Masculinity and Gender Identity

On a Manly Podcast, I talk about issues related to men and masculinity in American culture and society. I’m your host, Matthew Manly. For today’s episode, I’m talking about masculinity and gender. More specifically, masculinity related to the gender spectrum and gender identity.

Now, to get into gender know the first thing to know is a simple definition of masculinity. From Google, it is “Having the qualities or appearance traditionally associated with men or boys.” The qualities or appearance traditionally associated with men or boys in our society and culture would be considered gender stereotypes.

The four basic kinds of gender stereotypes are personality traits, behaviors, occupation,  and appearance. For instance, men are expected to traditionally be more extroverted and confident while women are expected to be more emotional. Women have traditionally been expected to be domestic homemakers while men earn the money and do handiwork on the home itself. Traditional jobs for women would be considered nurse or teacher while traditional jobs for men would be mechanic, doctor, or engineer. Women are traditionally expected to wear dresses and makeup while men are traditionally expected to have short hair cuts, wear clean cut pants, and maybe tight fitting shirts that show off their body or muscles. These biases about gender roles paint a generalization or expectation for what men are like and what masculinity is in American society and culture.

The problem with these stereotypes is that men aren’t made on an assembly line. How to be a man isn’t uploaded into our brains on a neural link or something.

How people experience masculinity, how men act and behave, how they identify as men is unique to each individual. Now, terms can get confusing: gender identity, gender roles, gender stereotypes. Even the word gender itself. Let’s go through some definitions real quick.

Gender refers to a social or legal status a person has in society and culture. Gender roles refer to how society and culture expect a person to act, behave, and appear based on their gender. And over time, these become ingrained as gender stereotypes. Gender identity refers to someone’s personal lived experience of their gender and how they express that through their behavior or appearance.

And there’s biological sex as well, which is what a doctor determines your sex is at birth based on chromosomes, hormones, and genitals.

Let’s talk a bit more about gender roles because right now it is on trend if you’re a guy to want to be a bit extra in your masculinity. I’m not just saying that to say that. A Pew Research report from last year showed that 42% of men across  America identify as hypermasculine. So this is like putting the accelerator on some of those traditional masculine traits and turning them up a notch. The stereotype of a hypermasculine man is someone who’s ultra-competitive, aggressive, demanding, a physically muscular,intimidating figure. Hypermasculine men tend to be more emotionally and physically abusive.

I say stereotype though because obviously not all hypermasculine men are abusive, men do change over time, and a man may have one of these hypermasculine traits but not others.

Now let’s talk about some funny cases of men showcasing their hypermasculinity. And these are more performative than anything else.

A man asked to change the straw in his milkshake because it’s pink, and he needs another color because pink is a girl’s color. A guywith his friend trying to show off at a hot sauce store and asked to taste the spiciest one. He’s okay for two minutes but then panic sets in. He’s sweating profusely, pacing, spitting, and disappears for 20 minutes. A guy lit his leg on fire with Axe Body Spray and sustained burns as a result. He wanted to show how dangerous he was. A guy who broke his phone but refused a free phone from a friend because it had one of those little notepens and quote, real men don’t use those, unquote. And this is a personal anecdote from someone: I remember when I was in college and watched these frat boys play a game where they took turns kicking each other in the nuts. Whoever lasted the longest won. A guy who thought he was tough enough to stare at the solar eclipse. A guy who wasn’t strong enough tried to carry 15 drinks with two full coffee pots on a tray and broke every single glass. This one I’m going to quote in full because it’s too funny: “I’m a photographer and I shot so many Christmas holiday parties last year. And these guys are big giggling children until you point a camera at them when their chin goes up, their chest pops out, and their eyes dissolve into a death stare. And then they point, pointing at nothing.

Other things I would put into this category: men giving each other a hard time for having a fruity or girly drink. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered this but I’ve seen people mention it: men who won’t hug other men because it’s too gay or feminine. The one I think of sometimes is basketball players who dunk and then essentially end up rubbing their balls in a defender’s face and have a guttural yell when they come down. This form of hypermasculinity isn’t directly harmful or abusive to another person, though. It’s generally more harmful to the men in these instances who have the beliefs or values, which is what makes it pretty funny too. You could argue this hypermasculine performativity perpetuates and normalizes such behavior, but at the same time it also gives us a critical understanding of gender as a social construct. Because of the impractical and absurd decisions guys make to uphold their masculine values.

