Content Warning: transphobia, homophobia, gender dysphoria, sexism, misogyny, violence, body dysmorphia, mental illness, disability, toxic masculinity, gun violence, cancer, cults, indoctrination, hormonal disorders, supremacy culture
Like many in my generation, I saw Fight Club (1999, dir. David Fincher) as an impressionable teen growing up in an era where terms like “toxic masculinity” were becoming increasingly common. I grew up in a supremacy culture – white supremacy impacts rural, insular communities deeply, and men were and are still the most privileged, particularly white men. Evangelical Christianity was the majority and the most influential of religions – to the exclusion of most others – in the Pennsylvanian towns I grew up in, and that culture likewise elevated largely white men. But, the internet and major media had given voice to rising progressive and feminist perspectives.
Fight Club itself would likely never be included in progressive media as something of value, while the original book by Chuck Palahniuk may have more to say than the film. I haven’t been able to read the book for reasons related to this writing, and while I have seen the movie several times since my original viewing, it is harder every time. The hypermasculine violence is visceral and distressing, yes, and complex misogyny by The Narrator and other characters towards Marla, the only woman featured in the film and (to my knowledge) book, is always unpleasant. As someone who considers their religious upbringing cult-like, the indoctrination is also challenging. However, my reasons for a lengthy love/hate relationship with Fight Club are more than that.
When I originally saw Fight Club, to everyone else around me, I was a girl. I was a teenage girl who seemed comfortable with femininity and, by most people’s understanding, was likely to end up married and pregnant in one order or another. To me, though, I was not that. It took over a decade for me to approach my identity in detail, even after coming out as queer, but even as a teen I knew that I did not align with femininity, womanhood, or the plan that was set out for me. I tried to meet it, but that was frankly a mistake. I came out in my late 20s as “genderfluid nonbinary-masculine” after a few years of quietly leaving “genderqueer” in my profile on social media, and have since started testosterone, had a hysterectomy, and changed my legal gender on my birth certificate to “male” and my ID to the nonbinary “X.”
The person I was on the outside did not reflect the person I saw myself as on the inside. The hard part was, it was not just that I saw myself as a man. I saw myself as a masculine person with breasts and a vagina, without the reproductive organs I was born with, and occasionally a penis. I imagined myself with a different face and body shape, a deeper voice. I even had my name in my mind. Since childhood I have wished to be able to walk around shirtless outside like I did as a toddler before I was put in my gendered place, but I always knew that having breasts of some kind would always be part of my life, and that I would never be able to be shirtless in a place I could be witnessed – something validated in my adulthood, where even though I have chest hair and a beard, my breasts are still treated with the same puritanical censorship that a woman’s breasts are. But, not the same as a cis man – except for Robert Paulson.
Robert Paulson (a.k.a. “Bob”) is a seemingly insignificant but vital character in Fight Club. In the book and film, he is presented as a survivor of testicular cancer that The Narrator meets while falsely claiming illnesses and frequenting support groups. He is an ex-body builder who lost his family and livelihood largely to his use of steroids and gambling away his money, and after losing his testicles to cancer caused by the steroids, he developed gynecomastia – developing breasts because of hormone imbalances. From the moment we are introduced to Robert, he is seen through a lens of a man who has lost his masculinity, who is feminized and to a degree, turned into a tool through which The Narrator might be nurtured, using Robert’s breasts as a pillow while he is held, crying, by Robert at the meetings.
The framing of Robert Paulson’s breasts throughout the story begins first as this source of ill-gotten nurturing, and then morphs into a source of shame and degradation, a way to continue to remind Robert of his loss of masculinity through his cancer and gynecomastia. In spite of Robert’s perceived role, he is still effective in fights during Fight Club, even using his breasts to smother opponents when he grapples them. The existence of his breasts is used by Tyler Durden/The Narrator as a reframing of his identity to make him seem lesser-than, and is connected in similar framing to his body size to implicate him as weak, incompetent, or even cowardly, as if a fat man with breasts cannot possibly have a value if it is not granted to him. This is part of the indoctrination, but it is also very clearly part of how the hypermasculine culture views men who do not present in a manner that matches the supremacist masculine ideal. We see this also in the way Angel Face, another character who is depicted as pretty in a way that is beyond the masculine ideal, is used as a literal punching bag for The Narrator to “destroy something beautiful.”
The story ends for Robert Paulson later in the film when he is killed by police while running away from one of the Project Mayhem raids. His death is characterized as being the result of Robert not following direct orders while part of Project Mayhem (the cult that the Fight Club became), and fan sites even indicate his death is partially the result of his “deformity and weight.” (Cite) The film largely frames Robert as being less capable of sticking to the strict expectations of the cult’s indoctrination, including when he doesn’t complete the initial 3-day period of withholding food and water while being ridiculed and told to leave. He is not aware of the rules of this challenge, and The Narrator has to bring him back to continue his indoctrination. After Robert is killed, The Narrator quickly devolves and brings an end to Project Mayhem.
