Aguilas Off Pine

Category: Identity

Gender Confusion

Aguilar

I have been struggling with my gender lately, even though I still find myself defaulting to masculine presentations. I have previously mentioned that I experienced dysphoria in response to trauma and to being treated as a grown man since I was young. That dysphoria felt more like a resentment of girls, who are in these specific instances, treated better than young boys of color, to my own sisters who were protected by my parents in ways that I hadn’t been. I discussed this type of dysphoria recently with my sisters, acknowledging that they felt resentment toward our parents for being overprotective of them, but pointing out that they down right neglected me at best, or unintentionally put me in harm’s way. This feels different, maybe just as reactionary though.

Earlier in the week I was listening to the Savage Love podcast. I was listening to the host, Dan Savage, respond to what sounded like a joke call from someone who claimed to be a “half-breed” with “Aryan preferences.” It absolutely sounded like a prank and if it isn’t, I feel bad for the caller who is not able to find pride in her non-white background. He pointed out that even if calls are fake, they sometimes pose interesting hypotheticals and after all, every call is just a hypothetical scenario for everyone but the one caller. The way he frames the rest of his response, while logically sound, is perhaps not as forceful as I’d like to hear from him. He reassured the caller that while ultimately, no one can make you sleep with someone you don’t want to, that you should interrogate your desires and really acknowledge the difference between your own desires and what society has handed to you. It felt like he answered with a bit more hem and haw than this, but I had a flash of desire, I pictured my naked body, a little leaner but without a penis, instead some sort of pubic mound.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this mound and listened to another caller describe the dysphoria they have been feeling. As they said those words, described their discomfort in their own body, a sense of unease came upon me. I recalled how I had selected something like non-binary on a new dating app I had downloaded, well new to me, and how that somehow felt more appropriate than selecting man. But as I was jotting down these feelings, noting them down on my phone, an old friend came up to me at the gym and we lifted together for a while. I pushed the feelings aside and let something new in, this sense of comradery to be lifting together. I let him talk and wondered what to make of this, how I had been feeling disconnected from my male body until someone I had known, intimately, came up to me and suddenly I was partially back into my maleness.

This feelings have been ebbing and flowing but I still default to maleness.  At this point it feels like the default for me because I was born male and have “masculine” features. Case in point, I am worrying about a circuit party I’m going to later with friends, well… somewhat friends and the first one I’m going to. I stay active, but I’m not fit enough to feel totally prepared for the event. I know, I know, I’m perpetuating unrealistic expectations of what our bodies should look like in the gay community, but this feels like the one place where I’ll have to prepare myself for stares and looks of “You don’t belong here.” If I’m lucky, it’ll be just that. If we’re both lucky I’ll stay quiet if it raises to remarks…

Returning to my male body though, the hairiness of it may be enough to help me “fit in.” I’m trying to convince myself that I’ve never really cared enough to fit in, which is true and not. I never cared enough about fitting in because I just kept my head down and assimilated, even though in my heart and soul I didn’t care for it. It’s just what was easy. So too in this moment, I’m hoping that my body is enough that I can just enjoy the evening. I’m not going in with expectations that I’ll get laid or that everyone will want to be with me, no, what I want is to roam and enjoy myself but not have to justify my presence there. That’s where I’m trying to convince myself that I present in such a way that I’ll be left alone.

And that feeling… that feeling that I can relax and just allow my “natural” masculinity to protect me, is conflicting with prior feelings I had had of dysphoria. I am wondering of course, if in the same way that I wrestled with my sexuality when I was younger, if the same will hold true now as an adult. When I was younger, I felt very off put by the labels gay and straight, as I didn’t fit into either well. I know there are times now that I’ll default to gay when I don’t feel comfortable around people (gay or straight), if I even feel comfortable enough to acknowledge sexuality. Even as I explore gender expressions, will I still default to “he/him/his” just to make it easy on the general public? Will I end up then, in the same way, only able to acknowledge myself as a whole person in queer spaces… In time those queer spaces may grow, but that isn’t the present I live in yet.

