The bar is so low to be praised as The Good Man

But someone has to start talking to the other guys who are screaming "your body, my choice."

I started writing about masculinity about 15 years ago. Back then I had a beard, probably bigger muscles than I have now, far fewer tattoos, and I guess more than anything, a masculine name, and well, being a man to everyone. I wrote posts about my relationship to feminism as a man and my relationship to other men as a man who was a feminist. People followed me and listened to me and shared my opinions on the way men talked about women in sports, the way men talked about makeup, the way men talked about women in general.

Talking about masculinity and being a man was important to me then. It was important to me because I wanted to talk to other people like me about our experiences growing up, I wanted to figure out why I thought so many of the things I thought, I wanted to communicate with other men about it, I wanted to talk to men about how we could talk about mental health, I wanted to talk to men about why were sexist, I wanted to talk to men about why we did not do the same amount of emotional labour as partners we had, I wanted to learn how I could change as a man. There was always something that needed to change in the way men interacted with the world.

I was not a perfect man by any means. The things I talked about as a man were things I was doing as a man. Talking about these things was a way we could hopefully all realize we could change and grow and be different and learn how masculinity did not have to mean screaming at women or exerting dominance at every turn. Being a man did not mean passing on any gendered stereotypes we had learned to our kids. The desire to not harm people because of what you have learned from your environment is not a bad thing. Steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that you are causing harm and doubling down on these things and passing them on forevermore, is.

15 years later, I have transitioned, and a big part of my transition was doing the work of understanding masculinity and femininity and finally feeling good about who I was and moving forward in a more authentic way. But, masculinity, and men around me are more important than ever. And yet again, after watching yet another U.S. election, and seeing Canada prepare for its next election where a populist, arrogant, white man is running on a platform that demands men adhere to the “we are better than women stereotype,” I am once again watching men fail to take responsibility for other men.

Men like Donald Trump and Andrew Tate and Pierre Poilievre facilitate people like Nick Fuentes who scream things online like “your body, my choice. Forever.” and “I’d just like to take the opportunity to thank men for saving this country from stupid bitches who wanted to destroy the world to keep abortion.” You would love to think these are isolated, not-at-all loved by other men statements, but they have accumulated tens of thousands of likes on X. This human is 26 years old. This is not an old wave of men who just somehow got stuck in their old ways and should be ignored as “silly old grandpa.”

“Your body, my rules,” is everywhere right now. Men think this is hilarious. Men have been emboldened to say this to women publicly and loudly with the result of an election. Undoubtedly they have thought this forever, but the quickness they say it now and how unprompted it is is scary. Men are not afraid of women, there are no consequences for their behaviour, there never has been. Nothing socially, nothing employment-wise, very little family-wise. And right now, men have no idea how to hold other men accountable in any meaningful way.

In the years since I have transitioned, I have lost almost all of the dad community I had built. The blame lies with all of us I suppose. The community was a Very Online one and very few of those people I used to talk to daily even like posts I make these days. Being trans has put us into separate spaces. I am no longer a dad and they are not trans. Somehow that has kept them from me and me from them. This chasm cannot continue. I need men who do not want to yell “bitch” in my face to interact with me and, even more importantly, with the men who yell bitch in my face.

I don’t think men understand just how low the bar is for them, I certainly didn’t for a long time. You will write something about men needing to be better and you will be praised. You will write that the men yelling these monstrous things are terrible and need to stop and you will be praised. You will say abortion is a right and you will be praised. You will say trans women are women and you will be praised.

But all of these are passive. None of these confront the men who seek out women, or trans people, or immigrants, or POC. I want men to be given flowers, I want men to have therapists and parental leave and to paint their fingernails when they don't have daughters. But it's not enough to show up and say "look how high suicide rates are for men, see we have it worse." Men creating vile conditions for every community make it worse for men, not some unknown trans boogeyperson or immigrant that you want to send back.

There are very real consequences when men don’t speak up to those men. Not in online spaces, but to their faces. And the consequences don’t fall on men, they fall on marginalized communities. It is hard to ask men to speak to friends, family, and strangers on a more intimate level when they really do not need to in order to be praised. But it is what is needed to save lives. Not just now but in the future.