01/17/2026
A few weeks ago, I received a comment on my Substack from an anonymous account with no real name and no profile photo. It was in response to my advocacy around mental health here in Oregon, my home state, something I speak about often and personally.
This is what they wrote, with the slurs censored exactly as they appeared:
“Reads a lot like sour grapes and feminist bull$&it. What you are selling will hurt men worse. F@&$ like you ruined a beautiful state. I miss my home.”
That comment is not an outlier. It is not shocking. And it is not surprising.
It is a perfect example of why this work matters.
I talk openly about mental health because I live with its realities every day. I advocate for better systems, more compassion, and real support because I have seen what happens when those things do not exist. I speak about emotional health, accountability, and care because silence and stigma are killing people, especially men here in Oregon and beyond.
The response I received was not a disagreement. It was a performance of toxic masculinity.
Toxic masculinity is not strength. It is the belief that strength comes from dominance and degradation. It frames empathy as weakness and anger as virtue. It teaches men to stay silent instead of honest, closed off instead of curious, hostile instead of reflective. It rewards cruelty and punishes vulnerability.
It tells men to bury grief. To suppress fear. To turn pain into rage. And then it calls that manhood.
That belief system harms everyone. It harms men who are never taught how to process emotion. It harms women who live under its weight. It harms the LGBTQ + community. It harms children who grow up learning that love has conditions and emotions have consequences.
My work directly challenges that.
I talk about mental health because real strength requires self awareness. I talk about care and accountability because courage is not pretending you are fine when you are not. I talk about vulnerability because honesty saves lives. And I talk about masculinity because the version many of us were handed is broken.
Real masculinity looks different.
Real masculinity understands that kindness is strength. Compassion is strength. Gentleness is strength. Listening is strength. Choosing empathy in a world that rewards cruelty takes far more courage than anger ever will.
Real masculinity stands up for others. It listens before it reacts. It knows when to speak and when to learn. It is not threatened by difference. It is grounded in empathy and expressed through compassion. It makes room instead of building walls.
There is also nothing strong about hiding.
There is nothing courageous about using slurs from behind an anonymous account. That is not leadership. That is not conviction. That is fear wearing a costume. People hide like that because accountability terrifies them. Because they know their words would not survive daylight. And that hiding tells its own story.
This is why I keep speaking up.
For the first 35 years of my life, I lived inside a culture shaped by toxic masculinity. I was a conservative evangelical pastor. I was taught that men do not cry, do not ask for help, and do not question authority. Tenderness was weakness. Reflection was suspect. Growth was dangerous.
I watched men contort themselves to survive that system. I watched boys grow into men who believed they could never be honest about what they felt. I watched families fracture under the pressure. And I became someone who looked strong on the outside while quietly burning out on the inside.
Leaving that world in 2017 changed everything. It forced me to rebuild my understanding of masculinity from the ground up. I learned that real masculinity is emotional. Relational. Accountable. Creative. It is rooted in empathy and strengthened by connection. It does not fear difference. It learns from it.
So when I advocate for mental health in Oregon, when I speak about care, systems, and compassion, and when I challenge toxic masculinity, this is why.
Because men deserve better. Women deserve better. The LGBTQ + community deserves better. Children deserve better. Our communities deserve better.
Toxicity has had the microphone long enough.
I am here to help hand it to something healthier, braver, and more honest about what it means to be a man.
