Marvin (he/him)
I'm very much at home in my male gender and this cisgender male body. However, I am happy in my feminine or "traditionally" non-masculine stuff, too! I identify strongly with gender non-conforming presentation and would welcome more space in our society for it. I want a wider, more expansive masculinity.
Gender is expression, therefore I must discuss clothes and fashion as a main driver of that for me. There's not a lot of range for men in the heteronormative paradigm. Go to any random store -- menswear, department store, Target or Walmart -- it's so much of the same variations of shirts, trousers and suits; and colors of black, navy blue, gray and brown. (There are racial/cultural parts to this as well; look at the greater room for dandyism, flash and flamboyance in menswear among African cultures and in the diaspora.)
I'd wear the hell out of dresses, skirts, blouses, heels, etc. if our society was more accepting and if many of those items actually fit my body. Not simply that I can get into the clothes, I mean actual fit and shape to my build; for example, if a jumpsuit is built for a shorter torso and someone without external genitals, no amount of "clothes are clothes" thinking will make that item fit me. Queer-friendly shops (including shops marketed toward gay men) help a ton in finding occasional items intended as women's wear that do fit me, or finding femme items that are intentionally cut/proportioned with a masculine physique in mind.
Burlesque serves me and uncovered the more GNC sides of me. Finding masculine stripper gear is a challenge, and the act of ornamental clothing meant to present yourself as a desire object opens a man to a feminized space because our society is oriented for women to be gazed upon in that way more than men. The lack of ornamental erotic imagination toward the heteronormative male body is astounding compared to all the ways women are on display; the mainstream male stripper stuff often involves us doing an occupation. Or how psyched was I to watch the Savage x Fenty specials, then check out the male product lingerie line and it's just more silk boxers and maybe a kimono robe? That's all we get?
When I started adding striptease to my cabaret singing in burlesque and variety shows, I had to confront the risk of showing my body and perhaps not being taken seriously.
I'm not some cut, chiseled Adonis with little to no body hair, which is basically the only image of an unclothed male body that is taken seriously in pretty much every piece of pop culture, but especially Black male bodies: music, movies, TV, fashion, dance, sports, porn. The idea of Black men's bodies as naturally hyper athletic with oversized penises remains as powerful and en vogue now as ever, and I am sure those race goggles distort how some people view my body. Even in burlesque, where men are few, the most prominent men in the industry don't carry a lot of fat on them or have far more definition than me.
At the same time, adding striptease to my burlesque opened up more avenues of presentation and adding femme clothes and paradigms of ornamental, showgirl presentation to my style. A couple of years ago, I hit on wearing a corset, pasties and heels with a men's suit or sportjacket and sexy pants. And now I've gotten into bodysuits and corsets. The frisson of my thick-built, muscled masculine body in items coded feminine makes for a compelling presence on stage. It's magical; a friend who studies indigenous religions around the world told me how in many of those cultures, the non-binary man is a conduit of magic. The idea of a magical presence -- whether within me or the work I have done as an entertainer in queer community -- has echoed and repeated so much in my life that I must accept it. And exploring my gender identity, or letting the masculine expand and let in more, surely helped unlock that.
Queer women and folks within the lesbian and trans spectrums have kept showing up throughout my adult life.
Performing as Professor M, this all culminated in being nicknamed "Daddy Dyke." This nickname showed up by accident after a Scandalous Saturdays Burlesque show (the monthly show I produce and host) in summer 2022. I was talking with a group of queer women and sapphic non-binary peeps, and talk began about their desire to copy my look from that night: dinner jacket over a corset and bare chest. I was referred to as having big lesbian energy, and a comment struck like a thunderbolt: "It's like you're the daddy of the dykes right now."
As right and thrilling as the moniker was in the moment, I also felt apprehensive. I'm a cisgender man, amid all my gender-expansive/non-conforming ways. I feel deeply honored to be welcomed and participate within communities of queer women, particularly through burlesque. However, I am not of these communities by identity and label, no matter the kinship and affinity. I'd never profess to be so, and I was concerned this name would be a distasteful, if not harmful, appropriation. So, I asked around about the nickname, with queer women I knew of various ages, races and locations -- many of whom I know through burlesque. The overwhelming response was an if-you-know-you-know laugh followed by some variation of "of course" and "look at you."
Among those conversations, my friend JJ said that the name was a means of clocking that "we know our own" plus there's a responsibility inherent in the name to protect and defend the community. At a queer burlesque event a couple months later, I was handed the mic to reset the show after some unfamiliar men walked in. After the show, the host said she needed me in that moment to get her and the show through. Since then, I couldn't doubt the name. I felt compelled to accept it. I already was living it. And JJ made me a shirt that reads, "Daddy Dyke of Burlesque."
And it's that frisson of masculine and feminine within me, this expansive or gender non-conforming masculinity, that unlocked this to this extent.
Just look around you -- look at the world we can observe.
Look at the diversity of life across all the creatures on this planet, and there's no way to logically think there's just two clearly defined genders and that's it. Even the variation within the female-male binary is proof enough. To the gender essentialists: don't deny the reality staring you in the face, don't make God smaller than the creation all around you.
