Manhood/Honor Culture and Its Impact on the Queer Community

Cultures often associated as being ‘honour cultures’ or ‘so-called honour’ cultures are often portrayed as having rigid gender beliefs (DeGue et al, 2023). These ‘so-called honour’ societies, grasp significantly to masculine and patriarchal philosophies, male dominance, and the reinforcement of a family’s or individual’s honour (Katzman et al., 2024). Within cultures deeply embedded in ‘honour’, masculinity and patriarchy are frequently outlined by traits such as strength, aggression, control, and the innate ability to sustain one’s character and societal standing within the community. Honour is characteristically often interrelated to the maintenance of individual, collective and familial honour (Pollock,2007) through a set of honour codes (Gregory et al, 2020), which are often seen as exposed by behaviour considered to be non-confirmative to the observed honour codes such as ‘loss of virtue’ (Keyhani, 2013). Some ‘so-called honour’ cultures impose rigorous gender binaries believing in the significance of customary gender roles (Foster et al, 2025), where it is assumed, men are expected to conform to enforced gendered roles; aligned with normative ideologies of male hegemony and dominance over women and submissive men, with any deviation from these roles pilloried by the community (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005).