair.

I like to look good, though I eschew fashion labels, I’m not going to wear stained rags because it’s somehow more “manly” to look like a tramp. I’m not going to pretend interest in sport (well, any sport that doesn’t involve speedos anyway) because that’s what “real men” do. I’m not going to be fascinated by DIY or sports cars or power tools and I still think BBQs are a damned inefficient way of cooking. I will not feign interest in “manly” things to conform to how a man “should“ be.

I look back and regret the times I avoided cooking – because a man didn’t cook and if I cooked it would be proof of how gay men weren‘t real men. I regret the tedious hours I spent trying to garner the slightest interest in sports – because I feared failing as a man. I remember the endless doubt and shame about my clothes, about my appearance about my hobbies. I wouldn’t discuss my taste in music, even with close friends, for fear that my taste would reveal me to be less than a true man, that it would show that I was the homo, the poof, the queer, the fag.

I reject a ridiculously narrow standard of what it means to be a man. I reject that a man must meet these foolish, harmful standards. And when I don’t meet that standard, it’s not because I’m gay. It’s not because a gay man is less of a man. My “effeminate” or “less manly” behaviour or tastes most certainly does not somehow prove some trait about gay men everywhere. I am my own person and it is an absurdity to infer anything about other gay men by my actions.

I am a gay man. The fact I am a man solely attracted to other men, and that I identify as gay is enough to make me a gay man.  I am not any less gay because I am not flamboyant enough. I am not closeting myself because I don’t wear glitter or rainbows or pink (pink? I look AWFUL in pink). I am not refusing to embrace my gayness by not wanting to wear drag. My monogamous life and preference for monogamy is not some kind of betrayal of what it means to be GBLT. It doesn’t make me a wanna-be heterosexual. My domestic partnership (gah I hate that ridiculous term – my MARRIAGE as it should be) doesn’t make me somehow not truly gay.

I am gay by all pertinent definition. Trying to force us into a horrendously narrow box of a series of connected stereotypes is damaging and insulting to all of us. We are more than this, we are greater than this – we run the full range of all things human. You can’t squeeze us into a tiny box – we don’t fit and you’ll hide so much of us – that which you don’t cut away to force us in.

I am a gay man. By definition I am doing it right – both being gay and being male. Because that is WHO I am. You can’t tell me someone else does it better, knows it better or that I am somehow doing it wrong. I can’t get being me wrong.

I don’t need instructions for being me.

And all being me tells you about… is me. No-one else. Just me.

Comments

[dingsi]

Thank you. Can I sign this? For I agree so much. I think the standards for "proper" masculine behaviour in our society are often ridiculous, contradictory, and actively harmful (in extension to all people, because men don't live in a vacuum). I struggled (struggle?) a lot with this, especially because I'm trans and my "effeminacy" or rejection of certain 'manly' standards or hobbies was often used against me to somehow prove that I couldn't be a man, I was just a woman with issues. In fact, fear of rejection for being "not man enough" kept me from seeking professional treatment for a long time. But it's also really helpful when a cis guy talks about this. It makes me feel better about myself, seeing that other men, who lived as male since birth, reject those standards as well and struggle just as much.

As for the stereotypes about gay men, I find the contradictory standards really strange -- as you pointed out, for many people you are either "too gay" or "not gay enough". You are being chided for acting stereotypically, but then they're either disappointed if you don't confirm their prejudices, or suddenly you're backstabbing the GLBT movement by living in a monogamous relationship that doesn't look 'different' enough from heterosexual partnerships. And, well, I'd be the last person to say that homo- and bisexual lives are just the same as heterosexual ones, because we don't live in an equal society and that creates different needs and problems for people, so clearly there are differences that shouldn't be swept under the rug. But when you are a person on the GLBT spectrum telling queer people how to live and love, it's not less damaging or hurtful just because you aren't cis and/or het.

Gah, I could ramble on and on. Apparently your post hit a nerve. Thanks again for writing it. I'm so going to quote you on my Tumblr

[sparkindarkness]

Feel free to quote :)

Ridiculous stereotypes constantly hem us in and try to push us into narrow little boxes - and so few of us actually neatly fit into these boxes. But we're shamed and policed because we're not sufficiently meeting some ridiculous standard

As a gay man it's a conflict - I am expected to be gay, with all the stereotypes that implie s- but I'm expected by other people to be a man (or other people are loooking at me to show how not-manly I am being gay) and the stereotypes for a MAN and the stereotypes for a GAY MAN conflict. If I'm one, I can't be the other in many eyes