Another Kind of Masculinity
Words by Oscar Fitzgerald
Graphics by Emma Wirt
“Your problem, Mr. Marchand, is that you’re preoccupied with stereotypes,” says the titular protagonist in Julie Andrews’ “Victor/Victoria”. “I think it’s as simple as you’re one kind of man, I’m another.” When Marchand (played by James Garner) asks what kind of man that is, Count Victor smiles and simply responds: “One that doesn’t have to prove it. To myself, or anyone.” I recently watched this film for the first time and had the feeling, very early in its runtime, that this viewing was long overdue.
As a child, I was girlish, fastidious, uptight, and whiny. Some might say this hasn’t completely changed. When I first considered that I might not be cis, it was always with the caveat that I knew I wasn’t a man. I considered a lot of nonbinary-adjacent labels that still had some connection to womanhood, and for a time I selected genderfluid as the best fit. I couldn’t let go of that attachment to “girl,” and I have only recently started to realize why. I’m not a masc person in the way that most people would probably envision it. As an adolescent AFAB person who grew up in the peak era of the girly girl vs. tomboy dichotomy, it had been no great mystery which side I landed on. And as an adult, I didn’t think my “girly” preferences had all been compulsory as some transmasculine people do (although some definitely were.) The Youtuber G.C. Kinsey has a fantastic video titled “‘But You Were So Girly!’ | The Youth of a Gay Transmasc” about how girly childhood interests can be used to invalidate the identity of transmasculine people. This video made a huge impact on my acceptance of being transmasc. But Kinsey’s video largely focuses on how his experience as a gay transmasc isn’t all that different from his cis gay counterparts. This is a great discussion point, but not my experience at all.
The question began to drive me insane at a certain point. I’m an aromantic asexual, which can start to make gender feel like an almost useless category altogether. In our gendered culture, “man” and “woman” are often treated just as much like convenient categories for determining social cues as they are gender identities, and a huge chunk of those social cues are related to romantic and sexual relationships. If your intention isn’t to date or sleep with anyone of any gender, and you don’t wish to be romantically or sexually appealing to anyone of any gender, what does gender identity signify? To be clear, I think it still holds meaning. But what meaning is that? I’m not extremely masculine or extremely feminine; I’m not satisfyingly androgynous either. So what the hell is my relationship with gender anyway? Maybe it was easier to be gender apathetic in some way and not care about how I presented. But if that was true, why did I want to look like a man?
***
When I was around 11 or 12, I was obsessed with this documentary about fashion in film. I’m not sure why, but I probably watched it four or five times. I fixated on the way the interviewees in the doc discussed how the visual language of fashion could strongly communicate who a character was. I’ve always enjoyed content that focused on fashion. Around that same age, I was also an avid watcher of “Project Runway.” I played countless dress-up games, sketched dresses on print-outs of blank-faced designer models, and meticulously selected outfits that made me awkwardly stand out as overdressed compared to other kids. The signaling I received from people around me told me that this aesthetic fixation was a “girl thing.” Guys didn’t care about fashion — never mind the fact that most of the designers on “Project Runway” were men. To many of the men around me at that time, their queerness would have meant that they “didn’t count.” The characterization of the masculine relationship to fashion I had always received was not caring. The flavor of masculinity was nonchalance, not fussiness.
However, my first pivot to a more masculine and androgynous presentation was the exact opposite. My gateway drug was ties. I can’t remember when I wore a tie for the first time, but I do remember that it was my father’s — a thin gray tie he let me have because he never wore it and because I liked it so much. My second tie was one of his too. Eventually, my love of ties became a well-known enough fact that I received them as gifts — not once, but twice, from a friend of mine. It was a distinctive characteristic of mine, that I found reverent delight in men’s accessories. When my grandfather passed away, my mother delivered an assortment of his old tie-pins, clips, and cufflinks to me. There was no question of them going to anyone else.
***
When I read “Tipping the Velvet” by Sarah Waters, it clicked for me how much masculinity is based in an aesthetic sensibility. The novel falls into a genre of fiction that I think of as clothing porn. There are countless passages dedicated to describing, in the hushed, awe-stricken tones of a religious devotee, the visual and tactile qualities of men’s formal wear. The protagonist, Nan, is described as looking quite plain as a woman, but her foray into masculine presentation — first as a “masher” (a male impersonator) and later as a male prostitute — is the complete opposite.
She revels in the details of the fashion, and descriptions are at their most transcendent when she’s attired in the height of luxury by her wealthy and toxic sugar mama Diana. There is a wistfulness and an intoxicatedness as she recounts the memory of a suit that Diana gifted her: the “bone-colored linen” and “a cravat of an amber-colored, watered silk” (Waters 269).
