“Deep Conversations With the Most Alternative Dude”: Hybrid Masculinity of White Straight Cisgender Men in Inclusive Nightlife Spaces in Rotterdam

This research examines how white, cisgender, and straight men negotiate masculinity in inclusive nightlife. Drawing on fourteen semi-structured interviews with inclusive nightlife visitors in Rotterdam (the Netherlands), we identified two distinct strategies of how the participants performed a hybrid masculinity while navigating an inclusive environment: 1. Translational masculinity (translating subordinate masculine practices), and 2. Inconspicuous masculinity (toning down hegemonic masculine practices). These strategies emerge in a paradoxical inclusive space: a space that allows for different and inclusive forms of masculinity but simultaneously feels exclusionary for white, cisgender, straight men because of their hegemonic position. The participants negotiated their power position and legitimate unequal gender relations by co-opting feminist discourse while positioning themselves opposite of LGBTQ+ people and women and as belonging less in inclusive nightlife. The distinction between the two strategies allows future studies to better identify different, and possibly previously missed, practices of hybrid masculinity.