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I didn’t want to make this a separate post because it is so inconsequential in the long run. The people at the circuit party looked exactly as I expected: muscular, hairless, white bodies. A handful of people of color were around, but not enough brown skin for my tastes. I’m sure the people were lovely, but it was so loud that I couldn’t hear anyone talking and didn’t try to raise my voice above the steady thump of music. The bass in the beat shook my body delightfully and I stayed near the speakers, letting the vibrations pass through my body. I went back and forth on whether to stay or not, on leaving before my friend and his friends got there. Eventually, they did show up but the place kept getting more and more crowded and that made me uncomfortable, the casual ways that other’s near naked bodies touched mine. I understand that other people might enjoy that, might find a sense of community in that, but I couldn’t bear it. I have been to plenty of nude beaches now and have gotten more comfortable with my own body in that way, but I still can’t handle people brushing up on me. None of it was mean-spirited by the way, I do want to make clear that everyone seemed lovely, on drugs and alcohol, but lovely. It just felt overstimulating to have so much casual contact on my bare skin. My friend showed up with many other friends and that was ok… One of his other friends took it upon himself to move the group around and that was fine, there was just lots of checking in which I knew would annoy me if I stayed, because I was not having a good time and was trying to hide it. My friend didn’t pick up on it and he even invited me to the next one. Recently, out at dinner, I told him how I actually felt and why I had tried to hide it more that night, didn’t want to bring the mood down but I wasn’t comfortable. His friends were nice enough and with them I felt included, but the recurring thought was, “Do I actually want to fit into this?”

I knew I was too high for the event. Too in my head and too critical and too observant and too anxious. No one was distasteful in any way, there were no disgruntled looks as I had been worried about, but I couldn’t stop the question repeating over and over. For me, the answer is no although I’m glad I went and have reaffirmed lessons I’ve learned about myself, time well spent, but wouldn’t go to another. Similarly, I’m posting this update to move on and let my mind drift to other topics at hand. 

Chicanos Don’t Know What Being Mexican Is

Aguilar

I was thinking that since we’re coming into Pride month, I would focus in on and talk about the queer media I have consumed growing up and pointing out specific instances where I’ve picked up phrases and thoughts or felt certain things that I still look back on fondly. However, a couple recent experiences have led me back to the other big identity I had been wanting to talk about, the other driving reason why I wanted to start this blog.

It is an increasingly frustrating part of my own experience to be called white washed by my fellow Latinos, but even more so by Chicanos and Mexican-descended Latinos who have never been to Mexico or who can’t speak fluent Spanish. I know that reeks of classism and elitism, issues within the community which deserve to be challenged. As the son of working class, undocumented immigrants, I feel justified in using that as the primary defense when accused of being white washed by my peers, “Well, have you ever been to Mexico?” Because not only have I visited extensively, travelled throughout with family in the capital and the ranches where both sides of my family originate, but I’ve even spent time living there, a period of time when my parents felt they could no longer afford to stay in California. Yet, the increasing frustration is borne from the knowledge that as my socioeconomic status here becomes more secure and as I help my siblings improve theirs, I will be further and further from the ignorant stereotype of what it means to be Latino, or Mexican, here in the US.

I don’t sit quietly when I am challenged this way though. I have in the past asked them to define what they mean by white washed and what they consider to be Mexican. What I have heard back is the most offensive stereotypes of us as lazy and uneducated, only interested in a narrow set of predetermined interests and certainly not in something like the great outdoors. I have heard this from other gay men. I have even heard this from other educated Latinos, who themselves acknowledge being called white washed. Some of these in the latter group are even foolish enough to consider themselves white passing, as if our degrees somehow conferred upon us a different racial status, a different color of skin. In this latter group, it reeks of the gay man so desperate for acceptance from the heterosexual majority that he convinces himself that he’s not like those other gays, who in his mind embody only the most negative stereotypes.

Against both groups I push back on the ignorance. That’s why it’s easiest to start by asking them if they’ve been to Mexico, because if they haven’t then it’s useful to point out that they only know of our culture from those of us who have migrated. My argument there becomes that we are not, as a majority of those of us in the US, descended from wealthy people who could afford to easily migrate. Rather, our antecedents are those who needed to travel here to work, to make a living, who were fleeing some sort of instability, or felt that the opportunity would be greater here. Again, the classism, because it is not that these people were inherently bad, but that in a society such as we have here, so driven by wealth and resources and so aggressively against the impoverished, it makes sense that the Mexican American community, lacking in familial roots, will struggle to be exemplary by American standards.

This does not hold true when you return to Mexico, not by any means. Within my own family and on both sides, there has been familial support and slowly but surely the families have been able to advance their socioeconomic status. The same generation of aunts and uncles on my dad’s side, great aunts and uncles on my mom’s side, are all going to leave their children with greater wealth than those siblings that decided to migrate north. But extended beyond my family, traveling throughout Mexico you see the greater diversity of Mexican culture, a different hybrid than the one we have here. Yes, I am aware that there are great problems down south that I am glossing over here; for example, one of my first exposures to the issue of water rights was not here in Southern California, but in Mexico City, as my older cousins had been invited to the screening of a film on the water shortages facing the poor on the outskirts of the city, water that was being taken from them to keep the wealthier inner city denizens hydrated. That complexity in the Mexican experience, one in which wealthy urbanites are doing their part by watching the woke film but going home and doing nothing about the plight of their rural poor, is what is lacking up here, in the north, where so many Latinos seem to allow themselves a narrow definition of what the Mexican identity is.

