“Gay-ray” Boys: A Study of Gay-ray Masculinities Among High School Boys in Thailand

Abstract

Gay-ray masculinity is a phenomenon that has had a novel, unlikely impact on Thai high school boys’ masculinity practices in recent times. Within the historical context of the student political movement in 2020 that challenged the ideology of heteronormativity in the schools, this article aims to demonstrate the impact of gay-ray masculinity in the alteration of hegemonic masculinity and heteronormative practices among high school boys by utilizing multiple lenses of masculinity, internet meme studies, and queer transformative spaces theory. This study used school-based and online-based ethnography with focus group interviews of five self-proclaimed gay-ray boys as data-collecting methods. The results unveiled the influence of gay memes in their everyday practices, like the online communication and the peer interaction called “gay play.” The gay plays required the contexts of intimacy and disclosure to perform, which affected their homosocialization within the group. These practices may be interpreted as having a negative impact on gender equality ideology, but they also shed light on the new possibility of creating new spaces for queering the school’s heteronormativity and question the attachment between sexuality and gender.