Gender, as defined in Down to Earth Sociology, is “The social expectations attached to a person on account of that person’s sex. Sex is biological while gender is social.”

It has occurred to me that sexual and gender identity has been a hot-tempered issue most recently. People are quick to use labels like Gay, Straight, and Bisexual. Essentially, if you’re labeled gay then, you’re thought of as feminine or “girly” and if considered straight, then you’re thought of as masculine and athletic. Well, I wish it were that simple.

Eli Coleman, in his book Integrated Identities for Gay Men and Lesbians, states that “The dichotomous or trichotomous categories of sexual orientation (homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual) are a massive over simplification of our current understanding of sexual orientation.” He goes on to day that “…conflicts within or between individuals over sexual orientation…contribute to psychosexual dysfunctions, relational problems, career indecision …existential crisis and so forth.”

I remember the anxiety I experienced when I decided to become a male nurse; I worried about the implications of working in a field typically dominated by woman. But as we know today, there are many male nurses whose sexual identities are exclusively heterosexual, even though they have taken on a mostly feminine role and ignored the gender (masculine or feminine) role expectations of society.

Coleman also quoted Alfred Kinsey as saying “The world is not divided into sheeps and goats. Not all are black nor all are white. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sounder understanding of the realities of sex.”

In the grand scheme of things, I think that my sexuality borders on being more contextual than it is biological. There have been times when I’ve felt attracted to someone based on the situation of which I find myself and what I’m in the mood for at the time. Attraction for me is more than just wanting to have intercourse with someone. It can be a combination of things that I deem valuable when it comes to finding the right mate. Things like karma, aura, emotional chemistry, intellectual and spiritual compatibility and socioeconomic stability; all affect my attraction to an individual. Male, female or anything in between. Sometimes I want something hard, sometimes I want something soft and sometimes I want a combination of both!

I can honestly say that for the most part I feel more attracted to women emotionally and I feel more attracted to men physically, and this has a lot to do with my gender identity. When I feel masculine I want a woman, when I feel feminine I want a man. The soft innocuous attraction I have towards a woman contrasts the animalistic desire I have for a man. Which brings me to the idea of the “girly man” syndrome.

I have always been seen as “soft,” not terribly masculine, right from the start. This happened long before Arnold Swarznegger uttered the term “girly man.” As a matter of fact, when I was growing up with my male cousin Bob in Haiti, definitive distinctions were made between us in relation to our disparate levels of gender role conformity.

Growing up, I was extremely close to my mother and almost completely alienated from my father. I even experienced a deep sense of fear in his presence and in the presence of other typically masculine males: afraid that they would see the “girl” in me. I was seen as the soft spoken, non-aggressive, overly sensitive and not terribly athletic mama’s boy. Whereas my cousin Bob was perceived to be the more tough talking, boisterous, athletic, and insensitive man’s man. So they invented names to “label” us. I was “Temou” (Creole for soft core) and he was “Tedi” (Creole for hard core). Those labels began to shape how I perceived myself in the early stages of my psychological development.

Which brings me to pose this question: Why are we as men so afraid to be associated with acting or thinking “like a girl?” What’s wrong with acting or thinking like a girl? Speaking from the point of view of someone who grew up with about five dominant yet feminine women in Haiti, I’ve grown to have immense respect for women and their abilities to communicate, empathize, endure and thrive over hardships. Why are those qualities recognized as a source of weakness if exhibited in males?

In Haiti, women are objectified and are made to be subservient to men. So the strong woman I grew up with, had to mask their strengths or what was perceived to be masculine traits in order to appease the men, or risked being labeled a lesbian and loose their breadwinner. As for me, at times I had to act like the typically stoical masculine male when I really felt like sobbing uncontrollably, in order to avoid being labeled a sissy. When in reality, sometimes I feel more like a man, sometimes I feel more like a woman, and sometimes I feel like both.

In The Homosexualities: Reality, Fantasy, and Art, Shirley Panken writes “In Virginia Wolf’s celebrated essay ‘A Room of One’s Own’, Woolf …[discredits] the usual definition of masculinity and femininity, and synchronizes the two into an androgynous (genderless) vision.” She goes on to say that in Wolf’s other work “Orlando”, she “depicts Orlando’s profound confusion about the diversity of his/her different selves.” Woolf writes that the indecision “from one sex to another is universal, that clothing may depict male or female likeness, but that underneath the sex, is opposite of what is above. She also dwells on the multiplicity of the self…” Which may explain why I sometimes feel like slipping into some spiky red pumps, squeeze my big masculine frame into a faboulous Channel dress and adorn my face in Fashion Fair make-up and be totally ready to sashay down the runway at “Jacques’,” a drag performance venue!

At one point in my life growing up I fooled around with girls, just as much as I fooled around with boys. Today as a grown man, I’ve decided to have both man and woman in my life for different reasons. For me, it’s like yin and yang, it’s an issue of balance. When I’m being soft and romantic with a girl, I only think about her, as when I’m being amorous with a man, I only think about him. So I maybe a “girly man,” but I’m still a man. Nothing will ever change that. As a matter of fact, I often feel like more of a man because I have allowed myself the freedom to feel like a woman at times and vice versa.

Roy Simmons, a former offensive lineman with the New York Giants and with the Super Bowl—winning Washington Redskins in the 1980s, in a book about him called Out of Bounds, had this to say: “To me, I am and always have been Roy Simmons. Labels are for people trying to define me—that’s their problem. The only insight I can offer into my sexuality is that I did exactly what everybody else around me did when I was growing up: when I came into my sexual maturity, I went with the flow, and for me the flow moved naturally to boys and girls.… A label is for the outside trying to look in.”

So I want all the “girly men” out there to unite and claim their gender bending rights! Those of you who are questioning your gender identity (masculinity, femininity) and sexuality (gay, straight), know that the only one who can define that is you. Don’t allow external forces keep you from experiencing internal freedom!