Why should I be less of a man for who I am? Society dictates that a man must be strong, immovable, unstoppable, powerful, and loud. If you lack any of these masculine traits, you are considered “less than.”

In elementary school, I realized I was different from the “fellas” when I was walking to lunch one day and heard people laughing behind me. I joined in, asking what was funny. They said that I walked like a girl. Because I had a trait that seemed more feminine that they saw me as “less than,” a person not worthy enough to hang with them. I didn’t meet the standards of these guys. Did I care? Absolutely not. Did these encounters continue to happen? Yes. That’s when I started to care. 

My first reaction was to close myself off and be more reserved with the way I walked, the way I talked, and the things I talked about. I kept my head down and didn’t talk if I didn’t have to so I wouldn’t get clocked.

This worked – kind of. Being more like the rest took me out of people’s radar and made me seem more normal. But hiding is difficult, and I spent so much energy trying not to slip up rather than just being myself. It was a constant slap in the face when boys I didn’t even know would ask, “Why do you walk like that?” Or, “Why do you talk like that? You laugh weird.” I mean, my laughing is weird, but thier comments seemed pinned to the idea that I wasn’t man enough.

At the end of the day, it was in hiding where I seemed most acceptable the the world around me. When I hid who I truly was, people could at least tolerate me.

Gender roles and traits are ingrained in us as early as elementary school. From the toys that we play with to the color we prefer, everything is weighted down by gender expectations. The color pink is no longer just a color, it is a girl’s color. It represents femininity, something a boy shouldn’t go near unless he wants to be seen as unnatural, out of place. A boy’s choice of toy has to respresent strength and invulnerability, like action figures and loud toy cars. Why?

Is it a masculine problem or is it femininity problem? Why is there such a negative undertone with the words feminine and vulnerability? After all, that is where the problem lies for me. Society should not convince us to fall in line with the misogynistic model of a man. It’s too taxing.

I spent so much energy trying to follow along and pondering if I did something wrong, so much time hiding the fact I was gay. Always struggling to meet a benchmark of the masculine persona.

Why must I hide behind this persona? Why must I change who I am and what I do in order to fit it to this societal structure? This invisible beast? So what if I like to garden and pick flowers? So what if I’m not 180 pounds of pure muscle and that I walk and talk differently? So what if I am okay showing my emotions and my own vulnerabilities? So what if I am not society’s ideal image of a man?

My traits do not make me less of a man than any other man. The way I walk, talk, and the things I talk about do not subtract from my identity as a man.

How do we solve this issue? Who tackles this invisible beast that tells us whether or not we are valid? Blaming the offenders doesn’t work; I know that. I blamed my own dad for not being open, for not trying to work with me, for not understanding. But it was me who wasn’t really understanding that he also went through the process of proving his manhood. He also had to experience the fight to meet society’s image of a man, a cycle that goes back who knows how many generations. The real solution starts with a simple statement you say to yourself here: You are a man exactly how you are right now. Nothing more, nothing less. Our actions define who we are. It what makes us unique. They have never subtracted from who I am. I shouldn’t have to hide behind this a false persona because I was a man all along.

Let’s remove the stigma that we aren’t man enough. Let’s remove false personas and take off our societal masks. I am man enough, and no one other than myself can say otherwise.