Many flinch at the word ‘bro’ and they are right to be suspicious. Male structures of support are the cause of most inequality and violence around the world. Groups of men often unite around violence and gate-keeping, inclusion based on exclusion. Hazing and mob mentality are not coincidence but its inevitable consequences. However, queerness is fluid and expanding. It subverts stereotypes and opens new possibilities. 

Belonging’s hard when you grow up queer. Too often, we experience rejection for being who we are and learn to hide our true selves in order to survive. Those experiences define the way we treat ourselves and each other. 

Gay excellence is one of the ways we deal with that rejection. We try to do the best work, be funnier, smarter, sassier, better dressed, hotter than everyone else in the hope that we’ll earn acceptance. We internalize this way of doing, seeking validation through achievement and comparison, and bring it to our spaces. It poisons the way we treat each other.

Traditional gay spaces are hypercompetitive and hierarchical. Individuals try to outrank each other based on things like ‘hotness’, sexual prowess, popularity, style. It can carry over to friend groups —often our only support networks—, where constant mean-spirited verbal attacks are often normalized and glossed over as “just teasing, sis”. The violence we received, we keep inflicting on each other. It doesn’t have to be this way.

We deserve relationship structures based on love, support and kindness. Our search for alternatives has led us to Queer Brotherhood. Let’s consider two factors:

First, family archetypes in the gay mainstream. We have the “Mother of the House” as caretaker and the fetichized Father figure —hierarchical, sought after for approval, mostly absent from active care. As for siblings, we’ve explored sisterhood but not brotherhood. “Brother” stirs different energies in our subconscious than “sister” does. It beckons for different queer relationship dynamics.

Second, language use in cultures with extended family structures. We’ll offer our personal examples. Nick’s from Thailand, where words for sibling —พี่ (Pee) for big bro, น้อง (Nong) for lil bro— are used as pronouns and prefixes in everyday conversation, even with strangers. Growing up around this created a feeling of laid back endearment, like everyone was related. DoubleA’s Dominican, where close friends are treated the same as family. He was still discovering some of his aunts and uncles were not blood-related well into his 20s. 

We’re reclaiming ‘bro’. Calling everyone your brother conveys a kind of support and companionship that is warm and simple, about exploring and doing together. It sets the default to friendship in a way that feels almost naive, but works very well. Especially in spaces that try to force us into Top/bottom and Dom/sub dynamics, calling someone your ‘bro’ can gently reset the interaction back to a friendly “let’s hang out”.

It’s not about aesthetics. Bator culture is the natural result of bating as a practice. When everyone can satisfy themselves fully, the point of the interaction is the sharing itself. Non-penetration feels less vulnerable and opens up the ways people ‘attach’ to one another. This changes the sexual economics and hierarchies, it’s no longer end-to-end so there’s no need to compete. Play becomes more interlinked and collaborative. Plus, edging requires a lot of communication. We are talking about groups of mostly queer men and non-binary folk who share this practice sometimes several times a week.

We’ve built this way of treating one another with care, gratitude and mutual admiration. We celebrate and validate each other as we are. Bonding over the span of continents and decades, we weave networks of friendships that are horny and tender. It’s a new protocol that can renounce both homonormativity and negative notions of masculinity. 

However, having struggled to find our place, are we leaving anyone out? We MUST ask ourselves, are we bringing the same dynamics of exclusion and violence into our queer brotherhood? 

We have enormous privilege within the collective. Our ‘safe spaces’ are fortresses compared to other oppressed groups’. Until everyone is safe, safety cannot be an end in itself but a force for change. We could, instead, rethink our spaces as spaces of collaboration, alliance and mutual support*, places where we recharge and coordinate with other groups in order to find ways to create safety and freedom for all. 

We must expand our queer brotherhood. Extend the love and support we give each other to all our siblings. Sit and listen to them intently, even bate together should they want to. We must learn from them and grow together. We can harness the teamwork, creativity and openness of the bate and bring them into joint efforts to create structures and spaces where we can all belong, truly, as we are.