(Developing Male Identity: Internalizing Masculinity,
Claiming Our Place in the Circle of Men,
What We Did to Effect Change)

• We developed our internal sense of manhood -- our identity as being a man like other men. We separated ourselves from the female perspective, surrendered whatever "gayness" we might have adopted, and rejected our old passivity. In their place, we fully embraced and welcomed a masculine identity and accessed a new sense of personal power, strength and courage.
  
  
• We connected with the wider world of heterosexual men. We overcame our prejudices against men, accepted them as our brothers, and claimed our rightful place in the circle of men. We grew in friendship and brotherhood with men, developing close and meaningful friendships and group associations that met our authentic needs for masculine connection and mutual support.

For most of us, the longing that we came to identify as homosexual desire actually began long before we ever experienced it as an erotic attraction. It was the natural and necessary yearning that every little boy feels to be loved and wanted by his father, to feel like he belongs as "one of the guys," and to feel confident in his masculine identity.

If a boy's longing for masculine connection remains unmet, it can grow into an open wound as he enters adolescence. Sometimes, with the hormonal surge of puberty, it can become inadvertently sexualized. So it was with us. Having felt insufficient love and masculine affirmation from father, father figures or male peers throughout our developmental years, we began to see men as the opposite from us -- masculine, mysterious and different -- while we too easily identified with women as our sisters.

But sexualizing men - relating to them as lovers -- would only further the sense of estrangement we felt from men and from our own masculine identities. It could never fill the true need we felt to bond with men as our brothers and to experience brotherly love, as a man among men.

In our own journeys, we found that connecting deeply with our masculinity was a terribly significant area of healing that had to take place in two important realms: internally and interpersonally.

• Internally, we needed to connect with our own masculinity and masculine power, coming to see ourselves as masculine and capable-like the men we had admired, envied, and sexualized. We needed to separate ourselves internally from the female perspective so we could experience the world as men. We needed to yield to the genuine masculinity inside us, giving up all "gayness" and homosexual identity or homosexual ways of relating.
  
  
• Interpersonally, we needed to connect with the world of heterosexual men, overcoming our old sense of not being "man enough" and not fitting it. We needed to overcome our prejudices against men, especially heterosexual men, and learn to accept men as our brothers - with all their weaknesses. We needed to become comfortable being around men in a variety of situations.

We do not mean to suggest that a man cannot be both masculine and gay. Some gay men do exude a confident masculinity that other men, both gay and straight, admire and respect. Neither do we mean to suggest that heterosexual men do not struggle with insecurity about their masculinity. They frequently do. Insecurity over masculinity is a very common experience for men from all walks of life.

But in our own lives, we found that trying to build our connection to the masculine through homosexual thoughts and actions was like trying to quench thirst by drinking salt water. We longed for meaningful connections with (heterosexual) men and a stronger, more confident masculine identity. But turning to gay men, gay thoughts or a gay identity to meet these needs only caused us to feel more emasculated, isolated and different. Our thirst increased instead of being quenched.

In our case, extreme disconnection from and longing for masculinity created in us a great unmet need for closeness and connection with men -- a need we inadvertently eroticized and sought to meet sexually when we couldn't find a way -- or didn't dare -- to fill it in platonic, heterosexual ways. But ironically, the very thing we needed most was the thing we feared the most. Past experience had taught us not to trust men. We had come to believe that heterosexual men were unable to meet our needs for affection, compassion and attention. Tragically, we ran from what we most needed.

Developing Male Identity: Internalizing Masculinity

In his book, Growth Into Manhood, Alan Medinger writes: "For many men, craving for the masculine is the central driving force in their homosexuality, as it once was for me" (Growth Into Manhood, Harold Shaw Publisher, 2000, page 82). In fact, he suggests that if a man has an incomplete male identity, that can be the engine that drives homosexual behaviors and attractions.

"The alternative to having an identity as a man is to have some other identity," Alan Medinger writes. "What will it be?" He writes that, in his experience, men seeking to transition out of unwanted homosexual desires are often inclined to focus first and foremost on their behavior and attractions, for those are the areas that cause them the most distress. But, he says, it is generally more effective for a man to focus first and foremost on his identity, especially initially. This is true for two reasons, Medinger says:

"First, identity is more amenable to direct attack than behavior or attractions… (It) can be changed significantly through a program of conscious choices and specific actions…. Second, a man's incomplete male identity is what drives and directs homosexual behavior and attractions." (Growth Into Manhood, page 16)

In other words, by placing more emphasis on identity than on behavior or attractions, a man addresses root causes, rather than resulting symptoms.

Identity may be defined as the way a man sees himself, especially the beliefs and judgments he holds about himself in relation to others, as well as the groups and types of individuals he identifies himself as belonging to or sharing common characteristics with. So if identity is based on adopted beliefs and chosen associations, consider, then, how malleable identity can be, and how susceptible it can be to deliberate manipulation.

