Undoing masculinity's woes with Pride
Happy Pride Month, dear ones.
This year especially, I'm finding it impossible not to think about what's standing in the way of queer liberation and LGBTQIA+ acceptance. In some sense, we've come so far. But I'd argue that to truly honor pride month (just as to really look at effective workplaces, healthy relationships, climate policy, you name it), we need to examine masculinity and call some of its functions into question.
The recent protests against the LA Dodgers' Pride Night is a glaring example. Thousands took to the streets and internet against the Dodgers for honoring (then rescinding, then apologizing and re-inviting) the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a network of community service volunteers who since the 1970s have fought for inclusion adorned in nun-like drag. LA Archbishop José Gomez used that day's Mass to fan flames of hate against the Sisters, and many on social media accused the Dodgers of “making a mockery of God and Jesus.” The reason for targeting the Sisters is not about the work they do — many ordained nuns have come out in support, or at least recognition, of the Sisters' meaningful practice. Plus plenty of organizations have similar mission-driven offerings without drawing this outsized ire.
Instead, Archbishop Gomez and others' real fear here is anything that challenges equating God and religious practices with masculinity. This mirrors the broader trend on the political right that portrays makeup, wigs, playful clothing, and femme presentation as amoral. Wielded in this way, masculinity becomes a weapon – a tool used for exclusion and avoidance, where anything that threatens power and order is cast as feminine (and thus kept narrowed and controlled).
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - photo by Elvert Barnes, 1993
While I assume you, reader, reject such harmful rhetoric, it’s worth us all looking at what masculinity means to us, and how do we use it. After all, those who target the Dodgers, Bud Light, and Pride merchandise are hardly the only contributors to a masculinity that excludes, avoids, and subordinates. Masculinity shows up this way even within the LGBTQ+ community. Personally, I often struggle in gay male spaces and on dating apps, where appearing and performing masculine can still reign supreme. On Netflix’s lesbian dating debacle The Ultimatum: Queer Love, several cast members hide behind masculinity to avoid addressing trauma or allow it to justify their explosive anger.
Ciara Cremin explores this topic extensively in her academic book The Future is Feminine, highlighting that “when tenderness, empathy, sensuality, and caring for others are considered feminine and therefore unmanly, it is not only men who are in trouble – it is all of us.” Research proves that nothing about emotional intelligence and nurturance is innately "feminine" aka non-masculine. It only gets ascribed this way by a weaponized masculinity that sees empathy and care as threats to power and dominance.
When we unbox this all-too-pervasive idea of masculinity within ourselves, we can learn to embody our own dynamic sense of "masculinity and femininity" that draws in others, stimulates, and helps us dive into our self with curiosity and courage. I've seen first hand the massive impact of helping people, especially men of all identities, untangle the grips of weaponized masculinity. Imagine if we all navigated conflict with more ease, exuded a more holistic confidence, celebrated others' expressions of self without feeling threatened, and found more genuine, lasting (and less conditional, fleeting) joy. That, to me, is what Pride deserves to look like. And it's worth the fight to get there.
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