Finally, what triggered all of this is that I went on a friend date recently with a Mexican borne software developer who let me know that he’s gotten flack from other Latinos too. He came over on a work visa and recently got his residency. As a software developer, he has a comfortable salary and is proud of the work he did to get there. However, he told me he bristles when he is asked by other Latinos if he nabbed a guerro who got him his residency and his money. I wonder if I had a thicker accent if I would get the same questions asked of me or if I was less noticeably dorky. From there, I got into my views on how disconnected we are here from Mexican culture and the narrow options we have for ourselves. I’ll refrain from repeating myself, much of what I had to say is above.

I am going to write more about the Chicano identity, but wanted to get this specifically off my mind.  Mexican culture is so much more than what we think of it here in the US and we need to acknowledge that. Those Mexican roots are growing in US soil and environment though, which is why I identify most with Chicano. 

Owning the Benefits and Costs of a Straight Passing Identity

Aguilar

I’ve been going back and forth on how to write this, because it feels unbearable to read, “I’m a masculine guy so I have a hard time in queer spaces.” I roll my eyes when I see this and think to myself, “This guy’s trying too hard.” However, I do need to acknowledge how I’ve benefited from people assuming I’m straight and most importantly, if I don’t accept that I make queer people uncomfortable then I won’t be able to work on attracting the kinds of friends I actually want. I know it’s going to be a difficult process working on expanding my identity to make those types of friends as well, but, it’s something that long term I would like.

At first, I was considering just writing about how straight passing and masculine I come off and poking holes in it, because to a straight man, no matter how much I pass, I’ll still be queer. That ignores that the benefits are so great to just having general strangers assuming my straightness and leaving me alone. I thought about starting here because of how much the gay community prizes masculinity and seeks straight passing men. Even in the super liberal city I now live in, I still routinely see “masc for masc” or other ways of stating that preference on the apps. Even the guys that don’t say that on their apps will still approach me in a certain way that makes it clear that they’re chasing after a straight passing fantasy. Although I’m unsure of my own masculinity, I have to acknowledge the conversations I’ve had with other queer men, which are really stupid in my mind but are these constant surprises when I say I don’t like sports, don’t drink beer, etc. 

I don’t think it’s particularly surprising to say that gay men share some of the same stereotypes around masculinity and sexuality that the greater straight community does. So usually after these conversations is my attempt at defending the identity I have in my head, which is that I’m just a huge nerd. Now, with how much STEM is being prioritized as a good industry to go into, I don’t think this is an undesirable trait. I just think I need to work harder on showing my comfort with being perceived as queer.

To that is the reality that I choose to play into the visuals of straightness and desire a straight passing public persona because I’m worried about being perceived as queer. My politics might be queer, but my perceived identity is not. Like most queer men, I’ve learned a bit about how to market myself and choose to market myself as straight passing. The hours I spend at the gym, the hobbies that are another form of exercise, and the constant dieting and mindfulness of what I’m eating is so that I can have a body that men desire and that plays up the natural traits I have that are tied to perceptions of masculinity, such as my body hair and broad shoulders. On top of the skin, the way I dress is still safely heterosexual, leaning into the natural traits which other men have chosen to play with in a way that approximates androgyny and femininity. For example, when I’m riding the metro into downtown Los Angeles, I make sure to wear a dark jacket on top of whatever floral pattern I have on, buttoning it up before riding through Compton and Watts and making sure it stays that way until I get to a gay bar; my pants and shoes, as I’m too cheap to buy more fashionable ones, have not been an issue.

I’ve been rewarded for this type of behavior. It would be one thing if this positive feedback loop was limited to awarding me sexual partners. However, it’s everywhere in my life. From the family members that applaud me for passing to the coworkers that are happy to read me as a particularly nerdy but straight engineer. Grossest of all is that in prioritizing the quickest and surest way to financial stability, I ended up in a straight, male dominated and heteronormative industry. In fact, I could be tempted to summarize that the only drawback is that I make other queer people uncomfortable.

However, there is a cost to maintaining that sort of identity. So many of the habits I’ve picked up have been learning how to suppress certain tells and emphasizing others, so that people can attach their own stereotypes to the identity I’m projecting. That stiffness isn’t something I’ve easily been able to just drop when I’m amongst the queers; as laid back as I am at home, I know that in crowds and public I get uncomfortable, but so much of that is a fear that I might be seen, a concern that someone will clock me and thus disrespect me. The clothing is not necessarily an issue, because it’s similar enough to things I could wear at work. But, when I’m looking longingly at someone at the bar who is freer than I, I am also analyzing what their identity costs them.