One man who has overcome homosexuality writes:

"Over the course of my life, I have embraced at various times the identities of 'the good little boy,' a rebel, an artist, a righteous man, an inadequate man, a powerful and courageous man, a sex addict, a gay man, a bisexual man, a straight man, an outdoorsman, an urbanite, a loner, a success, a miserable failure, and many others.

"When I think about all the ways I've viewed myself at different points of my life, I am amazed at how malleable my identity has been. Some of these identities have come and gone just by changing my circumstances and my attitudes toward those circumstances. Some have changed by changing whom I associated with and whom I saw myself as being like, or wanting to be like. Some identity changes I made quite consciously and deliberately, while others were more accidental and circumstantial."

While some types of identity may have insignificant emotional consequences, if any, a man's (and before that, a boy's) gender identity is an absolutely core factor in how he feels about himself and how he relates to the world. It affects whether he sees himself as being like other men, or more like women, or something in between. It affects his sense of isolation or belonging, his sense of wholeness or emptiness, his sense of connection or disconnection.

Most significantly, it affects which gender he sees as being his opposite. And that, perhaps more than anything, affects which gender he finds himself attracted to.

Alan Medinger writes:

"The essence of sexual attraction seems to be 'differences' or 'otherness'… What if a man does not have the inner sense that he is a man? Will he experience attraction to a woman? Will she be his 'other'? No, and this is critical. If he feels that he is not complete as a man, his first longing will be not for women but for complete manhood; he will be drawn to the masculine in other males. This will be his 'other.' This will be his missing rib… It follows, then, that the development of our manhood - finding completion in ourselves - will do great things both to decrease our same-sex attractions and to start drawing us sexually to women."

Once we understood that our homosexual feelings stemmed from a little boy's lifelong hunger for normal connection to men and to his own masculinity, the path to healing became clear. Frightening, perhaps, but clear. We would have to go back and heal the little boy's wounds by learning to love, trust and identify with men as brothers. We would no longer resist these "reparative" urges, but rather, we would seek to fulfill our normal need for male affirmation and connection.

Claiming Our Place in the Circle of Men

It is never to develop one's masculinity and claim one's rightful place in the circle of men. As Alan Medinger writes, testing and affirming manhood can take place at any time in a man's life, but it must be done in the same way that boys do it:

"We must be affirmed by men; they are the ones we still see as having the authority to affirm manhood…Manhood is formed in the company of men, and so affirmation must be sought on their terms…And like it or not, affirmation must come from what we do." (Growth Into Manhood, pages 58-59)

Medinger introduces two key principles relating to masculine development:

1. "The first is that every man has to go through certain developmental stages; there is no real shortcut to growth. If we didn't go through those stages as boys, we will have to go through them now.

2. "The second principle is that manhood is to a great extent a matter of doing, and we will grow into manhood by doing the things that men do" (Growth Into Manhood, page xiii)

Medinger writes that he found his homosexual struggle was largely a problem of undeveloped manhood, emotional neediness and an uncertain identity. He writes:

"Now, 15, 20 or 40 years later, if you want to resume your growth, you will have to venture back out into the world of men and boys. Essentially, you are going to have to develop your manhood in the same way that young boys do, through a process of learning, testing, failing, getting back up and testing again, and finally succeeding. We grow into the fullness of manhood by doing the things that men do.

"Once you are into this process and have had a few successes -- regardless of the failures in between -- a reinforcing process will start to set in…You will find that you are being affirmed by other men. You will start to conform to your own inner sense of what a man is. You will start to gain a sense that you are becoming the man God created you to be, and…that you are fulfilling his purpose for you as a man." (Growth Into Manhood, page 8)

What We Did to Effect Change

Here, then, are various changes that many of us made in order to build our personal sense of masculinity and belonging to the world of men:

1. We worked to recognize and overcome our prejudices against or fear of heterosexual men, on the one hand, and, at the other extreme, our idealization of certain types of men we envied and lusted after. We began consciously looking for the similarities and commonalities we shared with other men, and stopped emphasizing and exaggerating the supposed differences.

• We made a conscious and deliberate effort to befriend men who embodied some of the traits we envied. In doing so, we came to see their weaknesses as well as their strengths, their struggles and fears as well as their talents and skills. And much to our surprise, we often discovered that they saw traits in us, too, that they admired.
  
  
• We worked to develop in ourselves more of the traits we admired in others (often such things as physical fitness, confidence and a friendly, outgoing nature), to discover traits in ourselves that other men admired (often such things as courage, compassion, and talents), and to accept things about ourselves that we could not change (such as height and basic body type, ethnicity and heritage).
  
  
• We stopped criticizing ourselves and comparing ourselves negatively to others. Instead, we started seeing and affirming the good in ourselves, our strengths and courage and our own manliness. The more we saw how much we were like other men, and discounted the differences, the more approachable they seemed, and the more we began to see and respond to them as brothers, rather than as potential lovers.

2. We separated ourselves from a gay identity, gay associations and gay culture; separated ourselves from activities and relationships that caused us to over-identify with women; and consciously adopted a new identity as a strong man developing his full heterosexual masculinity.

