Why Can’t You Just Butch Up? Gay Men, Effeminacy, and Our War with Ourselves

In February, Skate Canada, the governing board of Canadian figure skating, announced that it was embarking on a campaign to change the image of men’s skating – from sometimes frilly and flamboyant to more of an emphasis on power, speed, and endurance.

The announcement was greeted negatively by some GLBT groups who saw the move as little more than thinly veiled homophobia and a slap in the face of the sport’s existing fans.

Two-time Olympic silver medalist Elvis Stojko seemed aware of the controversy when he told the Toronto Sun, "It has nothing to do with your sexual preference. It's all about what men's skating is – power and strength. Whether he's gay or straight, it doesn't matter. It's what you're showcasing on the ice. If you're very lyrical and you're really feminine and soft, well, that's not men's skating. That is not men’s skating, okay?” [Note: The emphasis was Stojko's.]

Elvis Stojko (right) attempts to distinguish himself
from other male Canadian figure skaters 

Was Stojko right? After all, a gay man can be just as masculine and athletic as a straight one. Stojko might have been tactless, but he wasn’t being homophobic – was he?

Nigel Lythgoe, a judge on the Fox reality show So You Think You Can Dance, waded into a similar controversy a couple of weeks ago when he berated a couple of same-sex dancers – not for being gay (or so he claimed), but because he “likes to see guys be guys and girls be girls on stage,” a stance Lythgoe has frequently taken when it comes to effeminate dancers. Off camera, he told the dancers, who weren’t particularly effeminate, they were hurting the “image” of dancing in general.

And in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, in which Adam Lambert officially comes out, he tells a story about an American Idol chauffeur who told Adam he had no problem with his being gay, "because at least you're not girly." 

Clearly, a lot of people have a problem with guys who don’t act traditionally masculine – in other words, with guys who are effeminate.

And it’s not just straight people. Two weeks ago, 18-year-old Sergio Garcia of Los Angeles made national headlines by getting himself elected Prom Queen at his high school.

Sergio Garcia, high school Prom Queen

“I feel invincible,” he said, wearing both a tuxedo and a tiara, prompting one gay blogger to write, “Methinks the lady doth be a douchebag too much.”

What is effeminacy anyway? Where does it come from? And why in the world does it seem to get everyone so very upset?

Next Page! The biological "cause" of effeminacy?