Inside the conversation at The Good Men Project.
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Publisher’s note: Every Friday, we hold an hour-long conference call for any ongoing contributors to The Good Men Project. On each call, we talk about different aspects of the changing roles of men in the 21st century. These posts are a glimpse into what is said on the calls. More posts about the calls and the conversations in the FB Writers group can be found here. If you would like to join in the calls, please consider becoming a contributor [click here] or a Premium Member [click here].
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Last night, I was talking with a Good Men Project writer about Caitlyn Jenner, who appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair, and how quickly there has been a change in transgender acceptance.
It isn’t complete acceptance, of course, but the change in the conversation in recent years seems to have gone at warp speed. And so I’d like to think about social change, and the way that happens—-and the speed at which it happens. In part, because we are building on changes that have come before it—the civil rights movement, the LGBT movement, other movements of equality. In part because social norms are more accepting and more expansive. And in part because technology brings together more people and more ideas and more open minds than ever before.
And the second piece of this is about courage. We had The Good Men Project Storytelling event last night, and what I saw were many examples of courage. People who got up on stage, and were courageous—not just because they weren’t performers and performing is scary, but because the stories themselves were hard to tell. And this gets at the heart of The Good Men Project—in the beginning we often said, “It’s the stuff guys don’t usually talk about.” And being the first to tell those kind of stories is courageous.
And interestingly, some of the backlash about Caitlyn Jenner is about whether she was courageous in telling her story. There is a meme going around that talks about how she won the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. And the runner-up is an Army Veteran, Noah Galloway. Here is the meme:
The implication is—how can we say Caitlyn is courageous when there are men like Noah out there? And I’d like to hear from you all about your thoughts.
One of my thoughts is—the story that Caitlyn Jenner is telling is relatively new. Stories of men coming home from war have been told for literally thousands of years. Stories of war and courage. Stories of men being super-men…those are the stories we’ve heard again and again.
And the second piece of it that I find fascinating is that stories of men coming home from war are actually stereotypically male –– there’s winning and competition and strength and violence and aggression —whereas stories of a transgender person are decidedly not.
I’d like to open it up to the group now.
Rick Gabrielly: Caitlyn Jenner’s story IS a story of courage. But I’d like to suggest that the story of the inner battle and the inner battle of the struggles people go through might be even older than the story of war on the battlefield. I totally get how much inner battle it must take to face a battle with your own gender. Getting the story out there might have been even harder because Caitlyn had been such a celebrity to begin with—or maybe it was even easier because of the celebrity. But fighting inner battles are huge accomplishments, and a great step in the direction of giving us permission of what to be courageous about.
Nicole Franklin: I work in film and TV, and a lot of awards given are actually bought. And a lot of the backlash might be fore the speed at which this all happened. I’d like to know what the criteria of the award is and did she fit that criteria—-or are we doing this because it’s the pop celebrity story of the hour? I really wonder—has she settled into what this really means?
Mike Patrick: The thing with Caitlyn Jenner is…when she was Bruce Jenner, in 1972 he got second place to the Russians. And then in 1976, he did the 1500 meter and set a record and it was like we beat the world in what did seem like a battle. I wonder why wait until you are 65? He apparently knew way back when he was a kid…The decathalon is one of the hardest events that you can do. And yet, even harder…I can’t imaging hiding that for so many years.
Cynthia Barnett: My other question is—Should we be putting so much attention on awards? Look at the potential for corruption, look at FIFA. Even when Obama got the Nobel Peace Price, he had his critics. I just think we should put “winners” in context, that the system itself is often flawed. So maybe what we want to do is redefine what it means to be a winner.
Mark Sherman: There have always been problems with awards in sports—Look at PED’s and the unfair advantages they have brought. But fair competition is great. I’m not sure I would say redefining winners—-but maybe expanding the definition of what courage is. In war, many men die of course and it does take courage. It’s certainly not any less courageous than what Caitlyn did. In interviews, it actually seemed more like a sense of relief – the relief that comes when you finally can be who you always wanted to be. Also I want to bring up that the sea change of LGBT over the years didn’t happen by itself—it came on the collective heels of many other movements including the Civil Rights Movement. And finally I want to point out that even writing takes courage and should be admired.
Luke Davis: I recently wrote a “Why I Run” that was about courage. And there was a great TEDTalk by Brene Brown about courage. Her definition of courage is when you tell your story from your heart. And in Caitlyn’s case, it is what she has done when following her heard.
Kozo Hattori: What Caitlyn Jenner did as a man, she embraced her feminine side quite literally. That meme is in fact a reactionary kickback to her doing that—it’s like “no, no, no, this here is a real man, he fought in a war, he ran a death race.” It’s just pointing to the old stereotypes.
Patty Beach: One of the things about courage is to be yourself and find the beauty in doing that. So many people are hiding because they don’t have the courage to be who they want. Or society values manhood. Even Caitlyn Jenner, who was equally good at being a man, was simply more comfortable with being a woman. And I think this will profoundly impact our culture. Now that we are allowing gay marriage and we are allowing people to be who they are. We cannot hide the fact that we are human.
