*Looking Back* on Transitioning into Immigrant MASKulinity

MASKulinity Podcast

We’re going back in time! Remoy shows his energetic facets as we dive into a past episode throwback on Transitioning into Immigrant MASKulinity with multihyphenate artist, D'Lo.

• Samantha and Remoy play back clips from this insightful 2018 episode. They remember their old selves trying to make sense of this conversation just a year into the show and compare it to now, as their older (hopefully wiser!) selves.
  • The hosts share what it meant to have D’Lo stop on the pod as immigrant folks themselves.
• D’Lo shared his experience growing up and questioning his gender identity in a Sri Lankan family, living in one of the most racist counties in California as the setting.
  • While his family was accepting of his looking like a little boy and having nothing but boys as friends, he had to take on the MASK of girlhood in his larger community.
  • He describes the first transition he made to fit into society’s expectations, and it may not be what you think.
• Remoy and Samantha reflect on their own immigrant-kid experiences and how that impacted their understanding of gender.
  • Samantha shares her gratitude for folks like D’Lo who made sure their voices were heard and created a more nuanced picture of what gender could be in immigrant communities.
• D’Lo challenged the notion that traits must be associated with either femininity or masculinity exclusively. He never felt that way himself and most people don’t actually live that way either.
  • Samantha looks back on what she’s learned about the gender spectrum over the years
• What informed D’Lo’s notions of gender growing up? He opens up about
  • Remoy shares his own experiences with MASKulinity as a young South Asian man growing up in a mostly white community.
  • He expresses his gratitude for the multitude of perspectives out there now that have expanded our understanding of gender, in particular for people of color, more specifically for that immigrant family fighting for the “American Dream”
• D’Lo reflects on his new understanding of strength. His perceptions of his parents drastically shifted once his understanding of gendered pressures grew and he started challenging them himself.
  • Remoy shares how empowering it is to hear this shift in perspective.
  • Samantha shares her discovery of anger and how that escaped her as a woman in 2018.
• D’Lo has embraced all his multitudes and shares how being an artist allowed him to express them all.
  • Remoy as a multihyphenate himself embraced his own wholeness rather than falling to the pressures of achievement.
  • Shout-out to the folks out there fighting to make POC trans voices heard!

Let us know how your own views about gender have changed over the years!!

Referenced in this episode:

• D’Lo on how he came out three times
• More about D’Lo
• Not Past It - Remoy’s history-focused podcast

COMPANION PIECES:

• Transitioning into Immigrant MASKulinity
• Relationships: Behind the MASK of Stoicism
• The Racial Hierarchy of MASKulinity, with Dr. Liu - Part 1 ENCORE
• My Body, My Transition, My Identity — How A Colombian Trans Activist