gremlin town

Most of my examples are from the white collar workplace, because that's where I socialize the most with cishet men.

I like peppering my language and appearance with softness. I still swear like a sailor, but may suddenly say something like, "I need to bail for the night because my tummy is upset." When I used to lead Very Important meetings with Very Important Men, I enjoyed seeing eyes bulge when I put my laptop covered with colorful stickers on the table.

This is just how I am, so I was broadcasting, "I am not like you," without adopting an artificial persona. Ie, a lot of people will give "gay it up" advice here, but I am not flamboyant in the way they encourage.

(I will say that changing my style to be more ostentatious -- dressing 1940s vintage in my case -- does make more people assume I am gay.)

I avoid a lot of "pissing contest" body language with men -- I may opt for a wave instead of an aggressive handshake. I don't do that "lean back in the chair with arms behind the head" or other man-spreading around the conference table. The more a man raises his voice, the quieter and calmer I present. And when I'm in a mixed gender conversation, I make sure I let the folks who are not men speak.

Overall, I still take up space, but I act like I know I'm strong and capable without feeling the need to prove it.

(Yes, I am aware this can all ironically all be considered as still engaging in the pissing contest. There is a balance between ignoring this behavior and engaging with it on a different level.)

When toxic men try to buddy up to me with their nonsense, I take great care not to parrot misogynistic/queerphobic/etc idioms. For example, as a married man in a cishet presenting relationship, I avoid "ball and chain" gags. In fact, I may talk about my next date night or something cool my partner did during the icebreaker part of a conversation. This is an example of how I subvert expected shitty behavior before shitty men try to enlist me in it.

Sometimes, it's necessary to call out their bullshit. "What an odd thing to say." "Sounds like a skills issue." "I don't understand the joke." This takes some practice to do, and you want to be sure you're not going to have your ass beat. Sometimes, just removing yourself from the situation is what is best.

When I have to be confrontational, I tend to adopt a flat affect. Men expect other men in an argument to become angry, flustered, or smug. Showing zero emotion confuses the shit out of them and I've literally had aggressive men wanting to physically fight me turn and walk away.

In short, if you scrub a lot of toxic behaviors from yourself, you're going to throw toxic men off-guard. Don't rise to their bait, be it body language or defaulting to stereotypical phrases. Avoid these guys when you can, and confront them when it's important to make a point.

This is all very hard to make a habit, because we internalize a lot of the scripts to toxic masculinity. There's a lot to unlearn.

Again, I say this from a place where I have some social currency going into these interactions because of how I look. Being a little intimidating means I can come off as off-putting and not suffer much for it.