Rick Gabrielly: There’s a benefit to the negative commentary—whether you are seeing courage in Caitlin or courage in military heroes, or the courage of the speakers at the storytelling event—more images of courage gives more people the chance to celebrate courage in your own way. Even getting on this call and have all of us speak our truth is as big a form of courage as anything else. No one knows how easy or hard it is to find their voice. It is what makes me proud to be a human when anyone shows courage.
Ashely Michelle Fowler: I think we’d be doing a lot of people a disservice if we didn’t nuance this with an understanding that certain identities are easier to come forward—either as Mark said because of different points of history, or because of the advantage of privilege. Caitlyn Jenner had a lot of financial privilege. She is also white, and in great shape, which takes a lot of resources—that white, fit, feminine aesthetic might make it more palatable. I just want to point out that if your identity is poor, or tied up with race that the trans identity still is at a very high risk of marginalization or even death.
Mark Sherman: I can’t understand the hate groups who are dedicated to hate. And as we think of tolerance…I know there is a continuum of sexual orientation, but I wonder if with gender identity is it a similar thing? And I see sometimes that men who are at the extreme of masculine identity are sometimes vilified. It doesn’t seem like they should be judged any more than men who are more feminine should be judged.
Kozo Hattori: Courage, like suffering, doesn’t have any gender, or race or economic or race requirements. You could be a privileged white male and still have it take enormous courage to tell your story. Courage is not only available to people who are suffering. It’s like grace. You just need courage to put forth your heart. The word courage actually comes from the French word “cœur” which means heart.
Ashely Michelle Fowler: I would like to talk about the spectrum of gender identity, but I say this as a cis-gendered woman. Even when you are a man’s man or a girly girl there are nuances in your gender identity. And part of what we talk about here at The Good Men Project is getting out of the Man-Box through understanding those nuances. If you don’t like sports, you aren’t any less of a man. So yes, there are all sorts of a continuum for gender identity. There are some people who are androgynous, and want to get out of gender all together. There are some who might use male for female pronouns that are opposite to the gender they were board with. Or some who don’t use pronouns at all. Some who are gender queer. And that is why I think it is so important to ask people to self-identify.
Mark Sherman: I’m big on language, but in many ways it is very limiting—to the point where it is almost paralyzing to speak, for fear of getting it wrong. I grew up in a time when we used the generic masculine. And I was asked by a student in a class, very politely, if I could please shift to “he or she” when I lectured. And I became very conscious of that—so conscious that when I was speaking about an all male group like a sports team, I had to catch myself to not say “he or she.” But now the terminology has proliferated, and I sometimes I think it would be easier to be language-fee and not have any labels.
Cynthia Barnett: I believe that we are all individuals first. When that happens, the gender thing begins to fade. We are all male and female qualities. We are all whole male and female spiritual equals.
Patty Beach: I talk about a concept called the V-factor. V for versatility. It has been found that people who self-identify with qualities from both genders tend to be more successful. But IF you are more masculine, say in the work environment, you would be better paired with someone more feminine. The idea is that you have free access to either masculine or feminine qualities. And I think in some cases it is helpful to identify with a label, and in other cases the label is better dropped.
Kozo Hattori: I’m not here to discount gender. Everyone here has their own individual gender identities.
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Photo: S Khan / flickr
So the topic for the staff is Men, Gender Identity and the Courage to Follow Your Heart – and you use a trans woman as your touchstone for this conversation? Just a head’s up – trans men exist – and we read this blog. We generally aren’t recognized anywhere – but I come here to the Good MEN Project hoping that occasionally we might be…
I agree, there were plenty of transgender people out there before Jenner. Our society is obsessed with celebrity, this happens at a time when there is a great deal of criticism of the Kardashian clan and a question of what they do to deserve their fame. Which is quite frankly nothing outside of marrying well and being rich bosomy women. Jenner is paparazzi gold and that is it. Most awards are biased and come from mysterious sources, even the presidential elections. The media is our morphine and a blanket over our eyes so that we don’t have to address real… Read more »
“There is a continuum of sexual orientation….perhaps also with gender identity?”
Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner….perhaps we need to stop thinking strictly of a binary order…In the Louvre, there is a Greek statue of Hermaphrodite, a god/god-like creature with breasts and male genitalia….why are men so afraid to be called a “girl”? What is so terrible to embrace what is stereotypically “female” inside of them? Perhaps more men should try wearing a wig, high heels, glamorous make, and a tight red dress…would that automatically make them women? What are they afraid of?
Caitlyn Jenner is a woman, not a man. She is not an Hermaphrodite, she is a woman. In the same way that I am a man, not a woman, and not something in between.
I am attracted to women, when I see Jenner i do not see a woman.
I’ve been watching that picture of Noah Galloway make its way across the net in the last few days and it worries me a bit. Trying to size up the courage of Galloway and Jenner and anyone else that was up for the award takes away from their own individual courage. They are both going through difficult times and are doing things a lot of us simply could not do. I wish people would quit using Noah as an attack angle against Jenner. Can’t we be proud of both of them? Or have we gotten so competitive that we believe… Read more »