A total man

I’m a proud uncle of seven adorable nieces and nephews. Luckily, I see two of them regularly. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen four of them in more than 12 years. I’ve never met one.\nAfter I came out, my oldest sister and her husband called my sexuality a “cancer on society.” They decided that the rest of my family and I were dangerous, insidious influences that must be kept away from their five children in order to protect them against the “evil” life I lead. That’s a story for another column.\nToday, I tell a Tale of Two Nephews. The one I’ve never met and the one whose birth I had the honor of witnessing. The son of my estranged sister and the son of my close sister. A nephew taught to fear the world and a nephew taught to embrace it. One being shielded and “protected” from a loving family and one who is free to revel in the love of his grandparents and uncles.\nMy family receives sporadic reports on the boy I’ve never met and his siblings. The last letter simply stated that he was growing up to be “100 percent boy.” Based on the other updates we receive, it sounds like “100 percent boy” means he enjoys playing in the dirt and he likes baseball, football, trucks and girls.\nOn the other hand, I see my other nephew every chance I get and I receive frequent updates between visits. I recently received a batch of pictures of the boy I’ve known since the second he was born. One picture stood in stark contrast to my other nephew. In one photo he wore his sister’s pink Disney Princess shirt featuring Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. The front of the shirt reads: “100% Princess.”\nMy “100 percent boy” nephew has learned that his masculinity is linked to rigid rules that constantly restrict who he’s allowed to be. These narrow boundaries will likely cause him anxiety and distress if anyone presumes he’s anything less than 100 percent “man.” Heaven forbid he develops an interest in baking or dancing, much less another boy.\nMy nephew with the “100% Princess” shirt is learning that there is not a definitively right way to be a man. His possible identities have not been severely constricted. He’s not as heavily persuaded by the illusion that being a boy means he must abide by a pre-existing set of rules and expectations, nor will he be prone to reject others because they don’t fit a narrow mold.\n“100 percent boy” conveys a limited understanding of the way our culture has constructed gender identity and expressions, and it betrays an underlying fear of how tenuous and unstable those constructions can be. “100% Princess” is a warm embrace of human freedom, love and acceptance.\nI feel sad for the nephew I’ve never met – and anyone else who holds so firmly to such confining and rigid illusions of identity.\nWe’d all do better to be 100 percent accepting and affirming, no matter how our social identities take shape.