Full Spectrum

A spectrum that contains all the colors of the rainbow, that’s how I view my kind. We come in different forms, different persuasions, behaviour, and fashion sense. On one end you have the flamboyant and extremely effeminate type whose mantra is “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body”. On the other end, you have the butch type, the gym bunny who basks in his masculinity. The rest of the sisters are in between. We come in different sizes and shapes but we have a common denominator: we prefer to love and have intimate (read: sexual) relations with men. Butch or fam, we all kneel to worship the one eyed glory attached to the male physique. More than the act itself, we recognize and embrace the part of our humanity that enables us to prefer to love men.

Though a spectrum best describes and captures the wide array of gay men in my culture, I see myself as distinct from them. Some say I fall under the category of the straight acting butch type (too butch even for my own good since most of the people I meet still think I’m straight and that the masculinity I exhibit is just a put on, a show). But I am masculine and I am quite comfortable with my masculinity. But when I open my mouth and start speaking, when people hear the timbre of my voice, the expressions and language I use, they immediately recognize that I’m gay. People try to confine me in their neatly wrapped boxes, “you’re butch”, “you’re fam”, you’re this, your that. But I stubbornly but diplomatically refuse to be typecasted. Being gay, by itself, is a celebration of diversity and uniqueness. It presents an alternative to the prevailing straight dominated culture. But being gay, for an individual, in my opinion, is a celebration of a person’s struggle to define himself based on his innate values, dignity, intellect, and, most important of all, the choice of whom to love.