Opinion: A trans man’s critique of gay culture
Published 1 day ago on September 29, 2024
Written By Isaac Amend From Washington Blade (Source: https://www.washingtonblade.com/2024/09/29/gay-culture-critique-trans-man/ )
As a transgender man who sleeps with both men and women, and who occasionally ponders whether I’m a gay man, I’ve found there to be some issues with gay culture. Granted, the culture of gay men varies widely: there are gay men who flaunt gayness at every turn, as they should, in Pride marches and at festivals and Nellie’s. There are gay men who join bowling leagues; there are gay men who play video games all day; there are gay men who work at McKinsey; and then there are gay men like Tim Cook who preside over the entirety of Apple. So gayness comes in all forms, and most forms should be celebrated. But I believe there are still some toxic traits of gay culture.
The first issue with gay men’s culture is its emphasis on superficial beauty norms. Gay culture is obsessed with weight and being skinny, it’s obsessed with looking good — and while there are merits to this — there are also downfalls. Don’t get me wrong: There is nothing I love to see more than a beautiful man, either on Instagram or at my doorstep. But I have seen countless times again gay men struggle with keeping a low weight and the culture’s fixation on skinniness. The result of this fixation on beauty happens when some men only befriend others because they are also beautiful, and when some men ignore others because they are not beautiful enough. Once again, beauty should run rampant; I want gay men to be beautiful at every turn, but their preoccupation with weight can elicit eating disorders and other horrific things.
The second problem I find in gay men’s culture is an obsession with sex, but more specifically, only befriending other men so they can be hookups. The amount of times I have encountered a “friend” who really is only getting close to me for potential sex is too many to number. Because of a fixation on endless sex, there exists a propensity for gay men to develop superficial bonds with other men in exchange for oral favors or penetration. As a result, genuine friendship with a trans man becomes diminished, and any semblance of friendship at all becomes diminished in exchange for the true motive behind the friendship: getting dirty in the sheets. An infatuation with sex secretly kills the culture from inside, because men become less focused on being genuine and bonding with others over nonsexual things.
The third cause for concern I find in gay man’s culture is transphobia. Sometimes transphobia runs rampant among gay men, and sometimes it doesn’t. I have met my fair share of gay men who view me as a man, but then I have talked to some gay men on Grindr who run away at the faintest notion of me telling them I am trans. As a trans man, I actually understand why many men wouldn’t want to have sex with me. I’m not against it, and I don’t find it offensive. But it becomes offensive when these men actively avoid me because I’m trans, and talk down on the trans cause. I have also met my fair share of chasers — men who actively chase sex with me because I am trans, and not for any other reason. These men end up treating me like trash, and dump me at the slightest hint that I don’t want to have sex anymore. These men tend to put trans men in more submissive roles in bed as well.
Overall, I am at odds with gay men’s culture. If I am indeed gay, which is something I am exploring, I am not sure how to be a gay man. Onlookers and friends tell me there are a hundred ways to be gay, but I am increasingly convinced that the only way to be gay is for me to not try to be gay, and to live my life as I have always lived it these past years with the same friends in tow and same hobbies intact.
No part of this article is meant to disparage gay culture entirely; I have met some amazing queer men in my life, and the editorial board of the Blade is run by lovely, well meaning queer men. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t see a way for me to fit into gay culture, which is perfectly alright. I am not deserving of anything or entitled to any kind of special status. I am just a mere person trying to find his way in the world, but finding my way through being gay seems, at the very least, riddled with unwanted difficulty.
Isaac Amend is a writer based in the D.C. area. With two poetry books out, he writes for the Blade and the Yale Daily News. He is a transgender man and was featured in National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ documentary. He serves on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Contact him at isaac.amend35@gmail.com or on Instagram at: @literatipapi.
Related Topics: gay culturegay man LGBTQ communitytranstrans mantransgendertransphobia