To a degree, it seems that The Narrator simultaneously loves and hates Robert Paulson. He loves that through Robert, he can connect to things he deems feminine like his crying at meetings, and does love Robert as a person. But he hates simultaneously that he feels feminine when crying and that threatens his masculinity, because he sees these aspects of gender only as a binary. Robert makes him understand that masculinity is not just tied to having testicles or being physically strong or violence, and that even if he sees Robert as feminine because of his breasts and lack of testicles and his fatness, that doesn’t make it so. Robert is a man who generously comforts strangers and proclaims his own failures, which both scream in the face of what a man should be if he is hypermasculine – there is no comfort, only solutions; there is no acceptance of failure.
The reason why Robert Paulson’s death is the trigger for the end of Fight Club, of Project Mayhem, is because The Narrator recognizes the fullness of Robert’s life and humanity only when he is dead, and upon recognizing that humanity, he can’t deny the conflict of his feelings over what Robert represents. That is the moment where he can’t keep using Project Mayhem, Fight Club, and hypermasculine control to keep pretending that men are men, women are women, and those things are tidy and controlled and defined. We see this also with The Narrator’s loathing of, and loving of, Marla. She is a woman, clearly, and is feminine, but exhibits stereotypical masculine qualities like being blunt and horny. To see a woman perform things The Narrator deems masculine and fail to stop being a woman is distressing to The Narrator, just like seeing Robert Paulson perform or exist in ways that are masculine without failing to be a man.
When I watched Fight Club as a teen, I identified so strongly with Robert Paulson. His death struck me harshly, and it still does. His body and breasts are presented as something valuable to The Narrator – desirable, even, for comfort – and simultaneously as something Robert has been punished with for his failures (addiction, pursuit of hypermasculine ideals, vanity) and worthy of objectification and shame (referred to by The Narrator as “bitch tits”). For me, having breasts has been similar. I do see them as part of me, I enjoy having them in many ways. But, they have been objectified and used to negate my gender identity, and fetishized.
They are the reason that I can’t go shirtless in public, why I can’t often fit comfortably in the clothes I like to wear, and the reason why to many people I will be a woman so long as I have them. My breasts being considered “bad” or emphasized as feminine got so much worse after I came out as not being feminine, and is often worse if I acknowledge I want to keep them – from men, women, and other trans people, whether it’s because I’m deviating from expectations of binary transition or because I’m not performing cisgender identity expectations. I’ve been shamed for them as much as people have leered at them, and they are always framed as being a feminine aspect.
The thing is, Robert Paulson’s breasts weren’t inherently feminine just because they were breasts or from estrogen. They weren’t inherently masculine, either, because they were partially because of too much testosterone. They just were. They are a body part, something that is not essentially tied to gender or even to sex. Anyone can have breasts, and those breasts are not sexual by nature, either. Breasts can be used to feed a baby, for sexual pleasure, or they can just be there. A lot of the time, that’s all they do, just like any other body part. And yet, Fight Club captures how the framing of a body part as a gendered feature can stigmatize, sensationalize, and degrade a person just as much as it can elevate them.
One of the things I have become intimately familiar with as a transgender (“trans”) person is how little lives like mine matter to those in power, those with privilege. We are worth something so long as they can get something from us, but we are not historically allowed to be recognized for it, at least not reliably. Most of the time, people don’t even know people are transgender, and can’t name a transgender person without some struggle unless that person has been part of some controversy or is otherwise privileged (like celebrities). The most likely way the average person will learn the name of a trans person they aren’t related to closely is if that person dies and lands on the news.
In Project Mayhem, the participants are not allowed to have a name – just a nickname or handle, if anything. Robert Paulson goes by Bob. In the scene where the Project Mayhem members say they want to bury Bob in the garden because he is a nameless member of Project Mayhem, and he is evidence. The Narrator is angry Bob has been killed so senselessly and tells the members his name, and they chant, “His name is Robert Paulson.” It makes me think of so many times over the past decade or so I have heard activists, family members, and trans people in general saying “say their names” and repeating the names of those killed by police, murdered, or lost to suicide or illness. A name is a very important thing, and recognizing that name is part of giving a person humanity.
Even though Robert Paulson did have a name before he died, in trying to conform to the ideals and expectations handed to him by both society and the cult, he had to sacrifice that name. Part of why he felt the need to do this is because he was framed as being less valuable, less human because of not succeeding at conforming to those ideals and expectations and in becoming less “acceptable” by the consequences of attempting to meet them. Upon dying, his name is returned, but then he is still buried behind the cult’s house and in all likelihood, would be forgotten. In ways, he will be memorialized through the repetition of his name by members of Project Mayhem, but at that point – like many trans people whose names are repeated – he becomes an idea, a tool, and loses his humanity to ideology.