I don’t think it’s particularly ground breaking to say that feminine men have a more difficult time in general. I’ve given myself this platform, but the reality is that I need to take a step back here and have someone else really go through what their feminine identity has cost them. See, at the bar I’m just being superficial, wondering how much the nicer shirts cost, the clothes, the accessories. That’s what I had initially started off thinking about, the superficial costs of maintaining our identities. After all, we all have these accessories or shortcuts for identity, to signal how we’d like to be perceived and those all cost money. But, that doesn’t get at the missed opportunities and public scorn that feminine men might feel is more critical.

As the pandemic wanes and queer public spaces reopen, I have to task myself to keep in mind how I am perceived and work to change that. I’ll complain about it more in detail in another post, but I don’t want to continue dating men who are into me because of my proximity to straightness nor do I want to make friends that are constantly policing their gender expressions. Thus, in order to attract a different type of person I need to put in the work to present queerly.  

Thoughts on Being Professionally Closeted

Aguilar

I am out to my friends and family, but professionally closeted, somewhat anyway. If you’re able to see what’s in front of you, without the assumption of heterosexuality, you’ll notice me. In part, this professional closet is just a professional veneer, topics that I don’t bring up because they’re not appropriate for the workplace. But I think that professional attitude is itself a tell. After all, from entry level to management, their heterosexuality explicitly comes up. I don’t mean the wives either. One evening a section head graced me with the knowledge that in his youth he attended a couple swingers’ parties and orgies, but, he claimed he did not participate. Unfortunately, he also let me know that his son’s grades were slipping, which wasn’t as bad as what his friend was dealing with, whose son had just come out. How he got to these topics from asking him if he had any career advice is beyond me. 

Unfortunately, I naturally present more masculine and this lets my coworkers initially read me as straight, which lets them be more honest about their negative opinions on queer people. That manager’s statement was relatively benign. After all, grades don’t seem to define the structure of your life quite the same way that your sexuality does and he could have been reflecting on how that young man would have to deal with the prejudices of a straight environment. But I’ve had other coworkers refer to difficult contractors as “cocksuckers” and “maricones.” Again, my straight coworkers have no problem dropping any suggestion of a professional attitude to say offensive bullshit without caring who might be listening. It is frustrating, but I can pretend that they don’t know and brush it off a little more casually. 

That’s not to say that the psychological damage of being professionally closeted is not building up over time though. After all, it’s not just the effort I make to drop pronouns and refer to every ex boyfriend as an ex, but learning directly from my coworkers that they would think less of me if I came out to them. It almost feels dirty, as though I’m a spy behind enemy lines gathering intel. With that intel, I do begin to look down on them, categorizing them as people who are somewhat bigoted and thus people I need to continue to be dishonest with. Frankly, always having to tiptoe around these people lest I trigger their delicate heterosexuality gets tiring and expends energy I could spend elsewhere. In my defense, I have come out to some of them to test the waters of being more out professionally. 

A couple of coworkers decided to grab dinner and drinks together after a work meeting. I had to leave early and as I was leaving mentioned that I was leaving for a date. A coworker told another and so forth until it got back to the specific construction site I was regularly on. The project inspector told me had heard about it and asked if I had a girlfriend now and I responded, “Well, no, I have a boyfriend.” I had gotten to know him well enough by now to be sure that whatever happened, he would not risk his job by being too explicit with whatever he felt about that. As expected, he quickly dropped the topic. But a different engineer and I got drinks way later and he let me know that the inspector was very uncomfortable from that day forward whenever I was around, even though we had been working together for a year by then and would work together for another year more. 

Reactions such as those, the casual homophobia as well, those are the reasons why for now I don’t feel too guilty to continue lying by omission, for staying in the closet for now. After all, these people presume heterosexuality and to clarify that now reveals a bit too much for me. There’s an author and columnist I’ve been reading since I was young, Dan Savage, who has this idea that there’s the people you’re saying you’re fucking, the people you want to fuck, and the people you’re fucking. In my case, single and theoretically willing to mingle, I’m stopping at the level of people I want to fuck as a need to know basis and my coworkers don’t need to know. The hilarious byproduct is that my coworkers think I’m a bit of a sexual prude, but after all, I’m never letting them know I’ve been to bathhouses and nude beaches. I do intend to drop the act though. For example, I’ll definitely need to mention a stable partner or husband, but even before then, the cost of being professionally closeted is too annoying, especially as I intend to climb the ranks. Plus, I’m going through all of this out of concern for coworkers who do not themselves maintain any sort of filter for respectability or for the comfort of others. 

There’s two more things to share right now, although I am aware this is getting long. First, there was a time in college where not being fully out significantly hurt me, as I detailed here, although I need to elaborate more. Second, I wanted to focus on the coworkers that make it a necessity to remain partially professionally closeted. However, there’s thankfully some other LGBT coworkers here and there as well as more and more young people coming into the workplace, some still holding on to biases but largely friendlier to the queer community.