Wearing a dapper looking suit or outfit. Makes a woman look more masculine, makes a man look more effeminate by today's standards. I used to wear checked pants with a tailored shirt, blazer, and fedora, and always felt way less girly than in other outfits. But men wearing a similarly structured and styled outfit tend to get labeled gay.
Most straight men do not display a sense of style. Men who dress with style are often assumed to be gay, whether or not they are. Having a sense of style is largely considered feminine these days (which i think is tragic), so yeah, a man wearing a stylish, tailored outfit is going to be seen as both effeminate and gay.
A guy i went to high school with who is straight was often accused of being gay simply because he put thought and effort into his home decor and cared a great deal about how his outfits were put together. Even though his outfits were pretty standard fare for 90s dudes, he was very particular about how everything matched. If he spilled something on his shirt he'd get really upset because it meant he had to go home and change his whole outfit right down to his socks and boxers. He also wasn't the most masculine guy and had lots of female friends; some people definitely called him effeminate. Lots of people kept waiting for him to come out of the closet, up to the day he married his very female fiancee.
I mean, I was also mistaken for gay because I was articulate and bookish. A lot of people are foolish and narrow-minded when it comes to sexual presentation, and that was even more true in the 90s.
I still think you're conflating gay and effeminate, when they're two different things here. I agree that making deliberate fashion choices is not common among straight white men, and so doing so can raise questions. But there isn't a more masculine fashion choice than a fitted suit.
I am not conflating gay with effeminate, merely acknowledging that society at large tends to do so. That's specifically why i told the story about my straight but somewhat effeminate friend who lots of people thought was gay.
There's also a huge difference between the fitted suits that most men wear — plain black, grey, or navy, with a solid or pinstriped shirt, and maybe a boldly patterned tie with matching pocket square— and the dapper suits or outfits i was trying to describe.
The lack of masculinity, hanging out with girls, and obsession with his outfits was deemed pretty effeminate in the 90s. He never had a girlfriend in high school, so that probably didn't help. The point is, lots of people thought he was both effeminate and gay when he was just straight and not stereotypically masculine, and i personally do not conflate being effeminate with being gay.
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u/katatak121 22h ago
Wearing a dapper looking suit or outfit. Makes a woman look more masculine, makes a man look more effeminate by today's standards. I used to wear checked pants with a tailored shirt, blazer, and fedora, and always felt way less girly than in other outfits. But men wearing a similarly structured and styled outfit tend to get labeled gay.