• Recognizing that, in many ways, one becomes what one thinks and how one acts, we replaced any homosexual attributes, appearance, speech, mannerisms and interests with more typically heterosexual male qualities and interests. We distanced ourselves from places, activities, events and people that might have kept us tied to a homosexual identity.
  
  
• We became aware of any thoughts, actions and relationships that caused us to feel like "one of the girls," as if we belonged in the circle of women instead of the circle of men. We broke away from those things and consciously worked to dis-identify with women as we worked to identify with men.
  
  
• For some of us, this also meant cutting the apron strings to Mom. If we were overly dependent on our relationship with Mom and too focused on her concerns and interests, we consciously diminished her presence in our lives.
  
  
• We embraced and nurtured in a new identity for ourselves that was not based on sexuality at all, nor on our struggles and weakness, but on our strengths and our growing confidence in our manhood.

3. Finding that building our inner sense of masculinity was in many ways synonymous with developing our personal power and inner strength, we had to let go of a sense of helplessness, hopelessness and victimization. We replaced them with a renewed sense of responsibility and accountability for what we did with our lives.

4. We searched out and adopted a community of men (a church group, fraternal organization, Twelve Step group, service group or other men's organization -- see "Resources and Links") where we could learn to feel safe and at home among heterosexual men and receive affirmation for ourselves as men.

5. We stretched beyond our old comfort zones to make new friends with heterosexual men we admired and to spend more time in the company of men.

• We made time and created opportunities to do some of the everyday "guy things" with them that we had missed out on earlier in life.
  
  
• We worked to look, act and -- most important, feel -- more like "one of the guys" -- and in so doing claimed our place in the circle of men.

6. We learned to trust other men as we took the calculated risk of sharing our hidden selves with carefully chosen men who seemed especially compassionate and trustworthy, and secure in their own heterosexuality.

• We opened up to them and asked for their support and understanding, and their active involvement in our lives in specific meaningful ways. (We had to tell them what we needed, and not expect them to read our minds!)
  
  
• In so doing, we created, one by one, a network of family members, friends, counselors, mentors and role models who believed in us and in our ability to change and our ability to do so.

7. We sought out father figures, "elders," "coaches" and mentors to help "re-father" us in positive ways.

• When possible, we worked to develop a healthier father-son relationship with Dad, spending time with him and learning to trust, forgive and open up.
  
  
• We also sought out other mentors and asked for their advice, feedback, perspective, wisdom, guidance and affirmation. We asked them to coach us in developing certain skills, spirituality, our confidence in dating women or in improving family relationships, or other ways that gave us a sense of being "re-fathered" and mentored. We freely asked them questions about how men think, act and feel.
  
  
• When mentors were agreeable, we made ourselves accountable to them as we worked toward specific goals, reporting back on our successes and missteps.

8. Without denying our true interests or true selves, we challenged ourselves to do more of the things that most men do and fewer of the things that most men don't (see Alan Medinger's "Growth Into Manhood") -- or more of the things that made us feel connected to our masculinity. We earned the admiration and affirmation of men we respected by challenging ourselves in the world of men.

• We explored the masculine world by participating in activities with other men we had once been too afraid to try. We became willing to laugh at ourselves and just feel the joy of exploring.
  
  
• We watched how men dressed, talked, acted and related to other men and to women. Increasingly, we modeled our own appearance, mannerisms, behavior and relationships after theirs -- much as young boys model their peers and elders (a stage we missed out on in our boyhood!).
  
  
• We discovered that meaningful admiration and affirmation from other men are earned by facing and overcoming challenges. We found that men prove themselves to each other and earn the respect of other men in myriad ways, not just the stereotypical methods of sports or auto mechanics. They do it through success on the job, success with family, talents, physical prowess, physical projects -- or anything that takes guts, determination and skill.
  
  
• We sought out challenges that "stretched" us and proved our abilities within the world of men.

9. We increased our physicality and our emotional connection to and appreciation for our male bodies, accepting their limitations while challenging them in new ways.

• Some of us had felt cut off from our own bodies. Some of us saw our bodies as "the enemy," part of the problem. We worked to accept our bodies for the gifts they were, just as they were.
  
  
• At the same time, we increased our physicality in whatever ways we found most rewarding, and challenged our bodies in new ways. We developed our physical strength, health and skill, and enjoyed the masculine rush of pushing our male bodies to new limits.

10. The more grounded we felt in our masculine identities, and the more powerful we felt as men, the more we began to feel attracted to the femininity of women.

• As our attractions to men turned increasingly to a joyful sense of brotherhood and shared identity with them, our attractions to women turned increasingly romantic and sexual. Increasingly, women became our "other," with characteristics and traits that were clearly opposite from ours.
  
  
• From a place of masculine strength, we could begin to relate to women romantically and sexually in a way that further strengthened our sense of manliness, whereas before a woman's femininity had often seemed to engulf and emasculate us. We became increasingly ready to take on our masculine destiny as provider, protector, lover and life partner to a woman.

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