Men in Place: Trans Masculinity, Race, and Sexuality in America Fevereiro 14, 2020

Men in Place: Trans Masculinity, Race, and Sexuality in America

Author(s): Miriam J. Abelson

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press, Year: 2019

Daring new theories of masculinity, built from a large and geographically diverse interview study of transgender men

American masculinity is being critiqued, questioned, and reinterpreted for a new era. In Men in Place Miriam J. Abelson makes an original contribution to this conversation through in-depth interviews with trans men in the U.S. West, Southeast, and Midwest, showing how the places and spaces men inhabit are fundamental to their experiences of race, sexuality, and gender.

Men in Place explores the shifting meanings of being a man across cities and in rural areas. Here Abelson develops the insight that individual men do not have one way to be masculine—rather, their ways of being men shift between different spaces and places. She reveals a widespread version of masculinity that might be summed up as “strong when I need to be, soft when I need to be,” using the experiences of trans men to highlight the fundamental construction of manhood for all men.

With an eye to how societal institutions promote homophobia, transphobia, and racism, Men in Place argues that race and sexuality fundamentally shape safety for men, particularly in rural spaces, and helps us to better understand the ways that gender is created and enforced.

Introduction
“I DON’T HAVE ONE WAY TO BE”

What does it mean to be a man in America? Leo pondered this ques-
tion as he sat at the kitchen table, recently cleared of dinner dishes,
in his San Francisco apartment. The evening summer fog had crept
in over the hills and settled above the streets, putting a chill in the
air. At the start of the second decade of the twenty-­first century, Leo’s
thoughts turned first to fear, even in the supposed progressive strong-
hold of the Bay Area. The recent killing of Oscar Grant, a young black
man living in the Bay Area, by a transit police officer in the early hours
of New Year’s Day 2009 weighed heavily on Leo’s mind:
The consequences of being a black man was made even more
relevant in my life when a young man named Oscar Grant was
pulled off a train and shot in the back, and you know, I just
easily see myself in that position being on a train coming from
a party. . . . There was just this feeling of being on this crowded
train and being pulled off because there was some kind of chaos
and just resembling someone and to have that happen. It’s just
so tragic.
As a black man in his midthirties living in the same area, Leo could
easily see Grant’s fate as his own—­pulled off a crowded train by po-
lice for fitting the description of a suspect and losing his life amid the
chaos of New Year’s revelry. The fear of being perceived by others as
dangerous when in public spaces, by virtue of being a black man, was
at the forefront of his mind. A big part of being a man meant watch-
ing himself when out in the world, never sure when he might become
a target.