No one knows what 'masculinity' is, but it’s killing us | Xtra Magazine
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ANALYSIS: Does “masculinity” mean anything other than “being in charge”? Let’s talk to transfeminists and find out

There are a lot of words you could use to describe Donald Trump’s leadership style, or what he and Elon Musk have in common. That’s why it’s odd that the phrase chosen by Axios in February 2025 was “masculine maximalism.”

“Trump and Musk view masculinity quite similarly,” authors Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote, defining it in terms of “tough-guy language” and “macho actions.” This definition is puzzling for a few reasons, chief among them the fact that “tough-guy,” “macho” and “masculine” are all synonyms for each other. Elsewhere, we’re told that Trump and Musk want to “let men be men,” another phrase that pointedly begs the question.

To be fair, the association of Trump with masculinity is ubiquitous: He “prizes masculinity above everything,” according to Vince Mancini at GQ. He will help America view masculinity more “positively,” according to his male supporters, as quoted by the New York Times. One especially depressing poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University, published in October 2024, found that 41 percent of all voters described Trump as “completely masculine” and 84 percent of that group planned to vote for him; moreover, among voters who do not view Trump as masculine, “his support plummets, even among Republicans.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s critics on the left try to tear him down by saying that he’s not masculine enough: “The least masculine man ever to hold the modern presidency,” according to at least one Atlantic column. He’s taunted for getting “emotional,” for wearing makeup, for showing affection to or (gasp) kissing other men, even if that last thing only happens in people’s imaginations. Liberal mockery of Elon Musk, similarly, often rests on the idea that he behaves like a woman. (“Elonia,” anyone?) Disturbingly, neither side questions the idea that “masculinity” should be a requirement in a leader, or that men who are “unmasculine” are unworthy of respect.

Yet it is true that Trumpism is a kind of gender performance—it’s about shoring up a traditional, misogynistic, dominance-obsessed ideal of “masculinity” against social progress, about restoring straight cis white men to their traditional place at the head of the family and the top of the world. Attacks on trans people, who supposedly threaten “masculinity” by existing, are very much a part of that effort.

Whether or not we as queer people believe in that kind of “masculinity,” or aspire to it, it’s gunning for us. In the hopes of understanding the enemy—and restoring some kind of nuance to a conversation that desperately lacks it—I set out to talk to transfeminists about what they think “masculinity” is and what it could become.

  • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠@slrpnk.net
    2·
    4 days ago

    First off, ignore the blurb, read the article. It’s not about the President or his advisors. I’m including below passages I found especially interesting and wanted to discuss. I invite and eagerly await any responses.

    Bhatt writes that she is skeptical of attempts to differentiate “positive” and “toxic” masculinity, which, she says, tend to portray violence and misogyny as tragic deviations from “real” manliness, rather than the norm and intended outcome of patriarchy. As long as masculinity is defined antagonistically, in terms of having more power than someone else, then subjugation and oppression will be essential to its performance.

    Okay, so: I have definitely been guilty in the past of what’s described in that first sentence. And while it’s very easy to point at toxic masculinity and say, “not that” and condemn the toxic behaviors, it’s harder to acknowledge what Bhatt describes in the second sentence. I’d never seen it put in words before and I certainly have never thought it to myself while ruminating on the subject, but it’s so manifestly true that I’m both shocked and disappointed with myself for never having that insight. Competition is essential to my internal comprehension of masculinity, and competition relies on, as Bhatt says “having more power than someone else” and antagonism.

    Middle-class and wealthy men are able to define masculinity in terms of “breadwinning” or “providing”—euphemisms for out-earning their female partners—but working-class men often depend on their wives’ paycheques. Are those men not masculine (which seems unlikely, given that fetishization of True Blue-Collar Masculinity is one of the few things right- and left-wing politics have in common) or are they just doing masculinity in a different way?

    This one I have been able to address before. I’ve written elsewhere that when I was a boy, I had a solid idea of what manliness entailed. As I matured, I realized most of those attributes, maybe all of them, were really attributes not of masculinity but of maturity. What separates men from boys, if you will, not men from women.

    Masculinity was not a single coherent code, but a constant negotiation with one’s social and political context.

    Well, yeah, all gender is.

    If masculinity is about context, then our contexts—and our masculinities—can change.

    Seems legit.

    Alex Manley wrote that they gained a crucial insight into men’s lives while providing masculinity-branded content

    love me some nominative determinism

    The quintessential experience of being a man is wondering if you’re really a man; it’s always acting like a man and never actually getting to be one.

    This is the first thing I really have to disagree with in the article, and it was all the way at the end. Going by my (cis) experience, I’ve always felt the opposite; knowing I’m male, knowing I’m a man, but struggling with how that translates into behavior. And having “masculine” behavior seem so elusive has made me cling even harder to actions that I can point to as definitively masculine: eg. “men take off their hats indoors and while eating”, “men walk to the left of ladies or on the side closest to the street”.

    masculinity is anxiety

    This I can agree with, but maybe I’m just an anxious man.