Many scientists, psychologists and sociologists as well as others see gender and masculinity as a spectrum. Now there isn’t a definitive scientific study that proves this, like Dr. Kinsey’s famous study from the 1950s that proved sexuality exists along a spectrum. The medical field, for instance knows though that 12 other chromosomes in the human genome are involved with sex differentiation, and 30 other chromosomes are involved with sex development. Also, there are neuroscience, neuroendocrinology and psychological findings that either challenge or outright refute the idea of sexual dimorphism (which is observable differences between males and females). The traditional social construct of masculinity fits well for a lot of people. A lot of people like this definition of a man, but for others it doesn’t fit so well. And every man, regardless of how masculine they believe they are, has something that doesn’t quite fit into that box. Their masculinity is different from any other guy’s masculinity because there’s those little neurotic, strange things that make people who they are. People, men, their personalities, and masculinities are all unique.

Now most US adults disagree with the idea that masculinity and gender exists along a spectrum. In 2022, a Pew Research report said that 60% of US adults believe gender is your sex assigned at birth. In a national poll from PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute) in 2023, it said 65% of adults believe there are only two gender identities. That means that about 2 in 3 US adults believe that gender is two distinct gender identities and people all fit into those two boxes. There hasn’t been a poll on this specific question recently, but in two separate Pew Research reports, they asked if trans athletes should be required to compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth. In 2022, 58% of adults said they were strongly favor or favor that position. Just about a month ago, February 2025, it was 66%. People who favor protections for transgender people from discrimination went from 66% in 2022 to 56% just last month.

This would suggest people are becoming more conservative in their views of gender here in America. And it’s no surprise that The White House signed their “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” Executive Order on day one. Two-thirds of adults here in the U.S. believe that there are only two genders. It’s an easy win for them. In the first paragraph, it suggests that transgender and nonbinary people who identify as she/her/hers have been preying on women at workplace showers and domestic abuse shelters. This attacks the biological reality of sex and deprives women of their dignity, safety, and well-being. Then it goes on to define terms like gender ideology and gender identity and says that those terms along with the term gender itself must be eradicated from the federal government.

Only the words “male, female, men, women, boys, girls and sex” may be used.

Now the words gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth are both problematic to say the least. According to a research group called PERIL, Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab, the definition of extremism is “Beliefs claiming that people of different racial or ethnic, gender or sexual, religious or political identities are in direct and unresolvable conflict.”

In the way The White House phrases it, it would suggest that the extremists are people who advocate for gender positivity and a diversity of gender identity and these people are in a direct and unresolvable conflict with all women across America, I guess.

And because gender advocates are in an unresolvable conflict with all American women, the federal government has to restore the biological truth of sex. It even goes so far as to say that gender identity is a inchoate social concept, which would mean rudimentary or incoherent.

First, to be grounded in the immutable biological reality of sex, unmoored from biological fact, the order would have to consider intersex people who make up about 1.7% of the population. Intersex is an umbrella term that refers to people who have a genetic genital, hormonal, or reproductive configuration that doesn’t fit within the binary of a male or female body. There’s about 340 million people who live in the US. So if we do some simple math, that means there’s about 5,780,000 intersex people here in America.

Also, there is a recognized third gender in places like Nigeria, Samoa, the Philippines, South Asia, Thailand, and some Native American tribes. This is a category that includes men who appear and behave in a feminine manner, but are sexually attracted to men. It can also be women who appear and behave in a masculine manner that like other women. In a National Geographic article, a professor is quoted as saying that third genders occur in about 3% of the population in most Western countries. There’s no scientific proof, but there’s overwhelming scientific, historical, and psychological evidence to prove that gender is fluid and exists along a spectrum.

It ignores the cultural definitions of social behaviors defined through gender that are ingrained here in America. It ignores the work and research of psychologists who have helped recognize and support people’s personal experience of their identity and gender. It ignores the work of neuroscientists who have done studies that show transgender people’s brains more closely resemble the brains of their self-identified gender. It feeds into disinformation that transgender people are predators when in fact they are four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violence.

A progressive and positive masculinity, I believe, should include values for tolerance and equity. Even if a majority of people believe in a gender binary of she/her/hers, and he/him/his, we should all have access to equal rights, opportunities, and treatment. 1 in 4 people in the US, or 28.7% have a disability. 9.3% of people in the US, or 1 in 10 almost identify as LGBTQ+. We shouldn’t want to discriminate, demonize, or try to erase other people who have different gender identities, disabilities, or feel differently from other people about who they are. Everyone has a different lived experience and people have a right to feel different, to be comfortable in their own bodies without others telling them or dictating who they should be.

1 in 3 people in America know a friend or family member who is transgender. People who identify as LGBTQ+ are our family, friends, and neighbors. It is not illegal or immoral to want more equity in society. It’s the right thing to do.

Thanks much for taking the time to watch or listen to a Manly podcast. Please like and subscribe here on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. I talk about a topic related to men and masculinity each week. Next week, I’ll be talking about men in the Matrix movies. Thanks so much. Till next time. Bye!