It was these descriptions that drove home the fact that menswear, when done with style, was the opposite of nonchalant. When attended to, it offered ten times more kinds of accessories and items than women’s attire. There were an endless amount of ornaments and enhancements, really. And there was something about this I loved so dearly. I can’t emphasize enough how much I related to this feeling that Nan was having, the excitement and security of getting to attire yourself in these sorts of items. When I wore jackets, collared shirts, ties, suspenders…I didn’t feel so exposed. I could project an image of myself that wasn’t the body underneath; I could create a different silhouette.
***
Growing up, I didn’t have male influences that made being a man seem relatable or even remotely desirable — never mind the fact that I didn’t relate to most of the women or girls around me either. At least we shared common experiences and an understanding of things that most cisgender men seemed to miss. At best, most of the men that I knew were ignorant and oblivious. At worst, they could be hostile, paranoid, and even violent. The amount of times that I saw men, who were otherwise reasonable and “normal,” slam their fists on counters or walls forcefully enough to make them shake was far too many. Too often, men invaded my personal space and the space of others even when they weren’t being aggressive, defending their pestering with “friendliness.” People excused their actions and their words as the result of some biological impulse towards foolish and risky behavior. It was a version of being a man that couldn’t have been more alien to me. That wasn’t me. That would never be me.
The truth was that queer men in fashion, in music, in film, the ones whose artistry I admired, were molding my image of what it meant to be a man more than the men in my life; I just didn’t know it yet. Because their presentation of masculinity was not considered an acceptable one where I come from, I regret to say I didn’t think of it as masculinity at all.
The elementary feminist ideas I consumed in college led me down the path of embracing femininity — which, of course, isn’t a bad thing. However, it’s not a mindset that makes it easy to welcome the thought that you might not be a woman. I wanted to be a good feminist, and no one ever really said this meant being a woman, but the implication was there. Throughout undergrad and graduate school, most of my literary papers examined works through a feminist lens — although, gradually, they began to turn to the topic of gender more broadly. In fiction writing class, I was once told that if I wanted to diversify my work, I could write more non-female protagonists because pretty much all of my main characters were women. I could say that I was compensating for something, but the truth is that I loved my characters and felt a connection to pretty much all of them.
As I said before, even when I started to question my gender, I mentally crossed out the possibility of being a trans man or transmasculine. I knew there was nothing wrong with being either, but I felt like even being nonbinary was a bridge too far for what I was feeling. I was too much of a girl to be that, right?
But that wasn’t really true. I had been feminine, maybe even girly. Growing up, I had never really taken issue with being a girl. However, things had changed when I crossed the puberty threshold. I still presented in a feminine way, but it was as if I turned off the switch that allowed me to be fully present in my body. I was like an untied balloon, drifting further and further away, watching the body that I thought was still meant to be mine. When I had to learn about menstrual products, when I had to try on women’s underwear, when I had to start shaving — I just…got through it. I kept my head down, stayed quiet, and learned what I needed to learn. I wanted it to be over as fast as possible.
Do I think it would have been different if I’d had a different kind of body? I don’t know. I still think it would have made me uncomfortable. But that’s because who I am, and who I want to be, has never been about my body.
***
I wish our culture allowed a soft kind of masculinity to thrive. Instead, it seems to try and stamp it out, in cis men, trans men, and anyone else who identifies with masculinity. Sometimes even I — with my feminist literary analysis and impatience for gender stereotypes — catch myself feeling a flare of insecurity when I squeak as a bug lands on my arm or realize I can lift no heavier than a three pound weight. I have never been insecure about these things before.
Softness and gentleness are considered feminine. There is nothing wrong with femininity, but I have to ask: Why? If I was a man, what would be the problem with being as I have always been? Soft. Girlish. Fastidious. Uptight. And yes, a little bit whiny. If there is an issue with these things, then so be it, but that has nothing to do with gender. In both fiction and real life, men with these qualities were always the ones I saw myself in, even if I didn’t have the awareness or the courage to admit it.
For now, I feel comfortable labeling myself a transmasc nonbinary person, a kind of demiboy. A man, but not quite. Maybe one day this will change. Maybe I’ll decide that “man” isn't the direction I want to move in and go back to using genderfluid. Maybe I’ll decide I’m even more of a man than I thought and fully declare myself a trans man. But no matter what, I know that Count Victor’s words are true. No one should have to “prove” what they are in order to live it. I’ll be whatever kind of man I am, and I don’t have to prove it to anyone.
Sources
“‘But You Were So Girly!’ | The Youth of a Gay Transmasc.” YouTube, uploaded by G.C. Kinsey, 23 Dec. 2024, https://youtu.be/riMR1izkLrs?si=DWA4UFdO1a3WJ_xL.
Victor/Victoria. Directed by Blake Edwards, performances by Julie Andrews and James Garner, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1982.
Waters, Sarah. Tipping the Velvet. Virago Press, 1998.