New to manhood at age 35: How one guy is learning about masculinity

CNN

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN

(CNN) — Ash Perez recently tried some new things.

He got a haircut at a barbershop, bought his first suit, learned to grill and asked his close friends what it means to be a man ­­–– all at the age of 35.

Perez is a member of online content creators called the Try Guys, who often try new things and make videos about their experiences. As a transgender man and self-proclaimed “new guy,” he has documented part of his exploration of masculinity and concerns tied to it through a video series called “New Guy Tries” launched on the company’s platform this month.

“I’m having these weird moments that feel almost like I’m traveling in a foreign country, and I like have to learn a whole new language,” Perez said.

Perez’s journey to define masculinity for himself is in some ways unique to his experience as a transgender man. But even his friends who went alongside him in the series –– some gay, some straight and cisgendered –– have had to wrestle with ideas of manhood. The series gave them an opportunity to sort out some of their thoughts.

“There was never really time to stop and reflect on where I belong in masculinity. It was just do the things to fit in and be accepted,” said Ryan Garcia, a cisgender male cast member of the series. “Being in this series with Ash was kind of a form of therapy where you stopped and actually reflected.”

It is normal for anyone, no matter their gender identity, to crave feeling valuable, successful, accepted and connected –– even if men are socialized to put off an image of lone-wolf stoicism, said Judy Yi-Chung Chu, who teaches a class on boys’ psychological development at Stanford University.

But fewer than half of men report being satisfied with their friendships, and only about 1 in 5 said they had received emotional support from a friend in the last week, according to a 2021 survey from the Survey Center on American Life.

At the same time, a lot of the traditional societal ideals of masculinity are limiting in personal expression and deep connection, Perez said.

Perez and some of the other Try Guys learned a lot about masculinity and how to embrace the best parts during his coming-out journey, while expanding it beyond its traditional limitations.

Learning what masculinity is

Perez lost his dad to the Covid-19 pandemic before he began his gender transition, so he had to learn to enter the world as man without the guidance of a father, he said.

“It’s almost impossible to figure out what manhood means in the absence of a father figure who has some knowledge or direct take on manhood,” he said.

Having been raised and socialized as a woman, Perez said he knew he didn’t want to only take his cues from media portrayals of manhood.

“I’ve been afraid of men most of my life because so much violence in the world is perpetrated by men,” he said. “I didn’t have this easy place to land in terms of what kind of man I wanted to be.”

Through his video series on manhood and masculinity, Perez spent time with his male friends and colleagues having conversations and engaging in male rites of passage. He saw that his friends struggled with the limited definition they saw society having for them.

For many of Perez’s friends and coworkers, the social ideal of a man consisted of sports, meat, muscles and making money –– which left many of them feeling lacking, Perez said.

Zach Kornfeld, executive producer and a member of the video series, remembers that on his school playground, being a cool guy meant being good at soccer or baseball. He said he often found himself growing up feeling outside of the traditional image of what it meant to be a man.

“That caused a lot of mental strife in my adolescence, and it was something that I had to grow into myself and accept myself and take the parts of ‘masculinity and femininity’ that I felt applied to me, and discard the ones that I felt didn’t,” Kornfeld said.

Young girls often have a socially acceptable way to veer from the standard ideas of femininity, Perez said. They are called “sporty” or “tomboys.” But there isn’t an equivalent for boys, Perez added.

“It’s been interesting now to have discussions with men and to see for myself (that) there’s no sensitive boy who is maybe more feminine but is allowed to be straight,” Perez said. “Any form of sensitivity somehow makes them not straight, which is the worst thing (male culture thinks) that a man could be.”

Seeking support

Before his transition, Perez spent a lot of time with women friends and in a college sorority, so the way women generally are socialized to interact with one another was familiar to him.

“When women go through a breakup, they rally their whole crew, go into a war room, come out emotionally stronger as a group,” he said.

His experience talking with other men as a man has been different, Perez said.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is that it’s false to say that men and women don’t have the same needs emotionally. It’s just that one group of people have been taught and allowed how to express that properly, whereas men haven’t been allowed that courtesy,” he said.

Perez has found that conversations about experiences and emotions can happen –– they are often just more indirect.

“There’s a culture of drinking until your real feelings come out, or you need to get them out in some other way through physical activity,” he said.

“A lot of the men that I talked to in the series say that they do have those conversations, but they either tend to happen again over an activity like poker, or they happen one-on-one and not in a group.”

Talking about emotions is difficult, but talking over problems with guy friends can be even more complicated. Garcia finds that many of his guy friends don’t talk about problems they are wrestling with until things get so dire that they have no other choice.

“The traditional view of masculinity is that you’re tough, and that you grin it and bear it, and that we don’t talk about feelings,” Kornfeld said. “That’s a very lonely and isolating place to be. Of course, guys get sad, and of course guys get lonely.”

Perez has learned that it isn’t that men don’t want to support each other; it’s that they haven’t always been taught how, he said.

“I do think men want to support each other. They just were not taught how to dialog with each other,” Perez added.

Positive –– not just toxic –– masculinity

There is plenty about masculinity that isn’t toxic –– it can be positive, joyful and even help in connection, Perez said.

Masculinity can emphasize play, both verbally and physically, he said.

“Humor is a big part of it,” Perez added. “You can roughhouse with your friends … There’s a levity to things where they don’t always have to be so serious, because things can be a game.”

“There’s so much freedom in expressing myself physically,” he said. “I’ve actually gotten into exercise in a way that I never had as a woman, because exercise as a woman was about diminishing myself and becoming smaller, whereas exercise as a man is about becoming stronger .”

And traditionally masculine hobbies like sports can offer a means of connection, Garcia said.

“I get so excited about this fake football team that I manage each year because it means I get to connect with my wife’s brother, my brother-in-law, my sister’s husband, my other brother-in-law, my best friend from college,” he said. “This time comes up and we start smack-talking each other and also asking for advice … we’re all playing pretend together.”

How change around masculinity happens

Nick Rufca, a producer and cast member on the show, remembers gender becoming a dance he had to learn around middle school, when he became aware of how girls and boys were expected to act.

That dance didn’t end once he came out as gay, and it has taken years for him to be comfortable with both the masculine and feminine sides of himself, Rufca said.

“I’m at peace, and I think I’m sort of coming to the other side where I wish that I embraced that side of me more,” he said. “It’s just reflecting and going back with regret that I ever covered this part up.”

If you want to find a way to get comfortable with your own image of masculinity, you can start first by looking internally, Perez said.

“You can have conversations with yourself. You can journal. You can begin to examine things yourself, and then start to slowly branch out in a way that feels safe for you,” he said.

Leaning more into closeness and connection doesn’t have to mean not acting traditionally masculine if that is authentic to you, but it does mean listening and empathizing with others’ experiences, said cast member Kwesi James.

James watched a lot of men in his family and Brooklyn community deal with their fears, hurt and insecurities with anger or substance abuse. For him, being a strong man means going to therapy to learn better ways of addressing his feelings and breaking a cycle of trauma, he said.

As scary as it can be to go against the grain to infuse conversations with more open connection, Perez finds that being the one to take a risk and get vulnerable begins a positive chain reaction, he said.

Sometimes that can mean asking how someone is doing, or sharing your own struggle, or even just telling your friends that you love them, Garcia added.

“Everyone is just yearning for someone to break through and say, ‘Oh, thank God, we can talk about this,’” he said.

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