“Every morning in the bathroom getting ready I would repeat the same phrase to myself over and over again … Today I’m gonna be a tough guy.”

Just finished reading “The End of Eddy” by Édouard Louis…a brutal novel surrounding hyper-masculinity and how it affects the young Eddy Belleguele during his upbringing in a French Factory town. Eddy is gay no matter how hard he tries to fight it—a form of hyper masculinity within itself. Something that stuck with me is Eddy’s mantra “Today I’m gonna be a tough guy” because it made me reflect on what it means to be a tough guy. I remember growing up you’d be called gay for doing something that people thought was “girly”. You almost couldn’t escape the word, and that would have a profound effect on me growing up. It’s clear and has always been clear that hyper masculinity reigns strong when it diminishes everything that it tries so hard not to be. Personally, growing up in a hyper masculine culture, I sorta stopped caring about being called gay for liking certain things. When people, mostly those who identified as masculine, would call me gay I’d be like, “ok, so?” But not many people have that luxury in the world…