Growing up in the South, he felt a pressure to perform being a gentleman, but he realized that this implied doing things for one gender rather than all genders. “I make sure to not do things solely for women, such as opening doors, offering to buy drinks, giving hugs, et cetera,” he explained. “For me, degendering my generosity was a way to honor a fundamental aspect of myself and a way of balancing how I treat people. I consciously felt a need to have it be clear in my public interactions that I didn’t just do these things for women, but that I did them for people, regardless of gender or
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