Flooring, tiling, ironwork, plumbing, electrical work--there’s dozens of trades in the construction industry, and whether they’re depicted in fiction or statistics, they’re dominated by men and traditional masculinity. Bawdy jokes, constant bantering, ‘yanking each other’s chains’, and general goofball-ery are common on construction sites. So too, as one might expect, are tantrums, shouting matches, and great aggressiveness. It’s an industry that is saturated to the brim by the standards of masculinity in Western society.

Part of those standards is heteronormativity--that is to say, the belief that heterosexuality is normal, and anything else is obscure or some kind of “other” (whether that “other” is considered benign or negative can vary). Many jokes are made to imply that the playful (male) victim is somehow not straight, that they view other men as sexually attractive and that there is something to be avoided about this status.

So, what is it like to be someone (like myself) who does view other men as sexually attractive? To give an idea, here’s a hypothetical work day of mine––constructed entirely from real events I’ve experienced over these past few months:

Every day, I arrive at the site I’m working at, and head in to do my work. Moving material, drilling walls, installation, the same old nine-to-five as always. For the most part, it’s a pretty typical work day. I’m never especially concerned about the people around me, because I tend to my own business and keep my head down.

But that’s not always an option. Sometimes somebody speaks to me--a coworker, usually--and I cheerily speak back. Conversation is always welcome, it helps the day go by.

Then they make one of those jokes. Or they make a sly allusion. And my smile becomes more polite than genuine, and I just chuckle a little bit, and let the conversation die off. Maybe they notice my sudden quietness, but they never care. They just pin it on me focusing on my work.

Later, they start talking about girls. They describe them in ways that are too obscene to repeat here, and chuckle and joke about their (mis)adventures and deceptions. They ask me if I’ve got a girl, or any good stories about girls. I merely smile coyly and say ‘wouldn’t you like to know,’ and let them ask their prying questions. I deflect and avoid them, pretending that my coyness is simply a part of the usual banter, and not an attempt to protect myself and avoid having to lie about the fact that my “girl” is a boy.

I go to use the bathroom––inside the portapotty are slurs and accusations that so-and-so is gay, or that X likes men. Sometimes there are graphic depictions of the accused engaged in homosexual action--frankly, these are sometimes so well illustrated that they could be in a museum. I chuckle at these, disarming these attempts at defamation.

Then I go back inside, and somebody calls me the f-slur jokingly. They don’t see it, but before I crack out the smile and let loose the chuckle, my heart skips a beat. In a millisecond, I consider if someone has connected my coyness and quietness and deduced that I am not straight, but in the next I realize that such a deduction would be impossible.

These are all events that have happened to me. Some only once, some many times, even daily. I don’t mean to say that construction workers as a whole are cruel homophobic misogynists––they’re products of their time, and most of them are good people. They’re just ignorant of the fact that their jokes are my reality, and that their insult is my identity. I have great respect and positive feelings towards most of the other workers on the sites I make my college living on, but until a day comes when they stop viewing my identity as a joke--or worse, an insult--I’ll keep on coyly deflecting and falling silent, and hoping that the worst thing they find out is that I’m not union.