I am taking a course called Island Bodies and Bodily Autonomy: Reproductive Justice and Tourism in Neocolonial Jamaica. For the final project, I was tasked with reflecting on the course as it relates to myself and my communities. Here I present Masc Mandate.
Letter from the editor…
Masculinity is something to hold, to caress, and to care for ever so gently lest you let it take control over you and become that which you learned to fear. I grew into my masculinity gently at first then at full force, never stopping to take time to take pleasure in who I was becoming. From the multitude of masculinities around me, I absorbed the parts I thought I didn’t have: a hard exterior, a tendency to hide what I was feeling, the ability to ignore my needs in favor of others’, and rejected the parts of myself which I thought I did not need anymore: a soft and gentle attitude toward myself, time for inner reflection, and a release of that which I had bottled up for years, in desperation to achieve the masculinity I thought I lacked.
After a few years of pretending, I am slowly learning that there is no ultimate masculinity that I must strive to recreate. My masculinity is my own, no matter how many times I am misgendered, no matter how many people I scare in the women’s restroom, and no matter how many times I am told that I’m losing touch with who I’m supposed to be.
In this project, I showcase the pleasure that masculine, androgynous, and genderqueer women, nonbinary, and transmasculine people experience simply from being themselves. I take inspiration from the first presentation of self-defined masculinity that I saw: Original Plumbing. I draw from the raw and exposing interrogative style of The Aggressives and present Masc Mandate.
Please remove your mask and enjoy.
Love,
Claire Jensen
