Gay Men Who Fight the Feminine: A Journey Towards Self-Integration

As a little boy, I quickly became acutely aware that I was more inclined to traditionally feminine traits than the kids I grew up with. Most of them were boys – quite a number were farm boys who seemed to naturally embody conventional masculine expressions and interests.

They liked cars, knives and ‘catties’ for hunting, getting dirty and playing in the bush and sand. They were tough, had scraped knees and elbows, didn’t seem to get cold running around in shorts with no shoes and socks in the coldest of winter.

In contrast, my cousins represented a world of fantasy and intrigue that was not allowed to me. They wore pretty dresses, had long lovely hair and spoke of faeries and magic and played with dolls and dollhouses – things that appealed much more to me than what the boys got up to.

The boys tussled and wrestled and didn’t seem to feel pain with as much intensity as I did. They didn’t seem to get as emotional or be as sensitive. They weren’t as interested in singing, dancing, art and reading as I was.

I quickly developed a belief that I needed to suppress or conceal these traits and urges, but looking back, I realise that I wasn’t very good at this. This became a chronic occupation for the rest of my life – trying to monitor and reduce my natural feminine tendencies and enforce or fabricate more masculine ones.

The Boarding School Survival Strategy

These attempts were severely ramped up and made even more crucial as a survival strategy when I went to boarding school and found myself at the constant mercy of older boys who seemed to hate nothing more than a boy who exhibited any kind of commonly perceived “feminine” quality.

It never ceases to amaze me that I was victimised for my interests in the arts and lack of athleticism, accused of being a “pansy” or “fag” long before I had even been sure of my sexuality. Equally ironic is the way this contempt was dealt with employing physical abuse often of a deeply homoerotic nature.

“You’re gay so let me bully you in a way that has homosexual undertones to discourage you from becoming gay.” The thinking is devoid of reason, isn’t it?

The Camp Conundrum

In my late teens, I developed a contempt for overtly camp or hyper-feminine men. I think I developed this prejudice for numerous reasons. I envied them for having the “audacity” to be men who were courageous enough to present themselves in a way that society had deemed only appropriate for those assigned female at birth.

I was also terrified of them – that their “rampant” femininity would be contagious and unleash mine, which I had been working so hard for so long to muzzle and contain.

I remember being ashamed of gay men who seemed visibly feminine, particularly those who seemed defiantly outspoken. They personified danger and violence for me. I would often marvel that they were able to walk around so freely without anyone pouncing on them and punishing them as I felt I surely would be if I behaved in a similar way.

As I got older, I couldn’t help but slowly become more and more enticed by the allure of camp and feminine men, from a novelty perspective.

They were just so much fun and outrageous and hilariously funny. Although I wanted to not resemble them in the least – the idea still terrified me – I enjoyed them and gradually developed many wonderful and deeply enriching friendships with men exhibiting these traits over the course of my life.

The “Straight-Acting” Badge of Honor

In my early twenties, I began to notice that I wasn’t the only gay man who had these masculine and feminine trait hangups.

Terms like “straight acting” and “straight looking” are still bandied about in our community like badges of honour, as if appearing to be something that is the opposite of what we truly are in our nature was some kind of major achievement.

“Look how well I can look like someone else. Look how well I can conceal my homosexuality. You would never even say!” And then the toxic rhetoric around “I’m gay so I’m only attracted to ‘men’ – so no fats no femmes.”

I also noticed some fascinating patterns in the relationship dynamics around me. Straight-presenting men would hook up, and then when one would fall for the other, he would start to betray “feminine” traits like sensitivity, “neediness,” insecurity and a desire for affection, affirmation and tenderness. This would often spell disaster for the relationship because of the latent exposure of such inexcusable feminine characteristics.

I am ashamed to admit that I have also found myself suddenly repulsed by men who have revealed themselves to have prominent feminine traits after previously being attracted to them due to the masculine traits I could see in the beginning that were later overshadowed.

The Shadow and the Anima

In Jungian psychology, the “shadow” refers to the unconscious aspects of the personality that are typically disowned or repressed, often because they are deemed unacceptable by the individual or society. The “anima” in men represents the unconscious feminine aspects of the male psyche – deeper, unlived, and often unconscious aspects of the personality that are opposite in gender to the individual’s conscious ego.

