A Non-Binary Buddy, A Mindful “Meathead” and a Roaring Lion
Manly Takeaways from a (Queer) Wedding
Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself” blasted over the speakers.
Dancing, yes.
Joyfully, freely, wildly.
But not with myself. None of us were. We were dancing with each other. Screaming the lyrics together as we bounced in unison.
This was the scene last month at the wedding of my friend Julia Markish and her bride Krissa Lagos.
It was a wedding first and foremost. A beautiful exchange of vows and celebration of love. It also was a queer wedding, underscored by the many LGTBQ+ guests.
As a straight man living in San Francisco, it wasn’t my first queer wedding. But it was the most moving. And it left me in a new place in my masculinity journey. Less certain about my language around gender. More hopeful about men evolving toward greater health and wholeness. Clearer that this Leo of a man–me–must speak up even as I make space for other voices.
Above all, I came away from the wedding weekend with deeper gratitude for our diverse human family and the richness that comes when we truly dance together.
***
It was clear from the outset that this wedding weekend wasn’t going to be a standard ceremony. For one thing, Julia and Krissa decided to get married in Mexico. At a site in Baja California overlooking the Pacific Ocean–near a spot long visited by Krissa’s family. The breathtaking location required a fair amount of logistical work in terms of arriving, finding lodging and arranging transportation back to the U.S.
And soon after I landed in San Diego from my home in San Francisco, the wedding pushed me further out of my comfort zone. A number of us shared a ride from the airport to the town of Rosarito, about an hour south of Tijuana. I told the group that I write about masculinity, and believe men need to access their “feminine” side.
Tom Green, one of my travel companions, objected.
“I find that almost triggering,” he said. “Aren’t you just making stereotypes about men and women worse with that framing?” he asked.
I’d heard a version of this argument before. But Tom’s passionate argument put me on my heels.
I mumbled something about the ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ archetypes being helpful shorthand and that I saw them both as available to all human beings, akin to the eastern concepts of yin and yang. Tom came straight back at me with the point that shorthand is not justified if it reinforces prejudices, and that if we want to move beyond the current state of gender prejudice then we need to change our language.
Tom’s challenge was in good faith. He reassured me as our driver dropped me off at my hotel.
“Thanks for a stimulating conversation,” he said warmly.
Still, I felt a bit rattled by the exchange. I said as much to my roommate for the weekend, Moshe Ovadia.
“Maybe you could experiment with that yin-yang language and see how it works,” Moshe suggested.
What a good idea–one that found more and more support as the wedding weekend unfolded.
“I’ll try that,” I said.
It was the first of several gifts Moshe gave me across the weekend.
***
Moshe and I came to the wedding as virtual pals. We’d met through Julia more than a year earlier, swapping ideas about the “teal” organizational philosophy all three of us found compelling. Moshe and I began swapping coaching services as well. I gave him content and writing help as he put together his website, and he gave me professional coaching in return.
“Professional coaching,” though, doesn’t do justice to the depth and breadth of Moshe’s counsel. He helped me reflect on a life-long challenge with anxiety, and our conversations also plumbed my spiritual callings.
Given our mutual affection in Zoom calls, we decided to share a room together at the wedding. A quirky room in the Poco Cielo hotel called “The Eagle’s Nest,” complete with a mural of a giant eagle and a hanging bed.
In the nest and beyond, Moshe and I continued our easy, deep rapport in person. We talked, for example, about a workshop he was designing for a major bank. It was for a group of early-career women professionals, about the power of coaching. Moshe had the insight that women are socialized with skills that are critical for the emerging world–the “soft” skills of empathy, listening and collaboration.
Still, he was nervous about presenting such information to a group of women. I appreciated his concern. But I suggested he is a perfect person to make this presentation.
Moshe is a bridge of sorts when it comes to different genders. He presents as a man, and tends to use he/him pronouns. But he identifies as non-binary. This sense of a self straddling male and female worlds dates to his earliest childhood memories. Tiring of playing with GI Joes alone, and wondering why he couldn’t have Barbie dolls as well.
Spending time with Moshe over three days made Tom’s point ring truer and truer. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who more completely integrates what I’ve been calling “masculine” and “feminine” energies. The assertiveness to push me to confront and slay childhood demons. The adventurousness to leap into big Pacific waves. The compassion to listen to my doubts and my dreams. The willingness to pay attention to the soul’s calling–both his and mine.
