Faeries and Flares: Victims of gender performance

Reflecting on childhood memories, Ilya Welsh explores the consequences of gender stereotyping, and how mainstream culture shapes — or misshapes — the ways we view sexuality.

Photo by Ilya Welsh

I am often told that there were always indications I was going to be gay. Images are conjured of a boy dressing up in fairy wings, or with a taste for glittery flares — but homosexuality is not a personality-altering trait. If you looked at my childhood without these preconceived notions of what a boy “should” or “should not” do or be, then I think you’ll see a child with genuine freedom. Boys raised in a heteronormative way, with the inclusion of  “should” in their vocabulary, are, in my opinion, at a disadvantage. 

Though the debate goes on, most would agree that nurture shapes your personality to a greater extent than nature. The differences in the way we raise boys and girls — and the templates we supply them with, for work and in play — are deliberately polarised. I liked fairies as a kid, but my understanding of them was not influenced by TV shows, commercials, or Toys“R”Us (all things I was never privy to). My faeries — as my spelling shows — were not the ‘fairies’ akin to Barbies and Bratz dolls. Instead, it was artists like Brian Froud who gave form to my imaginings: his darkly beautiful depictions of a realistic underworld filled with gnomes, nymphs and living flora. Every other characteristic of mine that was taken as betrayingly ‘gay’ has a similar explanation. For example, I loved Pocahontas, but not for the sparkling Disney aesthetics. As a baby, a family friend and practising shaman made me a dream-catcher, and my love of spiritualised nature drove me to undertake a bushcraft course at 16 — a decidedly ‘ungay’ venture, yet inspired, in part, by a Disney princess.  

Nature featured predominantly in both mine and my sister’s upbringing. Interestingly, my sister’s days as a tomboy can be explained by her aversion to the prissiness of the girls in her school (and possibly to rebel against me…). Did anyone believe her to be a lesbian? No, because a diversion from her gender stereotype is allowed and praised. To label passions, clothing, or behaviours as ‘gay’ at such a young age would have been to impose heteronormative restrictions on a personality that was not fully formed. Parents’ actions have significant impacts — for example, encouraging their boys to play football but not their girls, when both are too young to know football is considered masculine. The onus is on you, as a caregiver, to offer the freedom from restrictions, gay or straight. I did not have the privilege of having my gender performance sanctioned by mainstream society, but, luckily, I was raised largely outside of it, attending a Steiner school in rural Pembrokeshire with no access to a TV, surrounded by similarly “deprived” kids. I think that when gay guys relate more to femininity, they’re seeking a refuge; a refuge from the categories we impose and gendered expectations we enforce. We raise boys to be tough and dispassionate, whilst we expect our girls to be carers — we even give them dolls that require feeding. So it’s no wonder that many young gays relate to and are cared for solely by female friends.

So much of our personality is shaped before we can even talk. Knowing, subconsciously, that you are different is part of that shaping process; the prevalence of feminine gay boys is evidence of this. This difference facilitates rebellion against forced and damaging stereotypes. It only takes witnessing a group of lads in a punch up, full of bravado, to see how your forced exclusion from that mentality is a privilege. A privilege that asks us to question why we gender certain things and concepts in the first place. The collective belief that faeries are ‘girlish’ is laughable: I ask you, what about them, objectively, is feminine? Certainly, having been raised without the awareness that faeries ‘belong’ to girls, I can say with confidence that my interest in the Froud-esque underworld is immaterial to my homosexuality.

Stepping away from the supernatural: recently, Harry Styles has been heralded as the man leading a charge against traditional masculinity. There is a lot to unpack here. Should he be put on a pedestal when Black queer men have been trying to occupy this space for decades? If he came out as gay, would those who knew him, and his fans, sit back and say, “I always knew”? Is Harry Styles doing more for masculinity because he identifies as ‘straight’ than if he were to identify as ‘gay’? He receives more praise as a straight man in Vogue, that’s for sure. As is the case with much of celebrity culture, it is the individual who imitates the society. Harry is not original; he has come around at a time where society is willing to accept him and his gender performance. True originality is when society — and even those who consider themselves progressive — are sickened by you. If it’s original gender expression you’re after, look to the trans Black women of the 20th century — not the Grammys.

When I began to paint my nails five years ago it was an indication of my sexuality. Now it’s a trend among e-boys and, increasingly, socially acceptable for straight men. Now my nails don’t ‘indicate’ anything. For all his controversy, I see in Harry a quality we all need to start embracing. Though at times I have suppressed it, currently I am exploring it again. It’s this breaking down of traditional gender performance, and stitching together something more authentic and true to yourself. This is the takeaway from my article, and from Harry. Let your kids choose for themselves, let them choose glittery flares, or studded trainers, and never tell them what they “should” be. You can’t be a victim of your own gender expression, only of the one that is forced upon you.