Image source, 2nd Try
For Ash Pérez, a producer, writer and creator of content of 35 years, entering masculinity was to travel through an unknown country, with a different culture and language.
It was 2020, and after living openly as a person queer And bisexual since his 23 years, he had begun his physical transition to be a trans man.
He embraced his identity after losing his father during the Covid-19 Pandemia.
Although his father accepted his sexual and gender diversity, also the former collaborator of BuzzFeed He says that ceasing to be “Papi's girl” was “complicated.”
“That was one of the reasons why I didn't transition before, I didn't want my father to feel disappointed. When he died, I saw the freedom to explore my genre,” he adds.
However, with his death, Ash was left without the only male reference in his life. And in full transition, he understood that he needed support to enter a reality that he felt.
“I can't believe how little I knew about masculinity and men in general, I felt like an alien learning another language,” he insists on an interview with BBC Mundo.
He influencer He was experiencing one of the social challenges facing trans people, which vary according to the individual context and, in some cases, they intertwine with physical challenges related to therapies such as hormonal.
Image source, 2nd Try
Although it is a safe medical process, according to institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, Hormonal therapy brings Riskssuch as the possibility of causing some diseases.
In the midst of this process, Ash decided to resort to two tools that have always helped him exceed difficulties: laughter and writing.
After a conversation with an excolega of BuzzFeedcreated a series of humorous videos in which he experiences everyday situations along with other men.
In production, which he called New Guy Tries and whose two seasons are transmitted by the streaming platform 2nd Tryhe does things like visiting for the first time a barbershop or sits to play poker with a group of friends.
With his program, he says that he discovered that many of the preconceived ideas that he had about masculinity were not entirely true and that even these socially acquired beliefs can do deep damage to men, as experts have validated in the past.
But the revelation that he considers most important is that he found positive facets about masculinity, after feeling distrust and fear towards her for years to listen that it was “toxic” and “harmful.”
Learn to play
One of those positive aspects that he discovered while filming the program was the game and sport.
Some men, he affirms, use these activities to share with each other their emotions, concerns or difficult moments in general, although this has not been the original purpose of the encounter.
“In the second episode, when we went to play poker, the conversation became very deep. We ended up talking about the fears caused by fatherhood, how unprotected they felt at this stage and the concern they had to serve as support for their partners,” he says.
“Sometimes, you can be watching a football game with your uncle or maybe a friend, and among the commercials it releases you something like: 'You know? I lost my work.' That is different from how they taught me to interact to me,” he says.
The screenwriter adds that, in the 31 years he “socialized as a woman”, many times his meetings with friends focused only on talking.
“We always had too many things to process,” he says.
And he believes that certain men “have a great ability to joke, play and have fun that perhaps we are missing.”
Image source, 2nd Try
Expand the body
Ash says that, after his transition, he also began enjoying the exercise as never before.
Before, he went to the gym with the idea of ”reducing” his body mass, and was afraid of gaining volume, because – according to the beauty standards they instilled in him – it was something associated with “masculinity.”
“I think women can benefit a lot from strength training, which several studies indicate that they are beneficial to health,” he says.
And he adds: “There is a concept that flies my head, and that is, the boys, they are taught to expand their body in the world, while women to shrink it.”
He also mentions having learned to be an adventurer.
In the series, the occasional madness is encouraged, such as participating in a competition in which trucks with cars or forge a sword are dragged.
“Being an adventurer is something I learned as a man, because when I grew up, they told me that women are not physically safe. And, in a way, because of that kind of beliefs, it is not possible to identify all the benefits that are usually related to masculinity,” he says.
“In the world we live in, women sometimes cannot enjoy them,” he argues.
“But perhaps at an individual level, there is some of that that can be implemented, while changes are reached at the macro level.”
Talk about gender
As a “Trojan horse that helped her friends reflect on her gender,” says Ash who felt in the production of New Guy Tries.
In their programs, boys participated who for years have shared various facets of their lives together. And it was not until the discussions they had during the series that knew intimate details of each other.
“In the recordings, they told me that they did not know such basic things as the fact that their friends had brothers. Also the way they thought about certain issues, such as paternity or their fears,” he says.
The reason, it argues, is because it is not common for spaces to talk about masculinity and that many men are taught from children to hide their emotions.
He influencer It echoes voices of experts and scientific research that they propose that in some countries, such as the US and the United Kingdom, men usually suffer more loneliness.
Image source, 2nd Try
Ash believes that, although the patriarchal system benefits men, they can also be affected by the stereotypes and norms that perpetuates.
Before loneliness, some resort to platforms such as online forums, which often become epicenters of radical ideas, continues.
“Men are much more than what we see in the first instance. If we do not begin to open the conversation and to involve them in gender issues, we are only isolating them.”
Although some governments of the world drive an adverse narrative against trans people -as in the US occurs with the Donald Trump government, which argues that gender must be defined according to the sex of a person at birth -Ash believes that this community tries is, precisely, to keep open a dialogue about how diverse human beings are.
“What we are looking for is to expand the limits of gender,” he says.
And he says: “We do it because there is much more freedom when one crosses the other side.”
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