Personally, I feel that internalised homophobia is also linked or closely connected to a form of internalised misogyny. From an early age, we come to believe that our sexuality and femininity is an unacceptable and unlovable abomination.

Although many gay men overcome these beliefs as we get older around our sexuality, most of us never truly reconcile with our inherent yet dormant femininity. I’m also not completely convinced that we really reconcile with our sexuality either when I consider that substance abuse, promiscuity and shallow relationship dynamics seem to be so ubiquitous in our culture and community as gay men.

Dreams of Little Girls and Mystical Witches

In my recent intensified preoccupation with Jung and his shadow theory, I have begun to suspect that my childhood and my neuroses and insecurities have shaped a shadow aspect that has by necessity forged a powerful feminine aspect.

My dreams feature mischievous and unapologetic pretty little girls who climb into my room and try to steal my things, or magical witches that only women and gay men can see, or a mysterious, ambiguous and dangerous woman who seems so friendly and decent on the surface but later reveals that she has been hired to coerce and manipulate.

I know enough about dream interpretation and Jung’s methodologies to know that all these female/feminine characters are merely aspects of me.

The Path to Integration

So where does this leave us? I believe it leaves us with an invitation, an invitation to be kinder to ourselves and to consider taking our feminine aspects into consideration, especially if we have been living a life of habitually repressing or concealing these aspects of ourselves.

The benefits of striving towards individuation and self-integration by acknowledging our shadow aspects and inherent femininity are profound.

When we stop fighting against these parts of ourselves, we stop fighting against these parts in others. We begin to see that the camp queen who triggered our internalised shame is actually reflecting back to us a courage we’ve been too afraid to embrace. The sensitive partner who wants affection isn’t displaying weakness, he’s displaying the vulnerability that intimacy requires.

Challenging the Binary

Our society’s binary and polarising notions surrounding masculinity and femininity are constructs that serve no one well.

The expectation that men, women, boys, girls and various other gender identities should present themselves in predetermined ways is not only limiting, it’s actively harmful to our psychological well-being.

What if we considered that strength could include gentleness? That leadership could include intuition? That being a man could include being nurturing, creative, sensitive, and yes, even fabulous?

A Compassion Call

I want to challenge all of us to consider the LGBTQ+ community members we may have subconsciously or unintentionally been ostracising, victimising or neglecting due to an inability to have compassion for your own feminine traits.

Every time we judge another for being “too femme” or “too extra,” we’re really judging the parts of ourselves we’ve been taught to hide.

The flamboyant drag queen, the sensitive artist, the man who cries at movies, the one who knows all the lyrics to every pop song, they’re not embarrassments to our community. They’re the parts of ourselves we’ve been too afraid to let breathe.

The Courage to Be Whole Gay Men

Integration isn’t about becoming more feminine or more masculine. It’s about becoming more whole. It’s about recognising that the traits we’ve labelled as “feminine” such as creativity, intuition, emotional intelligence, nurturing, sensitivity, are human traits that we all possess and that we all deserve to express somewhere on a spectrum that suits us each individually.

When we embrace our shadow, when we welcome our anima, when we stop trying to be “straight-acting” and start being human-acting, we don’t just heal ourselves. We heal our community. We create space for others to be authentic. We model what it looks like to be courageously, unapologetically whole.

The Magic We’ve Been Missing

Remembering that little boy who was drawn to faeries and magic, it’s not easy to acknowledge that he wasn’t broken. He wasn’t wrong. He was simply drawn to the wonder and beauty and creativity that our world desperately needs.

That boy is still inside me, waiting to be acknowledged, waiting to be loved, waiting to be integrated into the magnificent, complex, beautifully human person I hope to be.

The magic I sought in those dollhouses and pretty dresses wasn’t about wanting to be someone else. It was about wanting to be all of myself. And that magic is still available to me, even with the grey beard I now wear. It’s waiting in my dreams, in my creativity, in my capacity for deep feeling and authentic connection.

I’m not too much. I suspect that neither are you. Not too sensitive. Not too feminine. Exactly as we were meant to be, complex, multifaceted human beings who contain multitudes.

The world needs our magic. Our community needs each of our wholeness. And you, dear friend, deserve to experience the fullness of who you are.

It’s time to stop hiding and let that little boy out to play. To play the way he wants and needs to play.

 

Bruce J. Little is a journalist, copywriter and playwright from Johannesburg.