Robert Paulson is not a transgender character, but his arc does show how it feels to be someone who is masculine (in part or in whole), but seen to be feminine, and who is seen as disposable, a deviant from supremacist ideals, and in many cases will only be seen as real and human for a brief moment, if at all. Many trans people die in ways that could have been avoided, not because of their own actions, and it is often only because of their being part of a society that doesn’t value their lives – only their conformance. Robert Paulson demonstrates the value of conformance to the larger culture and to those like The Narrator in many ways, specifically in those ways that he doesn’t. Not just his body – he is the only character engaging in Fight Club who is significantly fat, the only one with breasts, the only one without testicles – but in how he engages.
He doesn’t complete the previously mentioned 3-day indoctrination, he doesn’t follow direct orders, and he also is the only one who wears a shirt during fights in Fight Club. The reason seems to be because of his breasts, whether it is for his comfort or the comfort of others or a way to set him apart is unclear. What it does mean is that visually, physically, and functionally, he is deviant from the expectations and ideals of Fight Club and Project Mayhem, on top of being deviant from the expectations and ideals of our larger culture, and this is indicated to be one of the reasons why he dies, and not any of the other members of Project Mayhem. He can never fully be part of anything that he exists within, because the standards set demand that if he cannot conform, he cannot live.
In the past year, I’ve been experiencing health problems that started after having COVID in 2022. When I had COVID, my breasts both swelled dramatically, over a cup size in growth, but the swelling eventually reduced. It was the first time I’d experienced breast dysphoria beyond my general feeling that my breasts are not feminine and are not inherently sexual and should not be policed (and neither should anyone else’s), which had caused some milder discomfort in the past. Since that event, however, the swelling has come back and gone away several times (at times unevenly), causing discomfort and dysphoria and making me appear more like a woman to some. At the same time, I’ve been on testosterone long enough that I have facial hair, chest hair, and generally a lot of features otherwise deemed masculine, and can occasionally – when purposefully presenting masculine – pass as a guy. But, with every passing day, I see myself reflected in Robert Paulson more. It doesn’t help that the experiences of trying to conform to hypermasculinity in a supremacist culture in order to survive certainly does reflect a lot on being a transmasculine person in our world.
I am relatively privileged as far as transgender people go. Having access to healthcare and treatment, living in a safe home with people I trust, being educated, being white – all of these impact my safety and security in the world. However, I’m disabled and fat, and I am very aware of how much people’s perception of my nonconforming gender can put me at risk. I can’t change my gender, even if I wanted to, and part of me being who I am is having the body that feels right to me. That means I will have breasts, and I will have other features deemed masculine, and therefore, I will not conform to binary expectations of gender, or to the standards for masculinity or femininity. It isn’t my choice, it’s who I am.
And this is likely what I will be experiencing until I die. I will likely always be fat, I will always be disabled, I will always be nonbinary and masculine inside and looking like a fat guy with “bitch tits” on the outside. I have no reason to think this won’t be the case. What remains to be seen is whether cultural changes will happen that let people like me who look different or live differently be able to live and exist with humanity, and die with humanity and dignity. Right now, that looks pretty bleak. When I see people claiming to be progressive or feminists shaming guys with “man boobs” or belittling fat people or reinforcing bans on toplessness just because of the inherent misogyny of controlling bodies perceived as feminine, I don’t feel like we have a future where I can exist in the body I have, live well, and die well.
Robert Paulson is just a character. Fight Club is just a book and a movie and a slightly rabid fandom that often misinterprets the works. But I am a person, and if I can watch a movie and see myself in this character, I wonder if I am the only one. I wonder if my breasts will be the reason I die someday, or if it will be my masculinity, or the reality that both are a part of me. And when I do, will anyone say my name? Will they use my pronouns correctly, misgender me, or shame my life and identity? Will someone use my name while my humanity is lost in the weaponization of my death? If I have to fear this, imagine what someone with less access, less support, and less health than me must fear.
Robert Paulson is just a character. I’m just a human. No one is writing my actions to make me conform or deviate from the ideals and expectations of society, I’m just living. I don’t want my life to feel like a Chuck Palahniuk novel, where I have to reach rock bottom to find meaning. I don’t want to have to die to matter and then be (figuratively) buried, evidence of the harms of supremacy and indoctrination. Freedom should be free, and humanity shouldn’t be denied for nonconformance. I just sometimes think if more people saw the world that way, more people would be free – instead of spending the rest of our lives in support groups.
