AM I MASCULINE ENOUGH?
I’m JC, London based Visual Artist, and this is my Personal Project Am I masculine enough? We often see ourselves the way others see us. As a gay man, it wasn’t always easy developing my identity in a society that demands men to be tough. For the longest time in my life, identifying as a man meant that I had to identify with the toxic masculinity often associated with men. If I had the opportunity to rewrite what being a man means, how would my image of masculinity look like?
When I met Eddy, he told me that being a trans man doesn’t necessarily free him from toxic masculinity either. After he came out as trans, he felt a lot of pressure to be really masculine and conform to expectations of what a man should be. However, these days he feels a lot freer than he would have if he were cis. He says that it’s partly because he mostly surrounds himself with queer people. For him, being trans has allowed him to be freer with his sexuality and gender.
Masculinity is just performance, and we play different characters according to the inputs of those around us. Men are tough, men don't cry, act like a man, be straight-acting... but the most difficult role to play is when we are just being ourselves. In today’s world, being ourselves is an act of defiance.
