Presentation short abstract

This paper explores the re-configuration of the relationship between masculinities and nature within queer articulations of veganism. Through an ethnographic study of a queer festival, it examines the reclaiming of the ‘soy boy’ stereotype to highlight radical gender and environmental politics.

Presentation long abstract

This paper addresses the powerful effects of queering masculine relationships to nature through veganism’s gendered politics and its potential for queer expression. Hegemonic masculinities have commonly been depicted in opposition to the supposed ‘feminine’ nature of environmentalism, exemplified by gendered attitudes towards veganism. Indeed, veganism is stereotypically labelled as a passive and feminine diet, resulting in the portrayal of vegan men as ‘unmasculine’. Alongside this we have seen the development of the phrase ‘soy boy’, an insult used against men who do not hold traditionally masculine traits, including meat consumption. The term soy boy is used as a reference to the fabricated idea that consuming soy-based products dramatically increases one’s oestrogen. This paper concerns itself with the destabilisation of the ‘soy boy’ stereotype and the queer and ecological effects of this. In its explorations it turns to an ethnography of a queer festival, examining the types of gendered expressions within the festival’s vegan kitchen and food tent. Here it utilises both queer camp and vegan camp theory to suggest that the ‘soy boy’ image was effectively parodied by the individuals within the food tent, largely through the adoption of a camp aesthetic, seen within clothing and movements. The food tent thus highlights radical displays of gender ‘deviance’ intermingled with environmentalism, with queerness and veganism working effectively to redefine the relationship between masculinity and the more-than-human. The paper utilises veganism and its environmental ethics to foreground queer masculine approaches to the ways the more-than-human figures within both our diets and lives.