Born and Raised Male
I am male in the sense that I have XY chromosomes resulting in a body I describe as male, and because I have been socialized as a male and I see the world through a male frame of reference. For some, this is what it means to be a “cisgender” male.
I was born at 5:32 a.m. toward the end of May in Richmond, Virginia, USA. “It’s a boy!” someone shouted, as I was met with much joy and anticipation. Apparently, it was thought that my birth might somehow save my parents’ marriage. No doubt this played a significant role in how I would be socialized to be the man I was supposed to become. I can remember so many ways in which the grown-ups around me were training me to be that man. In retrospect, I imagine he was to be physically strong, a highly accomplished leader, a devout Christian, and a heterosexual, among other things.
Gently taking me from my mother’s arms, my Uncle Bob would playfully throw me into the air and catch me. This was so much fun for me as a baby, getting to feel like I could fly. Granted, I doubt I would have had this experience if I had been female. However, there also was an underlying deep concern that, as a light-skinned Black baby with relatively straight brown hair, I would later be targeted by other Black males for not being Black enough or not being man enough. Having such physical features often identified someone as part white or, to put it more crudely, part descendant of a slave owner. Though often preferred by a whitewashed society, in my Black community these features were seen as soft and feminine. My Uncle Bob wanted to make sure I would become tough enough to survive the social environment I was later to face. When I was two years old, for similar reasons and to my mother’s initial disappointment, my dad took me to a barbershop to get a short haircut. He said it made me look more like a boy.
By age three, I had started to behave like a “little man,” my mom recalls. I was becoming more aware of her struggles and had decided not to be a burden on her. In my three-year-old mind, this meant I would find different ways to occupy my attention if I got lonely. For example, on one occasion I walked to my grandparents’ home, five-and-a-half blocks away, crossing a busy street to get there. When I arrived, I saw the shock on both their faces, as I had clearly traveled alone. This prompted me to notice an old rag on the ground, which I presented to them as what I thought was an acceptable gift. My grandparents would refer to this for the rest of their lives as one of the many ways I had amazed them as a young person and as a “little man.”
Over the course of many years and a plethora of life experiences, there were both contradictions to and reinforcements of my earliest hurts. The subtlest of hurts—installed by certain facial expressions, or a vocal tone when someone referred to a certain group of people, or the preoccupations so many had with “masculinity”—were the ones that got reinforced and normalized, as they were usually overlooked within their particular social environments. Because of them, as a Gay man I became preoccupied with things like using my vocal inflection to project a certain level of confidence, especially masking when I was scared; having a certain swagger when I walked; or dressing in a way that sufficiently reflected “masculinity.” In so many ways I got messages about being Gay. I got clear messages that it was a bad thing and would be met with dire consequences—and I got a long and bloody catalog of those consequences. All this started well before I knew what the word “Gay” meant.
My liberation as a Black man has continuously required me to claim my inherent connection to other Black men, especially given the ways Gay oppression, coupled with internalized racism, has separated us and minimized the importance of our relationships. I am finding ways, including subtle ones, to notice and celebrate that connection. For example, when I am walking about during my day and I encounter another Black man, across a crowded room filled with mostly white people or just walking down the street, I will often make eye contact accompanied by a friendly nod.
It has also been important for me to claim a sense of ownership of and connection to my physical body. The lingering aftermath of the enslavement of Africans has often left us Black people disconnected from our bodies’ health and well-being. Those who were enslaved didn’t have legal ownership of their bodies—they were owned by those who enslaved them—and they were hyper-sexualized in the minds of their enslavers and exploited in every way imaginable. Recordings from that legacy have been passed down to me and my people. Consequently, in sessions I have found it useful to claim being a fully powerful male. Directions like “I am fully and powerfully male!” or “I am exactly the right kind of male!” have helped me discharge an early shame and humiliation around feeling that my being fully male could somehow be in question, especially because as a Black man I am both light-skinned and Gay. These sessions have worked best when I’ve been surrounded by other Black folks.
Another significant part of my life’s journey as a male has been the close relationships I have built over the years, including with people of diverse sexual identities—for example, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, heterosexual, and intersex. One of these relationships is with a beloved friend whom I will call “Janet.”
Janet has always presented herself to the world as female, and as a young adult she came out as a Lesbian. Even though her body is perfectly female in its external appearance and has been since her birth, she has XY chromosomes, usually indicative of a male, and the ability to produce sperm. Consequently, she has been able to father two amazing children.
My relationship with her has been liberating in ways unique among my friendships. She has encouraged me to expand how I think of being male, and to do it in a way that is fun and exploratory. We have gotten closer and closer, the more I’ve connected to the ways I have wanted to be more fully human as a male.
Often what has come up for me in my sessions as I’ve thought of our relationship is my own body image and my relationship to my body. I have used directions like “I have a body!” or “I have a _____!” (naming different body parts, especially those I’ve associated with sex, and using a very light tone of voice). When I have counseled others in similar ways, especially heterosexual men, they have often shown embarrassment and sometimes light terror, which I imagine is at the surface of a much deeper terror. (For these sessions I have tended toward three-ways or groups, rather than two-ways.) When we men were young, the social pressure to be recognizably and unmistakably male got intense for many of us, and the corresponding Gay oppression is central to how most of us have been viciously targeted.
Moving forward, as I get closer to the sexually diverse mix of people I love, I will need to keep facing the ways I got shamed as a young person for not being easily and immediately recognizable as male, or seen as the right kind of male or the right kind of Black male. Though normalized in the present as subtle and insignificant memories, left behind are lingering distress recordings that continue to inform my behaviors—like the ways I dress, the ways I use my voice or don’t use my voice, the ways I love or struggle to do so, and a whole host of other ways I move through the world.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA