‘Feminine Threshold’: Theorizing Masculine Embodiment with Latinx Men

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss how young Latinx men living in Australia negotiate, embody, and complicate existing dominant and racialized masculinities. Queer and feminist theories are used to explore how Latinx men negotiate and embody masculinities, sexualities, and being ‘other’ in a White dominant cultural context. These tensions were explored through semi-structured in-depth interviews and a creative visual method known as sandboxing with twenty-one Latinx men. Sandboxing aims to elicit conversation and allows for the reflection and sharing of a visual and symbolic representation of participants’ lives. The findings suggest masculinities are lived and embodied alongside negotiating racialization and sexualities. The fluidity of masculinities surfaces in participants’ reflexive engagement with masculinities and the nuances in negotiating and simultaneously reproducing gender binary norms. Participants’ careful negotiation in engaging with feminine culture led to developing the concept ‘feminine threshold’, a theoretical contribution offered in this article, in understanding how Latinx men negotiate masculinities.

1. Introduction

This article aims to add new understandings of how masculinities are negotiated, embodied, and experienced in a predominantly White culture by young Latinx men in Australia. First, this paper will explore why masculinities scholars [1,2] have called for more engagement with feminist philosophy is needed, as it has been underutilized. This is significant, because feminist philosophy and methodology allows for men’s engagement with masculinities to be understood as something they do, not simply something they are subjected to. Coffey and Watson [3] and Coffey [4] also underscored how the body in youth studies has often been sidelined, which is pertinent in exploring young masculinities. The section that follows will provide context about the intersections of the body and racialized masculinities. Hames-García and Martinez [5] explored ways gay Latino men in the United States negotiate dominant racialized Latino narratives. For example, La Fountain Stokes [6] contributed a critique of Whiteness rooted in queer performativity, and Muñoz [7,8] explored the performativity of racialized normativity and how this is affected by dominant culture. Following this, the theoretical framework informing the study and thus feminine threshold will also be outlined. The recruitment for the study, methods used, and steps for undertaking the thematic analysis will also be discussed. This study was approved by the University of Newcastle Ethics committee on 19 September 2019, number: H-2019-028.

The aim of this study was to understand how masculinities are negotiated by young Latinx men alongside sexualities and racialization within the Australian context. It did not aim to position Latinx men into an assumed type of masculinities, create a new type of masculinity, or assume they are agents in progressive masculinities. To explore this, the study primarily focused on recruiting participants (men between ages eighteen to thirty-five) from a small community organization dedicated to supporting, organizing community events, advocating for, and working with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer (LGBTIQ) Latin American community (who use multiple iterations, such as Latin, Latino, and Latinx) in Australia. A total of twenty-one Latinx men participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews, and ten men also participated in a creative visual method known as sandboxing [9], which will be detailed below. This article will discuss how participants navigate defining masculinities, as they illustrate a nuanced understanding and negotiations of gender as more than just the binary. The findings suggest masculinities are lived and embodied while negotiating racialization and sexualities. From these interviews, the key findings that will be explored include (1) queering masculine embodiment, (2) the careful and nuanced negotiations with femininity, (3) experiences within LGBTQIA+ communities in Australia, (4) and a feminine threshold. Presentations associated with femininity were required to be carefully navigated as a ‘threshold’. This is theorized through a ‘feminine threshold’, a theoretical contribution developed in my research and discussed below. This threshold suggests that performing gender requires careful balancing and distancing from being perceived as feminine or ‘gay [10,11,12,13] and distancing from an association with inferiority. The following section will briefly discuss the use of the term Latinx in this study.

1.1. Latinx

The language used in this article aims to align with the ways participants described their identities and ways of being. This work also acknowledges that language is ongoing, generational, and changing. While participants used several identifiers, such as queer, gay, LGBTQIA+, nationalities, Latin, Latino, Latin, Latinx, and sexualities, during interviews, this was in conversation, fluid and contextual. The language used in this article is not intended to cement ways of identifying or being for young Latinx men. In this paper, the term Latinx is used to signal a disruption to the gender binary while including transgender and non-binary people who are erased in the term Latina/o [14]. The inclusivity of the term beyond the gender binary embedded into the Spanish language, with a signaling feminine and o signaling masculine, is central to exploring more than binary dimensions of masculinities. There are different uses or interpretations of the x in Latinx. For example, Flores [15] used the x in Latinx as an operative in their work as ‘LatinX-ed out’, as the concept of ‘Latina/o/x’ has a problematic and anti-Black history. The term can also be interpreted ‘as a political identity that centers the lived experiences of queer, non-binary, gender non-conforming/creative and/or trans* individuals’ [16]. Latinx has been used as a term that is inclusive of ‘Hispanic and Latino populations regardless of gender identity’ [17]. This shares more than binary and queer inclusivity in the way this term is used in this study.

The term Latinx will be used to describe participants who used a range of identifiers such as Latino, Latinx, their nationality, Latin, Latin American, and South American. While there were nuances when participants referred to themselves as specifically ‘Brazilian’ or ‘Latin’, a combination of identifiers were often used by participants throughout the interviews, making it difficult to keep track. The methods used in this study, a semi-structured in-depth interview and an art-based visual method, provided space for participants to further articulate their identities. Vicente, the only transgender man in this study, described how he identifies as Latino and started identifying with Latinx because if felt more welcoming and inclusive of his identity. This was significant, as he also described isolation from several LGBTQIA+ communities. Ultimately, Latinx is used for consistency throughout the article. However, not one term or concept perfectly encompasses the diversity of identities within this study.

The terms Latinx and Latina/o are argued to be US-centric, as people in Latin American tend to identify with national origin [18]. This can be contrasted with the use of the terms Latino and Latinx by several participants and the organization and some Facebook groups that provided support with recruitment of this study, contributing to the use of Latinx beyond the United States. Participants self-identified as men and Latino/x or Latin American to participate in the study and discussed issues with the use of nationality or national origin. For example, a participant born in Northern Mexico described the identifier ‘Mexican’ as potentially diluting the many cultures and groups and ways of living within Mexico. He felt identifying as ‘Northern Mexican’ is what best described him, or as he said, ‘At the end, it comes closest to what it is’ (Andres). This speaks to how these terms do not exactly describe participants identities but may come ‘close’.

1.2. Contextualizing Disembodied Masculinist Approaches in Youth and Masculinities Research

The field of men and masculinities studies has often ignored or underutilized feminist philosophy [1,2]; subsequently, masculinities research has methodologically been studied through this masculinist approach. This often results in a disembodied approach to understanding masculinities and, subsequently, men [19]. The body has been marginalized, or disembodied, in masculinities studies through the way the body and mind have been theorized as a binary and as a hierarchy, with the body deemed feminine and inferior and the mind deemed masculine and superior [20,21]. In childhood and youth studies, the body is often taken for granted or overlooked in the ways it affects and is affected by social and cultural norms. The body is predominantly explored through a lens of ‘risk’ or a ‘problem’ when explored in childhood and youth studies [3,4]. This means that embodiment tends to be left on the periphery rather than front and center in the way research is designed or explored in studies of young masculinities. Furthermore, Waling [22] cautioned the use of topologizing masculinity since Connell’s [23,24] concept of hegemonic masculinity, because it may detract from the way that men engage and negotiate masculinity. This can contribute to distancing and disembodying men from masculinities, for example, positioning a ‘type’ of masculinity as being subjected onto men, something they can ascribe to or reject. Categorizing masculinities works against the queer and post-structural framework used in this study. Through my research, I approached masculinities as liminal rather than discrete categories to explore how they also intersect with racialization and sexualities. This helps complicate the discourse of accepting or rejecting different types of masculinities (dominant and racialized) that can position men as subjected to a type of masculinity [19,25] or ‘masculinities in crisis’. Therefore, when exploring how young Latinx men negotiate masculinities, the discussion must go beyond binaries such as agency/structure, as these are too simplistic to capture the complexities of young Latinx men.

Connell [23] and Connell and Messeshmidt [26] influenced understanding masculinities as relational and plural; culturally, spatially, and geographically contingent; and changing in relation to each other. This positioned bodies as more than docile and with the ability to change. Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw [27,28] coined intersectionality, a framework that helps understand how multiple systems of oppression (race and gender) intersect and affect an individuals’ positioning. Black feminist scholars have studied the importance of the social systems and intersections at which they meet and compound inequalities that intersect. Studies that have explored intersectionality and masculinities underscore the importance of acknowledging interconnected power relations. Leap [29] called for a need to study intersections beyond gender and class in studying masculinities and offered an analysis that brings together intersectionality, space, and narrative in exploring masculinities in a rural context. Maake [30] also stated the importance of studying interconnected power relations that shape masculinities with gay men in South Africa. This paper emphasizes the importance of not siloing differences and inequalities in studying how masculinities are experienced and form parts of identities. This study explores intersections with attention to the racialization of masculinities and its embodiment and how these systems affect and relate to how masculinities are embodied and negotiated by young Latinx men.

The ways masculinities are negotiated are analyzed with a focus on embodiment through gendered body work practices [31] and intersectionality [27,28] to conceptualize how new understandings of masculinities are experienced through multiple relations, including sexuality, ethnicity, place, and the body. These concepts allow for the participants to be positioned beyond binaries such as rejecting/accepting dominant discourses while recognizing the systemic and institutional disadvantages they face.

Masculinities studies offers many categorizations of masculinities and some with racialized implications. For example, machismo, a type of masculinity that upholds patriarchal notions of men as aggressive and superior and women as inferior, is often ascribed to Latin American men as ‘Latino masculinity’, especially within the United States [32,33]. This racialization assigned to men, specifically Latino men, also contributes to the reproduction of framing privileged White men as first in line to push the boundaries of normative masculinities and engage with progressive masculinities. Men of color are topologized with a pathologizing reductive monolith of masculinity [34]. In the Australian context, hegemonic masculinity is still representative of White, cisgender, heterosexual men. This normative (White) masculine imaginary is upheld through the trope of the ‘White, working class, Australian male who is typified by his loyalty, his able-bodiedness, his belief in and practice of mateship and egalitarianism’, or the ‘outback man’ [25] (p. 208). White men, as the ‘real’ agents in progressive masculinities, need to be problematized to decenter the emphasis on White, middle-class men as leading progressive change, as well as explore the experiences and negotiations of Latinx men beyond the dominant narrative of ‘Latino masculinity’.

1.3. Beyond ‘Normative’ Masculinities and Proximities to Femininity

While normative masculinity in Australia is representative of White, cisgender, heterosexual men [25], research in schools with boys has also provided in-depth accounts into ‘normative’ ways of performing masculinities. A ‘normative way of doing boy’ for primary and secondary school boys involves a ‘‘tough’ and or physically violent embodied performance’ [35] (p. 579). Renold [36,37] (p. 252) explored the social, emotional, and physical effects or consequences boys face when they stray from hegemonic masculinity in schools and become aligned with ‘femininity and immaturity’. This relates to ways the men in this study were encouraged to perform ‘normative’ and hegemonic masculinity [23] when growing up to distance themselves from being perceived or signaling femininity. Furthermore, Robinson [38] highlighted the complexities of gender policing in families of color to protect their children from experiencing further bullying, as they may also experience multiple forms of discrimination. Kolluri [39] explored why young Black and Latino boys in school follow ‘cultural expectations of schooling’ referred to as the ‘academic type’, while some, ‘the chill type’, do not through a relational lens. This work contributes to understanding how masculinities are engaged with or ‘straddled’ with in multiple ways for Black and Latino boys in relation to school and home cultures. Like Kolluri [39], this research aims to highlight how the positioning of young Latinx men affects and relates to the negotiation and process of embodied masculine practices. With queer theoretical tools, disidentification [40], and Butler’s [41] theory of performativity, this research seeks to explore masculinities beyond ascribing to, or acquiescing between, typologized masculinities.

Another way of distancing from femininity is through embodied practices. Presenting the body as ‘masculine’ is aligned with particular gendered and bodily activities. In research conducted by Coffey [42] and Monaghan and Malson [43], young men distanced themselves from health practices such as dieting by presenting their diet as a means to get the results or the body they were working towards. Although there are men that constantly watch and restrict what they eat, the term ‘dieting’ is a more feminized term; thus, it is positioned as a small sacrifice they perform to keep up with their gym routines. The men in these studies also spoke about how women ‘have it harder’ in terms of maintenance of the body and constantly deflected shortcomings they had in maintaining their body by attributing their efforts (practices) to health and focusing on the societal pressure on women’s bodies [42,43] (p. 177, p. 312). This suggests that men try to avoid focusing too much on their appearance, especially because caring about appearance is framed as a female issue, particularly in heterosexual attraction [43] (p. 312). The fear of being associated with feminine, which is associated with ‘gay’ [10,11,12,13], is central to understanding how bodies, gender, and masculinities are experienced. The association of ‘gay’ with feminine is also racialized through the body, for example, White gay men are perceived as more feminine than non-White gay men [44].

1.4. The Intersections and Relationality of Racialization, the Body, and Masculinities

This section will discuss how gay men’s bodies become racialized and positioned within the Australian context in relation to Whiteness. This also provides context about how masculinities are negotiated within predominantly White cultures. With Moreton-Robinson’s [45] concept of White possession, Han [46] deconstructed Whiteness as the standard of desirability in gay male spaces in Australia. Moreton-Robinson’s [45] work on Whiteness is specific to location and the type of racism suffered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. This work is used to make sense of how White dominance functions in the Australian context as the cultural norm and standard. Han [46] (p. 5) articulated how desirability is implicated with sexuality and racialization and is dictated by Whiteness, as it ‘claims possession of the standards by which we measure all racialized non-White queer men’s desirability’.

Han [46] and Caluya [47] showed how non-White bodies are racialized in the gay scene (bars and clubs) in Sydney. Han [46] stated that queer White men remain unracialized, because Whiteness is still upheld as the standard under a multicultural Australia; White bodies are something to be compared to and remain invisible. The invisibility of Whiteness is shown in the racial hierarchy of gay men where penis size is placed on a racial hierarchy, where the White penis becomes invisible (the standard),] when ‘other’ (Black, Asian, and Latino) penises are racialized, and thus, White queer men and Whiteness retain their desirability [46] (p. 7).

Han [46] and Caluya [48] both illustrated examples of how gay Asian men in Sydney’s gay commercial spaces are effeminized, subordinated, and labeled as passive and ‘bottoms’. Asian gay men are conflated with ‘feminine’ and ‘women’, [48] (p. 6). Although Black and Latino men are not typically categorized as feminine or deemed as ‘undesirable’ as Asian gay men in the racial/desirable hierarchy dictated within the confines for and by Whiteness, the way their bodies are racialized by White queer men share a connection: visibility through fetishization and racialization in a sea of Whiteness.

Ocampo’s [44] (p. 485) research with second-generation Latino men in Los Angeles showed how gay is conflated with ‘White gays and feminine gay men’. This ethnographic study followed fifteen gay men, aged twenty-one to thirty, to mainstream and ethnic spaces to observe how they negotiated masculinities [44] (p. 455). There is a connection between Ocampo [44] and Han’s [46] research in how men desire other men, and the type of men they desire is compared to hegemonic masculinities and Whiteness. Men are judged based on who and what they desire and if it is considered by dominant culture as ‘masculine’ or too ‘feminine’. Gay in this context carries a racial implication, where White gay men are feminine, and thus, positioning non-White gay men are more masculine. This study also showed how Latino men construct masculinities in how they define ‘gay’ and in the way they show interest or desire in other men. When men shared interest in the more ‘gay’ or feminine’ men, meaning they worked in stereotypically women or gay men-dominated industries (hairdresser, makeup, and dance) or wore ‘stereotypically gay clothing’ (for example, super-low-cut V-neck shirts and feminine-style necklaces)’, which can also include White gay men, they were then rendered as not masculine, because they failed to find masculine qualities in men, and thus, this makes them less masculine [44] (p. 464). In Han [46] (p. 8) and Caluya’s [47] (p. 284) research, the ‘rice queens’, White men who are ‘predominantly interested in Asian men’ and ‘stereotyped as a sexually unattractive man who is unable to find a Caucasian partner’, become racialized only when they show interest in Asian men—that is, when they ‘deviate’ from predominantly desiring Whiteness (the norm) and are therefore categorized as ‘undesirable’ themselves by White men and Asian men.

2. Researcher Positioning

I am Latinx/a, and feminine-presenting. I am bilingual in English and Spanish, which allowed for interviews to be conducted in either language. During the earlier part of the data production, when I introduced myself, I did not begin by stating I was Mexican or had Mexican ancestry. By the end of data production, I learned participants frequently asked about my ethnicity, why I spoke Spanish, and if I was Mexican because of my accent. Therefore, I began to share this when I met with participants towards the latter part of data production. This was received well, and along with other shared experiences like being an international student and being new to Australia and Melbourne, helped to build a rapport with participants. Sometimes, when participants learned I spoke Spanish, they said things like ‘I’m so glad you speak Spanish. That way, if I can’t say it in English, you’ll get me’ or explain how, in Spanish, they could express themselves in more depth. Some participants asked about my positioning and sexuality during or after the interviews. For example, when discussing gay men’s subcultures, a participant began describing ‘twinks’ and ‘bears’, and he said ‘Oh, you know the community. So, you already know this’. I then said it was okay to continue to share more as I may not know all of these terms and we may have different meanings and experiences in gay subcultures, in the aim of not closing down these conversations. While I perhaps did not have the same bond as a male researcher researching masculinities with men [49,50] or growing up in the same countries, cities, or villages as the participants, we did share some cultural similarities (with a Mexican background) in ways they described gender.

3. Theoretical Framework Informing a ‘Feminine Threshold’

To understand gender as constructed and not innate or determined by sex characteristics, a post-structural approach is needed. This is because post-structuralism is interested in the ways and processes of how subjects become gendered in relation to context and location [51]. Feminist post-structuralism offers the ability to deconstruct taken for granted or the perceived naturalness of the way things are [52,53]. To make sense of how masculinities are experienced relationally and through intentional embodied practices, a post-structural methodology is needed. This study draws from queer and feminist theory and feminist post-structuralism to inform this research.

The fields of research and philosophy have been historically dominated by men [54,55]. This means the research and knowledge that they produce also reflect their interests, ways, and methods of understanding the world [56,57]. Feminist scholars [20,21] have challenged and deconstructed dominant masculinist theorizations of the body that have theorized the body and brain as hierarchal and separate from each other. The dominant theorizations of the body (inferior) as feminine and irrational and the mind (superior) as rational and credible have been critiqued and deconstructed by feminist scholarships. This is a significant deconstruction, as philosophy has ignored the body as ‘a passive medium’ [41] (p. 12). and emotional and agentic reflexivity in men and masculinities studies have remained in the periphery [19].

Using queer theory allows for the flexibility to theorize and position gender as liminal and slippery, where gender does not have to be static or captured into a singular type of masculinity. Drawing from queer theorizations of masculinities helps to deconstruct the assumption that masculinities are a static, biological, or natural thing. Through positioning gender as something we do and perform [41] and understanding masculinities are not a male-specific or body-specific performance [58], this more-than-binary and post-structural understanding of masculinities is used in exploring how Latinx men negotiate and embody masculinities through a threshold of femininity.

This study focuses on new ways masculinities are being lived and embodied by Latinx men. In Australia, hegemonic or ‘dominant’ masculinity is representative of White, cisgender, heterosexual men [25]. This research focused on how non-hegemonic racialized masculinities are experienced and how alternative forms of masculinities are lived. To explore this, the study specifically recruited men from a small community organization that advocates, supports, and hosts various social events for the ‘LGBTIQ’ Latin American community in Australia to understand how these men work on, within, and against the dominant social structures [40] and how this is lived through the body. This study draws from feminist and queer theoretical concepts [41,50] to allow for an understanding of masculinities as in flux and to move beyond essentialist frameworks. Through the help of these key theories, the conceptualization of a feminine threshold surfaced in making sense of young Latinx men’s nuanced negotiations and boundaries with femininity.

I draw from Butler’s [41] theory of performativity in this study to understand gender as something we ‘do’ or perform. This disrupts and critiques what is often taken for granted or categorized as ‘natural’, like the gender binary. I draw on Muñoz’s [40] concept of disidentification to help understand how young men are embodying and negotiation masculinities beyond binary understandings of ascribing to or rejecting a ‘type’ of masculinity through the process of negotiating dominant ideals and structures. It allows for a fluid understanding of how minoritarian subjects, specifically young Latinx men, ‘work on, within, and against dominant modes of identity’ through a third mode of identifying known as disidentification [40] (p. 12). Munoz’s work explored the ways queer people of color disidentify with a dominant identity they are assigned or ‘categorized’ into by society, which are typically charged with stereotypes. For example, the participants were critical of reproducing gender norms while also working within and against dominant and racialized masculinities. They described how they negotiated this in nuanced ways where a rejection/acceptance binary was not enough to understand these experiences.

My research positions the body as a fluid and ongoing process, which is addressed in Coffey’s [31] concept ‘body work’. To explore how masculinities are embodied, I draw on body work [31], which focuses on the ways young men deliberately do gendered work or practices to their body to present or feel masculine. This allows for masculinities to be understood as lived and experienced through the body. In addition, Coffey’s [4,31] body work practices are theorized to be affected by social and cultural factors, not solely as pathological or individualized.

Scholars [59,60,61] have used the concept of ‘threshold’ in different contexts. Threshold concepts [59,60] have been used in the field of education to explore the multitude of ways students learn and consist of key characteristics. Key characteristics that may help identify threshold concepts by Meyer and Land [60] (p. 7–8) consist of troublesome, transformative, irreversible, integrative, and bounded. There are also additional characteristics to threshold concepts: recursive, discursive, identity reconstitution, liminality, and mimicry [62]. Two characteristics that share potential overlaps with how I theorize a feminine threshold are recursiveness and troublesomeness. Part of the ‘recursive’ characteristic that is useful here is in thinking of threshold concepts as ongoing or its non-permanency, meaning learning is nonlinear for learners [63] (p. 202). A feminine threshold is not specifically about recursiveness but about contributing to new ways of understanding how masculinities are negotiated and the potentialities of queer masculinities that may be extended with the concept of ‘working on, within, and against’ dominant normative cultures [40] (p.12). This aligns with the instability of gender performativity [41] and the fluidity of the body addressed in body work [31]. This may also contribute to the ‘troublesome[ness]’ that Myer and Land [60] used, as a feminine threshold offers nonlinear and processual potentialities of queering masculinities, which trouble the assumed or taken for granted ideas of embodying and negotiating masculinities. Exploring masculine embodiment through the concept of ‘feminine threshold’ is what a queer theoretical lens alongside feminist philosophy can offer.

Another example is Goss and McInerny’s [61] ‘threshold researchers’ concept used to explore queering practice as a methodology. A key aspect of this concept is about ‘the threshold experience that allows the presence of the other persons experience to meet one’s own experience as potentially shared and not as a facile experience of sameness or accuracy’ [61] (p. 295). This relates to the feminine threshold concept, as it picks up on the nuances in negotiating and embodying masculinities. To be able to communicate the complexity of Latinx men’s experiences in negotiating masculinities, I use the concept ‘feminine threshold’ to distinguish and grapple with these careful negotiations and help make sense of the proximities to femininity through a threshold that is subjective, relational, and personal and is not the same for every young Latinx man. What a feminine threshold contributes is understanding that ways of doing, embodying, and negotiating masculinities, even when having a ‘sharedness’ (ethnicity, minority sexualities, and youth), does not have to become the ‘same’ or flattened through a singular way of doing masculinities. For these men, negotiating and embodying masculinities is complex, relational, and processual.

These concepts allow for understanding how multiple identities (ethnicity, gender, and sexuality) affect how masculinities are experienced. Drawing from queer and feminist theory, this article discusses a key finding from my research about how Latinx men carefully negotiate embodiments that signal femininity through what I call a feminine threshold. The use of ‘threshold’ here is to help make sense of how fluid, relational, and personal negotiating of gender, specifically femininity, is for the participants in this study.

4. Producing Data with Creative and Qualitative Methods

4.1. Recruitment

Initially, recruitment began with a small organization dedicated to working with, advocating for, and hosting community events for the ‘LGBTIQ’ Latin American community (who use multiple iterations such as Latin, Latino, and Latinx) in Australia. Participants self-identified with the terms on the recruitment flyers, such as Latino/x and Latin American men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. The member checking took place in multiple ways, beginning with recruitment flyers that invited Latin/o/x or Latin American-identifying men from ages eighteen to thirty-five to participate in the study. This was confirmed when the participants reached out and stated their age and identified as Latin/o/x or Latin American and/or this was checked again when signing the consent forms and then through verbal confirmation at the start of every interview when asked about demographic details (including sexuality, place of birth, age, where they grew up, and how long they had been in Australia, if not born here). Semi-structured in-depth interviews and the creative/visual method used in this study provided space for participants to articulate their identities in more depth.

All names, including participant names, are pseudonyms to protect anonymity. The organization shared my recruitment poster (available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese). They also created another creative and visually appealing poster to share on their socials. I was invited to join the organization’s Facebook group, where I also shared the recruitment flyer. My contact at the organization also connected me with Facebook groups that are inclusive of LGBTQIA+, Latinx, or Latin Americans based in Australia. The knowledge and invitation to one of these groups would not have been possible on my own, as this hidden group is not discoverable through a Facebook search. Snowballing was also used to recruit participants; however, most participants expressed they did not know many young Latinx men and learned about the study from the organization or Facebook groups.

4.2. Semi-Structured In-Depth Interviews

This research did not set out to produce a theory of a type or category of masculinities but to explore how masculinities are negotiated and lived through the body. The body has often been absent in masculinities studies [19] and dismissed or associated with being feminine, passive [41], and irrational. With the use of semi-structured in-depth interviews [64,65] and sandboxing [9,66], young men’s engagement, reflection, and negotiation with masculinities was explored.

When meeting with participants, the researcher would go over any questions they had, an overview of the study, a brief explanation of the hands-on method, sandboxing, and the consent forms. The semi-structured in-depth interviews ranged from forty minutes to an hour and forty minutes in length. The interview guide prepared before the interviews consisted of open-ended questions and explored themes such as demographics (age, sexuality, place of birth, their backgrounds, and why they were in Australia (if not born there); history; family background; experiences with masculinities growing up; body modifications or regimes to present masculine; LGBTQIA+ community experience; and wellbeing and health supports (although these questions in the last section were only occasionally explored as the interviews progressed). The semi-structured interview allowed for the flexibility of asking follow-up questions specific to each participant [64] and exploring ways of how they shape their identities.

Ten interviews took place face to face and eleven over Zoom due to COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns. The interviews took place in public spaces. In Melbourne, the Latinx organization also allowed me to use a conference room to conduct several interviews. Participants were asked if they recommended a place where they felt comfortable and was accessible to them to have the interview. Most asked the researcher to choose a location close to a specific part of the city, and the researcher would then search for a coffee shop or park to meet at. The interviews often felt like conversations with the participants. Some participants asked if we could continue our conversation after our interview had ended, which I enjoyed. The interviews typically began with the interview guide questions prepared beforehand and led to the sandboxing activity, if participants wanted to engage.

4.3. Sandboxing

Masculinities studies tend to leave out the emotional and agentic reflexivity of research participants [19]; therefore, embedding ways of reflecting on experiences and attitudes on masculinities are key components of this research. Including these aspects is important and moves beyond whether men are ‘either victim of or responsible to various models of masculinit(ies) and masculine practices, and to consider the varied and complex nature men may have with their engagement’ [19] (p. 90).

Another method used was a creative participatory method called ‘sandboxing’ [9,66], which consists of a hands-on activity where participants can share a visual and symbolical representation of an experience. As a creative method, sandboxing can move beyond the ‘rational responses’ that surface in more traditional research methods, such as interviews [67] (p. 239). In addition, traditional research methodologies and methods can replicate unequal power dynamics in placing emphasis on the researcher as knowing or constructing knowledge. Using this method aimed to disrupt the power dynamic between researcher and the researched. For the use of sandboxing in this study, it is situated as partially participatory, as participants were not involved in the research design or outputs [68]. Visual methods are also favorable when researching with vulnerable or marginalized groups, because it allows for people to share their perspective, agency, and reflexivity on the dominant social structures [9,66,69,70]. Art and art-based methods may also provide ways to share ‘ways of being and knowing’ [71] (p. 18).

Throughout the fieldwork, the researcher trialed beginning interviews with the sandboxing activity, presenting it in the middle of the interview, and found it best to create our sandboxes towards the end of the interview when we had built rapport. Nine of the face-to-face participants engaged with sandboxing; with one participant, we were limited by time to do that part of the interview. Participants were asked to create a sandbox reflecting what it feels like to be them in Australia or a time when they felt powerful in their body. Both researcher and interviewee created an individual sandbox alongside each other. The researcher provided a plastic tray that was filled with sand, and through symbolism, the use of miniature figures (trees, cars, bridges, animals, fantasy figures, etc.) helped convey their experience and create a reflection of their world. This allowed for participants to reflect on their experiences on a visual and symbolic level. When participants completed their sandbox, the researcher asked the interviewee who they would like to share their sandbox with first. From here, the participants led this part of the interview and typically asked the researcher questions about herself and her sandbox. When participants shared the meaning and significance of their sandbox, this was typically an uninterrupted monologue. This monologue was about meaning given to the miniature figures and sandboxes by the participant and was audio recorded as part of the semi-structured in-depth interview and transcribed. This was followed up with some interview questions and asking again for verbal consent for a photograph to be taken of their sandbox.

4.4. Analysis

All interviews were audio recorded, and photographs were taken of participants’ sandboxes. All interviews were transcribed, and a thematic analysis was used to guide the analysis through the six steps set out by Braun and Clarke [72] (p. 87), though not without issues or disruption to the flow they set out. Some of these steps are set up to be done across entire data sets, and while my data collection spanned over ten months, some data were analyzed earlier on in my research and revisited alongside the ‘newer’ or more recently collected data. First, the researcher began to familiarize herself with the data during transcription and rereading notes taken during and after interviews. The researcher also began to make notes directly on the transcripts about ideas or comments participants made or connections to later parts of the interview or sandboxes. The transcription of interviews and an initial descriptive analysis of what was surfacing in the interviews began simultaneously. This helped begin to guide the initial coding of the data. Step two, the initial coding, was started in NVIVO as the fieldwork and transcription continued. The transcripts were uploaded into NVIVO, a software used to help analyze qualitative data (Bryman, 2016) [65]. NVIVO mostly served as a way of organizing coded data. As the interview transcripts accumulated, patterns or themes across the data became more visible, and then, the researcher was able to ‘thematize’ the data. The researcher also coded data by hand. Potential themes were expanded on using data extracts and an initial analysis that could be used to visualize overlaps in codes more clearly or them ‘collaps[ing] into each other’, where ‘two apparently separate themes might form one theme’ [72] (p. 91). As data analysis is an ongoing process [73], this process was revisited again in clarifying the themes of the findings. This writing process, which was one of the most crucial steps in data analysis, was repeated during and after data production. Reading theories and studies also helped make sense of the analysis and therefore shape a theme during writing. Step four, reviewing the themes, along with steps five and six, shared an overlap. When themes were created from the codes and if these themes could stand alone based on their importance to the study was worked out, they were reshuffled and structured in a way so that the theme was coherent. In reviewing the data analysis, steps four, five, and six were ongoing. The final step, ‘producing the report’, begins in the earlier stages of data analysis, as mentioned through writing, and this is essentially what became the findings with overarching themes.

When working with visual data, researchers bring their assumptions and interpretations of the data [9] (p. 63). To understand the visual data produced and, subsequently, the photographs taken of the sandboxes, auteur theory is used [74]. Auteur theory places emphasis on what the ‘image-maker’ in my research—that is, how the sandbox creator—illustrates and communicates, which is ‘the most salient aspect in understanding a visual image’ [9,67,74] (p. 64, p. 347). Auteur theory [75] is used as a tool to ensure the interpretation of the author is not overshadowed by the interpretation of the audience or researcher. It does not place importance on what the researcher or audience think the sandbox symbolizes but derives significance or meaning from the participants’ words. This is when participants shared what the significance or symbolism that they assigned to the miniature figures in their sandbox through uninterrupted dialogue. The sandboxes were analyzed in relation to participants’ words (meaning) in the interview. These are deeply connected in the analysis. This aligns with the feminist post-structural approach of this research, where the methods are not positioned ‘as the guarantor of truth or ‘validity’’ and multiple truths can exist simultaneously [51] (p. 315).

The interviews explored how young Latinx men negotiate and embody masculinities, with a total of twenty-one participants. The eligibility criteria included self-identifying men that were Latin American or Latino/x from ages 18 to 35 and living in Australia. Men from ages 18 to 19 did not participate; therefore, the participants in this study ranged from ages 20 to 35. Most participants identified as non-heterosexual (gay, bisexual, or pansexual), except for one participant who identified as ‘mostly heterosexual’. Participants lived in different cities in Australia, such as Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, and a few lived in regional Victoria.

5. Findings

Queering Masculine Embodiment

To understand how participants are working on, within, and against dominant structures like hegemonic masculinity, disidentification [40] provides a way to understand how this happens simultaneously. Participants described the ways gender was policed when growing up and how they carefully negotiated and navigated femininity through subtle acts. In this section, Calvin described this subtlety through wearing a slightly pink shirt as a refusal to acquiesce to normative hegemonic masculine embodiment [76].

In Calvin’s family, heterosexual gender norms were heavily policed, even in his sleep. Calvin talked about his long hair, pink shirts, and how he is now free from his past, which is represented in his sandboxing scene (see Figure 1). In his family, things such as hair are gendered. For example, Calvin has naturally curly hair, which is considered feminine hair. He said, ‘even though my mom has curly hair and she’s like, “oh no, curly hair is for girl, so you need to keep it short”‘. Growing up, keeping his hair short was a way to avoid being called a girl and feminized. For Calvin, coming to Australia provided a sense of relief from this pressure. He described ‘something as simple as having long [hair], like as a teenager I had it long, my mom would cut it in the middle of the night’. Cutting his hair while he was asleep at night served as a constant reminder of the hegemonic masculine norms he was expected to follow and who was ultimately in control. Robinson’s [38] research described that, for families of color, policing their children’s gender can be rooted in trying to protect them and the reputation of the family from further stigma or bullying, as they may already face racial forms of discrimination. In relation, Acosta’s [77] research showed more acceptance towards daughters that embodied and practiced hegemonic feminine ideals. However, this can have severe consequences for queer children as they grow up [78,79,80]. Calvin told me his current hair length is the longest he has ever had it (it sat about an inch or two below his ears). He plans on growing it out, donating it to someone who needs hair, and dyeing it pink in the future.

Calvin also discussed the criticism he received from his family regarding the clothes he wore, such as wearing clothes that were too tight. He works within and against the criticism he experiences about his clothes being ‘too tight’, which signals feminine. To distance himself from feminine-coded or read clothes, this surfaces through liminal and carefully embodied ways of being himself, which can help make sense of how masculinities are embodied and experienced. This can also relate to safety and wellbeing in the nuanced approach Calvin takes to wear feminine-coded clothing through subtle ways to avoid being associated with being feminine, which is associated with ‘gay’ [10,11,12,13]. One way he tried to express ‘his way of being Calvin’ was by wearing a very subtle pink shirt: ‘It was like when you put a white t-shirt and a red t-shirt in the washing machine and then the white t-shirt is slightly pink’. Later, when we both worked on our sand scenes (see Figure 1), he told me he specifically chose the miniature with the purple and pink shirt to represent him because he loves the pink (pink and purple are his favorite colors) and because of the skin color. The subtlety of the pink shirt is how Calvin was able to disidentify with the type of clothes he was expected to wear. This also shows how the materiality of his clothes is tied to his sense of self.

It was coincidental that I had purchased a sandbox figure with a pink and purple shirt, but my intention on buying that specific figure was because of the brown skin color. Calvin’s sand scene ties into that relief he discussed earlier in coming to Australia and no longer having to conform to masculine ideals placed on him by his family and culture. As shown above, he placed a set of handcuffs on the outside of the box, and both cuffs were purposely open. This is representative of freedom from his past, which is why both cuffs are open and outside of his box (world).

6. Careful and Nuanced Negotiations with Femininity

Throughout the interviews, participants discussed what ‘too feminine’ looks like and ways of embodying masculinities to distance themselves from femininity. Looking young was described by participants as feminine and, at times, not a bad thing, as society values youth or a ‘young’-looking person. The older or not ‘too young’ look was positioned by participants as ‘more masculine’, someone who is mature, developed facial hair, and embodies other characteristics of being older or aging, such as wisdom and rationality. Although this connection was not explicitly made by participants, there was an implicit worry about looking both too young or too feminine by participants. Pepe described twinks as the ‘young, maybe no facial hair, thin’ men that are ‘actually pretty attractive coz all guys like it’. When ‘society tell you, young is being pretty, it’s better to be young than old haha’, which is why the ‘twinks are fine’. It is ‘fine’ to look younger, not have facial hair or be thinner, or embody ‘feminine’ characteristics without the same consequences outside of the ‘twink’ subculture. Participants referred to their facial hair as part of keeping up a masculine look.

“I guess that with masculinity I think keeping my hair short was a thing and sometimes even now that I have it long sometimes, I think I should cut it, it’s more attractive for men shorter and I like my beard even though its super patchy haha. I feel like I look weird without my beard, actually maybe that, so I feel maybe it’s the opposite, so if I shave, I feel that I look too feminine, which I don’t necessarily dislike but I prefer to look more male presenting”.

Again, Calvin described the facial hair, his beard, as part of embodying masculinities. Therefore, when he shaves his face, it leaves a ‘too feminine’ look for him. When he described shaving his beard leaving him feeling ‘weird’, it is because it is something that is part of him and his everyday look; thus, a drastic change to no facial hair could feel ‘weird’; however, he also suggested it leaves him feeling ‘too feminine’. He prefers to feel and look more masculine-presenting. The beard is not only an identifier or practice of embodied masculinities but a safety net, something that helps him feel less weird, less feminine, and a characteristic that helps him look attractive in the gay male community, where masculine-presenting men are typically praised. Avoiding or not engaging in practices that may be read as or be associated with being feminine [11] is a way for men to distance themselves from being or being read as feminine. Here, facial hair for Calvin is something that makes him feel good and himself and avoid looking ‘weird’ or ‘too feminine’, something that is not natural.

Like many other participants, Manuel points to the work on his body, behavior, and voice that he works on to adopt a masculine presentation while acknowledging this has meant filtering out any perceived feminine performativities.

‘Sometimes, someone shows you a video, even of someone else, but you happen to be there in the background, and I look at myself and I’m like “oh I’m standing and I look very feminine” like very or I’m walking or the way I’m standing so yeah I guess I rather don’t think about it but when I see it, when I happen to see it, I always think “oh that’s too feminine”, I guess.’

Manuel’s shame and critique of feminine performativities place him on a new frontier of wanting to have a different relationship with ‘feminine’. This also speaks to some of the internalized femmephobia presented in the interviews. The research by Bishop et al. [81] explored using the term femmi-negativity, as they suggested not all forms of feminine resistance are considered phobic, thus femmi-negativity is used to address these gaps and concerns. The process of ‘diminishing anything feminine’ has been lifelong for some of these participants, and the process of getting rid of the idea that feminine is diminishing or fraught will also take time. Furthermore, presenting as feminine can still be dangerous or life-threatening for participants. The relationship Manuel has with femininity still includes shame, because this is how he feels about his feminine voice in Spanish; yet, simultaneously, he can reflect on why he feels shame and negativity towards his ‘feminine’ Spanish voice. Participants can critique and reproduce discrimination, reflect on these experiences, and think deeply about why they feel this way towards femininity and feminine-presenting men. They are not limited to the binary of oppressor and oppressed.

Participants described needing to keep and maintain their facial hair so they do not look too young or feminine, as they perceive femininity as fraught and want to keep a distance from looking and feeling feminine. Being able to grow facial hair affords them this distancing from femininity. Meanwhile, there is the sought out ‘twink’ in the gay community, who is a lean person with no facial hair, signaling more stereotypically feminine bodily features. Through a disidentification lens, participants’ engagements and negotiations with gender are understood with nuances and ambivalence in how they work on, within, and against these dominant binaries.

7. Experiences with Masculinities within LGBTQIA+ Communities in Australia

The way masculinities are felt, understood, embodied, and articulated engage nuanced and nonlinear negotiations of gender binary norms. ‘Masculine’ men or the second repetition of men, like in the subheading above, typically excludes transgender men. Mario described language such as masc 4 masc being common in online dating profiles. When speaking about how gay men discriminate within the gay community, Mario makes a point that many other participants also emphasize or note what men means in their context.

“For some gay guys it means oh ‘I am gay, and I like men, but I like men’ [emphasis on men]. Oh, what do you mean? ‘I like masculine men’. They contract it to masc so on profiles they will write m a s c, they write masc 4 masc, masc looking for masc into on apps already, basically discriminating or separating everything that is not masculine to their standard”.

Mario explains the meaning behind the second repetition of men, which is masculine men. Within the gay or queer community, identifying as gay or being attracted to men is further refined by the type of men they find attractive. Masculine is contracted to masc, where the explanation of the meaning behind men is no longer needed but is packaged into a four-letter word. The research by Anderson [82] showed male spaces are notorious for gender policing and upholding hypermasculine ideals. This can help to understand why online gay male spaces can be femmephobic and even homophobic [83]. This also suggests that homophobia and gender discrimination are not declining but are surfacing in perhaps more subtle ways like ‘masc 4 masc’ in online gay spaces.

The second repetition of ‘I like men’ also came up with Esteban, as ‘men’ with an emphasis is different to men without the emphasis. This means that liking ‘men’ includes liking men that pass as ‘straight-acting’, and this can also be a transphobic way of stating they only want to date cisgender ‘men’. This sort of ‘man’ shares similar characteristics and values with the types of masculinities participants learned about when growing up, including being more aggressive than White men, hypersexual, and a demeaning attitude towards women and femininity. While characteristics of machismo are associated with Latinx men, within the Australian context, Latinx men are perceived as more masculine than White men through fetishization discourse. This racialized ‘masculine’ hierarchy was discussed in the research by Han [46] and Ocampo [44], where Asian men are often perceived as feminine, and passive and Latino gay men are perceived as more masculine than White gay men. This is because the capital inherited by White men through Whiteness, the fantasy of White supremacy [84] and White possession [45], continues to manage or tolerate the standards by which non-White bodies are racialized [46].