Saying Moshe blends the feminine and the masculine doesn’t just risk reinforcing gender stereotypes. It also fails to capture how he’s effectively obliterated the categories altogether.
His novel synthesis of gender identities–or transcendance of them–was on display in his dancing. It entranced me. Moshe would close his eyes and let the music move him. Drawing circles with pointed toe. Shimmying his shoulders. Raising his arms high in ecstasy. Ecstatic dancing actually is a form of expression he practices, Moshe told me later.
But it was partner dancing that we did toward the end of the wedding night. The DJ played “Last Dance” by Donna Summer. Her timeless tune begins as a slow dance ballad and ends up as a fast-stepping disco anthem. Moshe and I embraced awkwardly at first. But fun fueled us past any unconscious homophobia on my part.
We were whirling dervishes by the end, the Queen of Disco exhorting us to connect and move.
Ha! Come on, baby
Dance that dance
***
One regret from the weekend with Moshe is that I didn’t introduce him to two friends I met at the wedding. A couple I’ll call Adam and Andrea. Andrea is an old friend of Krissa’s, a nurse and a yoga teacher. She lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, where she met Adam.
Adam owns a construction business and is an avid skier, mountain biker and dirt biker. The dude is big and muscular. At one point, this 6’1’’, 200 lb-man called himself a “meathead.”
If he’s a meathead, he has a mind of filet mignon.
Adam transformed a pair of traumatic bike accidents in recent years into a catalyst for personal growth. The accidents tore up his shoulders, and challenged his identity as a nearly invincible, strong man. He responded by beginning a mindfulness practice, seeing the power of conscious breathing. He also practiced patience with his recovery, taking up swimming and letting go of carpentry tasks that threatened to reinjure his shoulder.
The personal, physical development has come at the same time Adam has been reflecting critically on the competitive “bro” culture he grew up in. He’s over the “tough guy show” that lionizes risk-taking athletes but loses sight of true service as a man. Headlines blared recently over the death of an extreme skier, Adam told me, while young men from the Lake Tahoe area who died in military operations overseas barely got a mention in the local paper.
Adam’s first injury happened before he met Andrea. The second happened on one of their first dates. Andrea, meanwhile, was recovering from an unhealthy relationship–with wounds of the psyche.
“We decided to be broken together,” Adam told me.
They also were healing together. We three told each other our stories across the weekend, including during a bonus beach hang the day after the wedding. I was taking a walk on the beach before my ride to the airport and saw the Adonis-like Adam emerge from the sea.
Over cold beers, Andrea talked about getting more comfortable asserting her wants and needs, and the power of guided meditations. Adam shared that his mother had been an alcoholic and died when he was just 19.
After her death, Adam delayed a college career to take care of his father, who was confined to a wheelchair with a chronic illness. Maybe it was this early exposure to the grief and gifts of caregiving that has helped Adam get to such a promising place as a person today.
In any event, Adam’s story brings me such hope for men. There is much public discussion today of the “crisis of masculinity” — including concerns over the way many men are struggling today. While our male-dominated culture has hurt women and non-binary folks especially, it has injured men as well.
Many of my male friends and colleagues are actively working to address those wounds and mature our masculinity. But most of us guys live in liberal bastions like the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Portland and Seattle.
Adam reminds me that even outside of these proudly woke worlds, some men are choosing wise paths. They are recognizing that the future of manhood is not about regressing into a stoic “confined masculinity” that restricts men’s identities to traditional roles and expressions.
Instead, the route is through feeling, healing and revealing hurts. It’s about expanding our awareness and moving with curiosity, courage and compassion into the future. It’s a masculinity of partnership, one that embraces the diverse identities that people are expressing today
Adam, for example, let loose on the dance floor. A straight guy, a “meathead” from the mountains, getting down with people of many genders and sexualties.
I loved mosh-pit dancing with Adam. He let me use his powerful frame to pogo higher.
I also treasure the dip we took in the ocean that last day. I gave Adam a pointer for body surfing: start swimming before the wave comes.
A quick learner, this gentle giant became a dolphin. He used his yang power to catch waves, then rode them yin-like toward the shore.
***
I am a writer, not a builder. And I’ve been doing breath work and yoga for many more years than him. But ultimately, I’m not that different from Adam.
I too have struggled to fit into the confined masculinity that has long shaped our society. I grew up skinny. I froze at big moments in sports and other competitions. I’m more emo than alpha. And I haven’t come close to winning the rat race. In fact, I may have the shortest management career in history–I’ve managed one person for one day.
