{"id":2248,"date":"2020-12-28T13:43:46","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T18:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/?p=2248"},"modified":"2021-11-16T00:38:29","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T05:38:29","slug":"a-new-masculinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briebeau.com\/thoughty\/2020\/12\/a-new-masculinity\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Masculinity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Buckle in folks, it’s a long one, and the start of a series! This one is personal AND professional, pursuing an understanding of some complex theory and experiences. I am excited for it, so please join me in that excitement! <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Content Warnings for this and the following posts, adding new ones as necessary and bolding the relevant ones for today: gender identity, gender dysphoria, disability, mental illness, Nazis, childhood trauma, physical trauma, death, war,<\/strong> violence,<\/strong> hate crimes (mentioned), racism (mentioned), <\/strong>anti-Semitism, domestic abuse (spousal & parent\/child), animal harm (mention), legal struggles for trans persons, social isolation.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Beau
2016 feels like a lifetime ago, with a lot learned and lost in the process. I found some light in B.J. Blazkowicz. Where is yours?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the longest time, I thought I\u2019d keep my birth name nickname as part of my legal name. While my full legal name has forever been a bane to me, I have seen myself for a long time as The Brie. But that\u2019s it, right? The Brie. It\u2019s a title, not a name that suits me, or that represents who I am. It represents some of what I create, but I am not Brie. I\u2019m Beau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brie<\/s> Beau Sheldon. Still The Brie, still Brie Beau in creation, but not Brie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent a lot of time thinking about the middle name I wanted after I decided to depart from my birth name fully when it came to my legal name, and it got me thinking about Wolfenstein<\/em>: The New Order<\/em>. How the designers at Machine Games remade William \u201cB.J.\u201d Joseph Blazkowicz had a huge impact on me, and I had one more element: I wanted my initials to be B.J.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I came out in 2016 while I was playing The New Order<\/em> off and on. I loved the game passionately<\/em>, and it was mostly because of B.J. (For the purposes of this post and those related to it, we\u2019ll stick with The New Order<\/em>. The New Colossus<\/em> has a lot more to dig into, and I\u2019m not ready for it \u2013 and I don\u2019t have a new body on the way, either.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
There is not much subtlety here. Image: id Software\/Apogee Software<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

B.J. started out in games as a one-dimensional angry Nazi killing white guy. <\/a>He finishes The New Order<\/em> as a poetic Jewish man in love with the woman who helped him recover from a severe injury and gave his life for his belief that everyone deserves to be free who lets other people be free. That\u2019s quite a turnaround.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was struggling, I suppose, for people who represented what I saw in masculinity. While I am nonbinary, I don’t struggle as much with expressing and representing that part of my identity because of its flexibility. Masculinity is more of a challenge, but is just as important. In real life, I have quite a few men and nonbinary masc people that I respect massively and appreciate for their masculinity. But, I learned a long time ago not to base my ideals on real people \u2013 real people should not be punished with the weight of anyone\u2019s ideals as their expectation, and that\u2019s what happens. So I was hunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Beau
In many ways, I’m always hunting. Image: John W. Sheldon, 2020.<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was also hurting. I felt so left out of the community, I had entered two new jobs where I felt alienated and afraid, I had started a Master\u2019s program where I was weird and strange to everyone I met, and I was still struggling with my mental and physical health, as well as various life stuff. I needed someone to restore my faith in me, in what I believed, even if it was fictional \u2013 to me, that it could be conceived by others was enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I played the game, I realized slowly that B.J. was the masculinity I see. He is a flawed man, but he is also a man who has been harmed (in some ways, he reflects his original creator<\/a> (domestic abuse & chronic illness warning)- strange after all these years!). No one is perfect, and he does not subscribe to the idea that the decisions need to be made by or controlled by cis straight white men. His leaders are women and disabled women. He defers to his wife Anya after they escape from his hospice and get married, her leading the way in the bedroom and also being his guiding light in the field. Caroline, a brilliant leader and amputee with a prosthetic, is his most trusted colleague and the person who is in charge of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his interactions with J, the Black guitarist who survived a U.S. Nazi attack, he works to overcome the ingrained racism he was raised with. He works side by side with disabled veterans and civilians, people of all ages and backgrounds, and even reformed Nazis<\/em>. While yes, B.J. may initiate a first interaction with someone who violates his worldview in a shitty way, he apologizes<\/em>, he backs down<\/em>, he defers to the marginalized<\/em>, and he tries to change.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n