Where did the “gays are feminine and lesbians are masculine” stereotype come from?
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A few things play into it:
* confirmation bias
There’s a few terms in the gay community to describe the various gay archetypes.
Like butch for masculine lesbians and femme for feminine ones, or bear for manly muscular gays and twink for skinny feminine gay guys.
A gay person that dresses more like the opposite sex is more noticeable, as straight-passing gay people won’t activate your gaydar. If you already expect gay people to dress like that then noticing such people just further enhances the idea that it’s generally true.
* LGBT culture
Your clothing style preferences will always be influenced by your peers. So the subconscious need to fit into your group makes people in the LGBT community to develop certain style to set them apart from others.
Standing out from straight people also helps them to attract partners. If you are looking to meet gay people you will first talk to people that give off clear gay vibes instead of trying to hit on someone that’s probably straight.
* pride
If you’ve hid your homosexuality all your life and felt ashamed of it, it can feel great to embrace it even more by making your clothes a public statement that you are gay.
* same root causes
Homosexuality and gender dysphoria are both caused by hormonal imbalances during pregnancy that cause parts of the brain to develop as the other sex.
If it’s only the part of the brain that’s responsible for sexual attraction you’ll be gay.
If it’s the part of the brain that’s responsible for self-identification and the internal body map it causes gender dysphoria.
If you imagine both homosexuality and transgenderism as a scale than a femme lesbian or a butch gay are high on the gay scale, but cis on the gender scale. A butch lesbian and a twink gay is more on the trans side of the gender scale, but not as high as transgender people are.
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