Chapter 16: No One Talks to Me in the Locker Room

It wasn’t until now, my mid-20s, that I have felt comfortable speaking openly about my queer identity in front of straight-masculine males. I still struggle with these conversations, but now for different reasons. Instead of fearing the straight man and overworking to get their acceptance, I now find myself quickly agitated by “boys” who ask the same offensive questions about LGBTQ identity, such as “what is it like to be gay?” or “how did you know you were gay if you have never been with a girl?” Such questions are problematic for many reasons, and it is exhausting to be expected to answer every time I make male-hetero friends. In addition, during my adolescent years, I have found that many masculine men engage in their own homoerotic behavior, but have, in their minds, created a binary of what is and is not gay. At least many of the ones who bullied me did. Testing the boundaries of their sexuality with each other, behind closed doors, in the locker room, or at sleepovers, was compartmentalized as “not gay” to justify their sexual-erotic behavior. I believe these types of boys are fighting societal conditioning that has taught them that sexuality is something that is black and white, rather than embracing the “grey area” that exists within them. I have been around male groups in high school and college who label themselves as “straight” but are just as experimental as (if not more than) youth who identify as LGBTQ—supporting my opinion that sexuality is not the same for everyone. Instead, our sexual identity is influenced by the groups we associate with and whether they place stricter “bans” on embracing certain sexual expression over another.