This illustrates how transgender men are marginalized in the gay and wider LGBTQIA+ community. For Esteban, this conversation was rooted in his disappointment in the type of discrimination he saw within the gay or LGBTQIA+ community in coming to Australia.

“I was really disappointed that I would arrive here and see that gay people being mistreated inside the gay community because they are feminine or because they are bottom or things like that we like, huh, this is so Brazil not in a good way […] sometimes people ask me, ‘so Esteban, you’re gay? You like men but you like men [emphasis] right’? And I’m like, ‘no, no, no I like men, any kind of men, even if they don’t have penises’ and they’re like, ‘HOW’? Yeah, because you know there are trans men and I see no problem with that, and they look at me and they’re like, ‘but what if it’s too, this person is ‘too gay’’ … I don’t care. I like people. I like men if a person identifies as man”.

This example shows how gender, specifically masculinities, can be understood without attachment to the body. Esteban is attracted to ‘a person that identifies as man’; therefore, masculinities are not attached to the physical presentation or sex characteristics of a person but understood as fluid. Esteban’s sexuality and sexual attraction to others is not ultimately categorized by the physical presentation of sex characteristics. In Esteban’s quote, the idea of being ‘too gay’ is a negative consequence. It insinuates that the person is going to be feminine or not masculine enough to be considered a ‘man’. This illustrates how gender, specifically queer masculinities here, are policed. Masculinities that stray from ‘normative’ hegemonic standards, as outlined by Halberstam [77] and as Esteban discusses, which are not ‘inherently’ associated with men or men’s body characteristics, can be met with resistance. The gender binary is invoked to shape definitions of masculine or feminine identities and embodiments.

Esteban described being disappointed with the way the gay community marginalizes some groups, especially feminine or transgender people, because he draws a similar comparison to the way gay culture works in Brazil. Esteban also pointed out the type of discriminatory treatment people get within the gay community if they like certain things or if ‘they are a bottom’, which are typically the more ‘undesirable feminine’, less dominant, and often stereotyped as Asian gay men in Australia [32] (p. 521). The discrimination received by ‘liking’ and desiring things, specifically things that signal femininity, has also been linked to a way of maintaining masculinity for gay men [44]. This is maintained through ‘preferences’ in dating and partners where traits associated with masculinity like ‘aggression’ are appreciated in their partner, whereas desiring or dating a ‘queen’, who is associated with feminine clothes or aesthetic, may ‘compromise others’ perception’ of them [44] (p. 464–465). While other participants expressed the sense of freedom to be who they want to be, wear whatever they want to wear, or just have a sense of feeling freer in Australia because they no longer had to abide by their familial or cultural restraints, they are still subject to the restraints of a patriarchal and ‘tolerant’ (of other cultures) society. Even within gay cultures and subcultures, the ‘masculine’ man or masc is normalized as White and used as a model to be compared to and where every other body is othered. White queer men remain invisible, and non-White queer men are racialized [46].

This perspective points to how egalitarian culture should not be divisible by the type of masculinities associated with a culture. For example, machismo has become synonymous with Latin America and simultaneously perpetuates the idea that there are more ‘progressive cultures in contrast to backward and traditional ones’ [32] (p. 525). Brazil has the highest rates of transgender and gender diverse people murdered and is known as one of the most dangerous and deadly countries to live in for a LGBTQIA+ person [85] (p. 1709). Asking Esteban if he likes men, with emphasis, is a more acceptable way of asking transphobic questions without having to explicitly refer to biological sex characteristics. It is that second repetition of men that asks if these men are interested in cisgender men, those that ‘pass’ as men, while revealing their transphobic stance on who and what constitutes the idea of what a man is.

In this context, participants spoke about the types of gender policing that exists within the LGBTQIA+ and gay male community specifically. They often discussed how a person can ‘look’ or present as gay. Looking gay or queer plays a significant role in the gay male and broader LGTBQIA+ community because of its gatekeeping culture. This means an embodied or performed gender or ‘queerness’ can affect how some(body) is received within the community. While many participants shared this view about the LGBTQIA+ community in general, participants like Pepe also discussed that there are different pockets within the community that will accept you for who you are, it is just up to the individual to find those people.

Participants like Manuel are not passively reproducing gender binary norms, nor are they completely rejecting or accepting them. Through disidentification [40], Manuel is critical of reproducing these norms while also working within and against this type of gender policing. Manuel then mentions his own relationship with language and gender.

“[as] a side note, I have never liked my voice in Spanish. Like I always thought ‘oh it just sounds very feminine’ like it sounds very feminine like I don’t like it, I don’t like it, so almost now in another language it might still sound like feminine but because its new to me, it’s like I almost adopted a new character and I might, I’m fine with this I still sometimes listen to it and I’m like, I don’t like it. I feel ashamed, it’s like, it’s been a constant process to almost, you know diminishing anything that’s feminine, whereas now, I’m trying to like, so what’s wrong about feminine?”

In the above, he classifies his voice, its sound, as feminine when speaking in Spanish and less feminine or even masculine when he speaks in English. He explains his experience of going back and forth between using English and Spanish, his native language. Going between using both languages is influenced by gender, because his voice in Spanish sounds feminine; meanwhile, he is also trying to present as masculine. He reflects on the process of ‘diminishing anything that’s feminine’, including his voice, posture, and the way he walks. His response illustrates how unnatural it is to perform gender and learn gender to adopt a character and avoid feminine gender performatives. The novelty of speaking in English using his new and less feminine-sounding voice is that, even though it may sound feminine to a general audience, to him, it does not, because it is new to him and something he has learned to use, something that is not innate or part of him growing up, and it is different. Meanwhile, this deliberate distancing tactic from femininity in language also allows for the ongoing process of his identity to sound more masculine-presenting. This suggests a way to distance himself from gay shame, which allows him to ‘adopt a new character’, an English-speaking and masculine-sounding and -presenting character. Through a disidentification [40] lens, the ambivalence in his quote above also suggests nuanced understandings of negotiating gender, as he sometimes still feels ashamed about his feminine voice when speaking Spanish while questioning ‘what’s wrong about feminine?’ and intentionally speaking in English because it feels new and less feminine. Speaking in English also affords him the potentiality of being seen as more than his nationality or ethnicity. In making sense of Manuel’s quote, discourse on accepting or rejecting masculinities cannot encompass the ambivalence and intricateness of negotiating gender.

8. Feminine Threshold

Gender policing is a common thread in experiences of young Latinx men and their relationship with embodying gender through voice, language, and clothes. Participants separate and discriminate femininity while also asking themselves why these ‘feminine’ things are negative. There are also examples of when participants police their ability and willingness to engage with a feminine threshold. Participants describe engaging with gender as a reflexive process. Manuel described femininity as ‘awesome’ while also being cautious of how and when he engaged with femininity. The fluidity in how gender binary norms are lived and negotiated describes the liminality captured in disidentification [40].

“Like feminine is awesome, like it’s something, like if you could embrace or that’s you know awesome, but I still have on the back of my mind, ‘oh no if its feminine its wrong’? [almost a question] and I still I think I have to find a way to fight that and come to terms with it like there’s nothing wrong with it” (Manuel).

When the participants like Manuel discussed how they feel about avoiding feminine embodiments, they discussed these negative attitudes towards femininity as a self-individualized problem. Their socialization experiences make them feel that this is negative; thus, it is something they must work on to undo or un/learn these negative associations with femininity. Their perspectives echo the essentialist theory of gender and functionalism. These instances of femmephobia or femmi-negativity, hegemonic masculine ideals, and patriarchal standards are a systematic problem that feels like their own doing. Some participants talk about how it is therefore their job to un/learn femininity as being synonymous with inferiority. Avoiding being read as or feeling and looking feminine can also be rooted in things like not feeling safe enough to do femininity or stray from normative gender binary body ideals. This was articulated by Muñoz [40] when describing a failed attempt to disidentify, as minoritarian subjects often go through several negotiations to disidentify. Survival is crucial to disidentification and its negotiations for subjects outside the dominant ideology. When disidentification is not possible, it can be because these negotiations through ‘compromising his self to the dominant ideology cost too much’[40] (p. 163). This ‘cost’ can be different for participants, and in Muñoz’s [40] (p. 163) context, he speaks directly about survival. Coffey’s [4] (p. 131–132) research demonstrated how non-binary young people can intentionally craft and do gender in a way they need for safety, meaning it is a ‘deliberative process, rather than an expression of “natural” sex’. Like Manuel, Mario also spoke about his current relationship with femininity. Mario discussed the discrimination that is perpetuated online. He spoke about the gendered and racialized division when it came to online dating.

“I might not be the most feminine guy but I’m not the most masculine guy as well so I feel like I’m in a limbo and somewhere in the middle there where I mean, I might actually be great for the feminine guys but being very honest with you, I might feel attracted by them all the time, it might be like a few that will you know sort of attract me but growing up as a man, something in my brain tells me that that’s not attractive which is disgusting to admit it but it’s just what it is, I don’t write that on my profiles I don’t say this out loud, this is probably one of the first times I’m saying this out loud, might say that to my best [emphasis on best] friends but it’s not something I’m proud of coz it’s ridiculous!”

The way he described himself ‘in limbo’ points to the fluidity of gender, engaging with gender binary norms as an ongoing process. Mario’s description illustrated the more-than-binary dimensions of queer masculinities and its ambivalence. Describing how he is in a liminal space as a gendered subject, where gender binary norms are not enough to capture this more-than-binary essence and dimensions of queer masculinities, supports a processual and fluid orientation to doing gender. His body is perceived differently by different men in different spaces. Mario feels that he is not the most masculine guy; thus, he does not embody or fit the ideals that a very masculine guy would live up to—that is, the ideals of hegemonic masculinity. He is also not the most ‘feminine’ guy; thus, he is in that limbo state of masculinities. Mario also gave insight into the hesitation he has towards finding feminine men attractive and, furthermore, acting on this attraction. Mario described the disjuncture of not being able to act on or speak about his attraction to feminine men because of learned and entrenched associations with the gender binary and trying to unlearn what he previously learned about femininity. However, the participants also acknowledged that these are things they have learned from their families, culture, religion, peers, and so on, and some like Mario are in the process of undoing these femmi-negative associations.

The unraveling of what is inferior in Mario’s quote above also relates to the way femininity is described amongst gay men in this study. When speaking about expectations gay men have in the gay community, Esteban described what being ‘too feminine’ means and, in turn, described femininity.

“[deep breath] uhm sometimes it has more flexibility, sometimes we hear sentences like ‘oh it’s okay to be gay but [lowers voice] yeah just don’t be too feminine’. Yeah ‘just don’t become a woman’ and I keep asking myself, why [emphasis] is it so bad to be a woman? Is it synonym of being weak or having less value or less dignity or deserving or underserving of respect, this kind of things because that’s what I faced whenever I was more feminine people wouldn’t respect me, people would treat me as not valuable enough things like that so yeah”.

Transphobic remarks like ‘don’t become a woman’ are part of conversations about being ‘too feminine’. It is not enough to try and dissuade someone from presenting as feminine, it goes further to stigmatize becoming a woman. Esteban also talks about being treated as ‘lesser’ in the gay community if he presented as feminine. The way femininity is defined and what constitutes it as a ‘un/acceptable’ and for who differs amongst the participants. This ‘threshold’ is different and relational for the participants. In turn, this also helps define masculinities amongst these men. Masculinities are understood as ongoing, fluid, and not tethered to normative masculine ideals and bodies or restricted to ‘men’ but lived and experienced beyond the demands of the gender binary.

The feminine threshold describes a careful balancing of engaging with gender. This engagement is contingent on their own perception of femininity as fraught, as well as societal standards of normative masculine bodies. Gender is described as in limbo, a liminality that can be further understood through disidentification as working within dominant gendered structures like gender binary norms. While there is resistance and stigma in being feminine and ‘becoming a woman’, participants like Esteban understand queer masculinities as more than the sex characteristics of a body but as gender that can be lived and performed beyond this norm [58]. This also helps understand how there is an ambivalence toward masculinities, as Latinx men also negotiate how and when they can engage with feminine culture without fear of discrimination and stigma (from themselves and the dominant culture) or engage with more than binary dimensions of gender through disidentification [40].

9. Conclusions

For the participants, the attitude towards feminine culture is fraught, and a need to distance themselves from femininity helps understand how masculinities and the body are experienced, negotiated, and constructed. Things like focusing too much on the body’s appearance, wearing pink, and how a person stands or gives off body language were described as signaling femininity. While the body’s appearance and aesthetic were more tolerated and even accepted when non-heterosexual men conform to gender binary norms, which requires body work [31] and careful navigation of a feminine threshold, it is the body that is also central to critique and discrimination if it pushes the boundaries of the gender binary. Performing gender, specifically masculinities, for Latinx men, is an ongoing, deliberate process affecting and affected by the dominant structures. It is working and surviving within these structures as minoritarian subjects that is emphasized in disidentification [40].

The participants did not reject or accept the dominant gender binary norms, nor did they straightforwardly identify with the categorizations of masculinities. Through the liminality offered in disidentification, the potentialities of queering masculine dimensions were described and experienced by Latinx men. Masculinities can be lived without having to essentialize gender to a body. The fluidity of gender and gendered work on the body elucidate ways Latinx men are engaging and troubling the gender binary and are affected by and disidentifying with a racialized normative narrative determined by Whiteness. Using a feminist post-structuralist framework with queer and feminist theory has allowed for gender to be understood as processual and bodies to be understood as subjects that become gendered. This has also helped to tease out and articulate the more-than-binary aspects of masculinities participants envision and live through when discussing masculinities. This has helped explore the ways Latinx men are gendered and understand masculinities. With concepts like White possession [45] and tolerance [84], the process of racialization is explored and how, as racialized subjects, this affects the experience of negotiating masculinities. Latinx men are subject to gender policing within the queer and gay male community and simultaneously racialized through a fetishization discourse that assigns a category to the participants. These intersections of engaging with and navigating a feminine threshold and negotiating and navigating racialized masculinities is something White queer and/or sexually diverse men do not experience. Masculinities are understood through these tensions with the fluidity of concepts like disidentification [40], body work [4], and gender performativity [41]. The participants discussed nuanced variations of masculinities as a process with a sense of ambivalence towards masculinities that allows for less constraining potentialities of gender.