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entanglingbriarsNote: the following is mostly me thinking out loud and should not be taken as authoritative.
If I say I'm gay, I am not necessarily communicating any information about myself. If I write "I'm gay" on a piece of paper and someone else picks it up a month later, they will know very little about the writer. The writer could be male, female, or nonbinary. They might be sexually attracted to men, women, or nonbinary people. They might not be sexually attracted to anyone and instead be talking about their experience of romantic attraction. They might be sexually active or not, and their partners might be of the same or a different sex. They might be cis or trans, and what cis and trans mean to them, especially in conjunction with "I'm gay," is impossible to tell.
"Gay," taken as an abstract term, means almost nothing. Even when we start to add more modifiers, the term doesn't become all that much more meaningful. A gay man could still be trans or cis, he might have no sexual partners or one or several and those partners might be of any sex. Because the closet is still a thing, we can't be sure of almost anything about a "gay man." It gets worse because gay is frequently a catch-all term that is also applied to bi and pan people, especially bi and pan men.
The problem is that none of these words I've been using, particularly the ones that refer to identities, actually mean anything. They are defined by their interrelationship with other words and their meaning depends on my ability to convince my audience to accept the meaning that I wish to convey. And while you might think that adding modifiers like "man" and "cis" to "gay" would begin to clarify them, you can perform the same exercise on those words as well. "I am a cis gay man" can mean something only if the speaker an audience can reach an agreement not only on the individual meanings of "cis," "gay," and "man," but also what they mean when taken in conjunction: "cis man," "gay man," and "gay and cis." Each additional word creates the potential to clarify what I mean by gay, but by the same token each additional word has the potential to further muddy the waters.
I can, with a handful of exceptions, convince most people that what I mean when I tell them I'm gay is that I'm sexually attracted to other men. Even people who don't like that I'm sexually attracted to men are generally willing to accept the basic concept. But what about the other two terms? I'm not at all sure myself of what I mean when I say "man" or "cis," either in relation to myself or other people, and so when I use those words I'm essentially relying on my audience not to question the terms. And for the most part, no one questions what I mean by "man" even though it's obvious after a moment of consideration that (for example) gender-critical feminists, evangelical Christians, and trans rights activists all mean wildly different things by "man."
Oddly, my manhood is only certain to one of those groups. Gender-critical feminists essentially mean "had a penis at birth" when they say man and so I absolutely am one, and irrevocably. I am irrevocably a man to evangelical Christians as well, but evangelical Christians, knowingly or not, at least partially accept Butler's notion of gender as performative. Not that they believe I can perform a gender other than man, but they absolutely believe I can perform my gender incorrectly, a concept which gender-critical feminists would generally assert is impossible (although the reality is a lot more complex and there's absolutely a case to be made that gender-critical feminists nevertheless hold to a performative model of gender). From the trans rights perspective, my manhood is essentially dependent on my willingness and ability to declare it, and anyone who's talked to me about gender knows that I see my gender as less of something to declare and more as something to accept.
In my case, adding "gay" to "man" tends to make me more accepting of "man." The way I perform masculinity, if I do perform it, is intimately tied up with the idea of being gay. The aspect of my gender performance that most upsets the evangelical Christian is the one that makes me most willing to accept the designation. Not that I necessarily think I would be a trans woman if I were attracted to women; if things were otherwise I would be different, but trying to extrapolate how those changes would occur is futile if I say that my existence precedes my essence (which I do). It's equally possible that my homosexuality is the cause of my discomfort with masculinity. Maybe the version of me who is attracted to women is entirely comfortable in saying that he is a man.
***
"I am a gay cis man" communicates nothing about me beyond that I am someone who is willing to say that. It says nothing about my gayness, my cisness, or my manhood, all of which are entirely dependent on what I wish to convey and what you are willing to hear. The words themselves are meaningless.
If I say I'm gay, I am not necessarily communicating any information about myself. If I write "I'm gay" on a piece of paper and someone else picks it up a month later, they will know very little about the writer. The writer could be male, female, or nonbinary. They might be sexually attracted to men, women, or nonbinary people. They might not be sexually attracted to anyone and instead be talking about their experience of romantic attraction. They might be sexually active or not, and their partners might be of the same or a different sex. They might be cis or trans, and what cis and trans mean to them, especially in conjunction with "I'm gay," is impossible to tell.
"Gay," taken as an abstract term, means almost nothing. Even when we start to add more modifiers, the term doesn't become all that much more meaningful. A gay man could still be trans or cis, he might have no sexual partners or one or several and those partners might be of any sex. Because the closet is still a thing, we can't be sure of almost anything about a "gay man." It gets worse because gay is frequently a catch-all term that is also applied to bi and pan people, especially bi and pan men.
The problem is that none of these words I've been using, particularly the ones that refer to identities, actually mean anything. They are defined by their interrelationship with other words and their meaning depends on my ability to convince my audience to accept the meaning that I wish to convey. And while you might think that adding modifiers like "man" and "cis" to "gay" would begin to clarify them, you can perform the same exercise on those words as well. "I am a cis gay man" can mean something only if the speaker an audience can reach an agreement not only on the individual meanings of "cis," "gay," and "man," but also what they mean when taken in conjunction: "cis man," "gay man," and "gay and cis." Each additional word creates the potential to clarify what I mean by gay, but by the same token each additional word has the potential to further muddy the waters.
I can, with a handful of exceptions, convince most people that what I mean when I tell them I'm gay is that I'm sexually attracted to other men. Even people who don't like that I'm sexually attracted to men are generally willing to accept the basic concept. But what about the other two terms? I'm not at all sure myself of what I mean when I say "man" or "cis," either in relation to myself or other people, and so when I use those words I'm essentially relying on my audience not to question the terms. And for the most part, no one questions what I mean by "man" even though it's obvious after a moment of consideration that (for example) gender-critical feminists, evangelical Christians, and trans rights activists all mean wildly different things by "man."
Oddly, my manhood is only certain to one of those groups. Gender-critical feminists essentially mean "had a penis at birth" when they say man and so I absolutely am one, and irrevocably. I am irrevocably a man to evangelical Christians as well, but evangelical Christians, knowingly or not, at least partially accept Butler's notion of gender as performative. Not that they believe I can perform a gender other than man, but they absolutely believe I can perform my gender incorrectly, a concept which gender-critical feminists would generally assert is impossible (although the reality is a lot more complex and there's absolutely a case to be made that gender-critical feminists nevertheless hold to a performative model of gender). From the trans rights perspective, my manhood is essentially dependent on my willingness and ability to declare it, and anyone who's talked to me about gender knows that I see my gender as less of something to declare and more as something to accept.
In my case, adding "gay" to "man" tends to make me more accepting of "man." The way I perform masculinity, if I do perform it, is intimately tied up with the idea of being gay. The aspect of my gender performance that most upsets the evangelical Christian is the one that makes me most willing to accept the designation. Not that I necessarily think I would be a trans woman if I were attracted to women; if things were otherwise I would be different, but trying to extrapolate how those changes would occur is futile if I say that my existence precedes my essence (which I do). It's equally possible that my homosexuality is the cause of my discomfort with masculinity. Maybe the version of me who is attracted to women is entirely comfortable in saying that he is a man.
***
"I am a gay cis man" communicates nothing about me beyond that I am someone who is willing to say that. It says nothing about my gayness, my cisness, or my manhood, all of which are entirely dependent on what I wish to convey and what you are willing to hear. The words themselves are meaningless.