What’s more, I’ve wrestled with anxiety attacks at various points in my life.
It all adds up to an odd identity as a Leo. My birthday is August 5th–the day of Julia’s and Krissa’s wedding.
I’ve never felt like a king of the jungle. If anything, I’ve been a scaredy cat at times. More Cowardly Lion than confident Aslan of The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.
This isn’t entirely fair. I’ve been brave in key moments. Stood up to bullies in the workplace and beyond. Been vulnerable in sharing my story, which I know takes courage.
Still, my Leo astrological skin hasn’t fit exactly right.
The wedding worked its magic there, too.
It started with Moshe giving me the birthday gift of an astrological chart reading. The gist of it was that the Leo constellation was on the horizon at my birth, meaning it was not easy to recognize. But that other celestial bodies, including Jupiter, were calling on me to step into my power. What’s more, my second “Saturn Returning” is coming over the next few years, giving me a chance to reorder my life.
I’ve long viewed astrology with a skeptical eye. But I appreciated Moshe’s interpretation of the stars. We spoke about how my dad’s explosive temper when I was a kid could have contributed to me keeping my inner lion caged.
In fact, I remembered with greater clarity a particular incident that scared me silent. When I was 12 or so, I called my younger brother a name that meant “stupid” in our Buffalo suburb. The word, ”BOCES,” stood for the Boards of Cooperative Educational Services. Kids who used the BOCES program got vocational education, like auto technician training. “BOCES” signaled you weren’t smart enough to go to college.
It was a cruel and unfair label. And I regret using it on my brother, who had an undiagnosed learning disability and struggled in school. “BOCES” didn’t even fit the situation. Kirk, 10, and I were assembling Sunday morning newspapers for my paper route. And I was frustrated that he was going so slowly. That had to do with his sleepiness rather than any academic shortcomings!
In any event, when my dad heard I’d called Kirk a BOCES, he pinned me against the wall. He screwed up his face and bit his tongue. “If you ever use that term again, you will be kicked out of this house!” he hissed.
I have always felt my dad was in his rights to be angry with me. As Moshe and I unpacked this story, though, I saw more clearly how the combination of my dad’s fury and threat sent a powerful message–that to voice strong feelings was dangerous. Perhaps unconsciously, I learned to check my impulses to take up space.
“It’s time for this lion to roar!” Moshe told me. And we did let some roars rip from the balcony of our hotel room.
Moshe pushed me further. He suggested I imagine letting out the rage I’d bottled up–leaping on my dad with claws out.
This didn’t feel right. My dad today is a 79-year-old elder, who has come a long way. Who has, in fact, apologized for his temper when I was little. I admire the work he’s done to mature as a man.
A different vision emerged as Moshe and I talked. One that felt right. I imagined extending a strong foreleg and pushing my father off me. I would stop him from pinning me to the wall with the soft pads of my paw.
I would take up the space I deserve without hurting anyone else. Speak without drowning out other voices. In fact, use my voice to help elevate others that haven’t always been heard.
I would seek and proudly accept my share of attention, without hogging the limelight.
And so it happened at the wedding. Andrea came up to me and asked if it was my birthday. I said it was. She and another guest told the DJ, and he played “Happy Birthday.” I stood in the center of the dance floor while everyone cheered.
For just a few minutes. And then everyone went back to shaking their booty and celebrating the brides.
***
There’s room for us all. Queer and straight. Man, woman, non-binary. Big and small. Old and young. And all the many ways that human beings are expressing themselves today.
Not only is there room. It is a delicious diversity that emerges. At the wedding, I danced with people whose gender or sexual preference I could not determine. It made the celebration more interesting. Old rules about who can dance with whom–and how–fell away. “Masculine” and “feminine” categories, again, did not seem to apply.
We were varied in our choices and identities. And at the same time we were united. Human beings sharing this love-filled day with Julia and Krissa.
Another incident on the dance floor crystalised the collective joy. A Lizzo song came on, and a big bear of a man lifted Julia onto his shoulders. Julia did an interpretive dance up there, delighting the crowd. It was such a happy scene that I took out my phone and made a video, circling Julia and everyone else.
Lizzo’s lyrics captured this moment–when we are starting to revel in our many differences. When instead of fearing others who aren’t exactly like us, we are grooving with them.
It’s about damn time.
