Motorcycles are gay

In the below essay, accompanied by his own photography, Radclyffe shares how riding a bike proved to be a powerful catalyst in his journey of self-realization. But because trans identities had become so much more visible over the intervening years, I could now see who — and what — I was.

Every June 21 is World Motorcycle Day, and you can bet that gay bikers around the world are celebrating. Fifteen years later — now married to a man and presenting as ultra-feminine to assimilate with the heterosexual suburban crowd — I took my children to watch a motorcycle rally which was due to ride through our small town on the Connecticut coast.

I rode my own bike, bought my own drinks, and held my own opinions. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission. I bought racing leathers which hid the curves on my chest and hips, and a full-face helmet which concealed the femininity of my face.

As the motorcycles appeared over the hill, I was hit with a destabilizing blast of nostalgia: cigarette butts and motor oil on the floor of the garage where my friends cleaned their carburetors, fry-ups in the greasy spoon cafe where we went for breakfast before each ride, the weightlessness of a one-ton machine hovering above the ground at lawless speed.

Longing and Belonging Toward

Frighten the Horses by Oliver Radclyffe. The motorcycles of the Vandals, the motorcycle club in The Bikeridershad banded together in response to a specific male need: the deep-rooted desire to belong, to be part of a gang. Let's do a little history lesson so I can show you how queer and motorcycle culture are : Pyre Original Soundtrack gay Surviving ExileYouTube.

The whole point of being in this gang was to demonstrate that I was as good as the boys, why would I want to draw attention to my gender by dressing like a girl? Back in those days, when anyone thought of a girl on a motorbike, they immediately pictured the singer Marianne Faithfull.

After all, motorcycles have been revving up gay culture for decades now. Speeding through the English countryside at a hundred miles an hour, nobody could tell me from the men I rode with. This I could relate to, since being a biker became my identity for many years.

The performative side of motorcycling — the tribal masculinity — was central to the plot of The Bikeriders. When my biker friends and I went to motorcycle festivals and shows, the other girls in the group changed out of their leathers and into dresses as soon as we reached our destination.

All products are independently selected by our editors. I wanted the world to know that I was one of the boys, regardless of my gender, and that they should adjust their expectations accordingly. Riding a motorbike designed for racing is a whole-body experience.

From the first gay motorcycle club in the s to Lil Nas X on a Super73, are queer motorcycle aesthetic has taken a meandering cruise through U.S. pop culture. I thought they were insane. The cliche of motorbike as penis-extension was as true for me as it has ever been for any man: I was quite literally trying to compensate for a part of my body that was missing.

But motorcycles are motorcycles, and I was looking forward to indulging in the unadulterated masculinity of it all, reliving those long-lost feelings of euphoria and freedom. Not only did none of the pieces fit together, I had no clear picture of what I was attempting to build.

When I was in my twenties, I too wanted to be one of the boys, and buying a motorbike seemed to be the obvious way to achieve this ambition. Trying to figure out why my identity felt so messed-up had been like trying to assemble a V-twin engine in the dark.

Because I had long blonde hair, the comparison was heightened, so I solved the problem by cutting it all off.