Men’s Mental Health Month Is here, But All You Did Was Hate Pride
We need to talk about men 🌈
Let’s be honest, you didn’t care when your best friend was depressed. You just care now because there’s glitter in your feed.
Bro, Is This Your First Time Remembering June Exists?
June rolls around, and suddenly everyone’s a men’s mental health advocate. Weird, because all year you called your sad friends “weak” and told your bro to just “chug a beer and move on.” But okay.
And then, like clockwork, the posts start:
“Why does Pride get all the attention?” “Nobody talks about us.” “Men have it so hard”
Yes, you do. But maybe not in the way you think.
Let’s Talk About Grief Politics
Men’s mental health matters. Let me scream it louder:
Men deserve to be held. To cry. To heal. To unlearn. To feel. From birth,
boyhood is complicated.
They are handed toys that growl and crash
"cars that never break"
"superheroes that save everyone.”
But the thing is
men aren’t superheroes.
They can’t solve everything.
And they shouldn’t have to
But from the moment they’re wrapped in blue
“Be tough.”
“Don’t cry.”
“Be the provider”
That’s not masculinity.
That’s emotional exile. (Read: Gender to me feels like poetry in a world made for calculations)
And the superhero?
He becomes a tragic protagonist
in a never-ending Shakespearean play.
Ever read Macbeth?
Shakespeare dissected masculinity long before Instagram influencers did.
Macbeth questions his manhood
not because he wants to,
but because he’s coerced to equate masculinity
with ambition,
power,
dominance,
and the ability to kill his vulnerability.
He first murders because he’s afraid of being seen as not man enough.
“When you durst do it, then you were a man.”
Sound familiar?
Yeah. That’s the blueprint for most cis-het men out here.
Do You Want Healing?
Here’s what I’ve seen:
Guys who never went to therapy, never told their guy friends “I love you,” never questioned why they feel numb, now using trauma as a protest?
Like, where was this energy when your friend ghosted everyone for 6 months?
Where was it when your younger brother was bullied for being soft?
It’s almost like you don’t want men to heal you, just want to stay the loudest victim in the room
But healing isn’t a competition.
It’s a revolution.
And it has to be loud for all of us.
June Could Heal Us All
Imagine:
A month where straight men actually supported each other without judgement.
A month where people get to spread love to everyone without any judgement.
A month where healing wasn’t conditional on who got more Instagram likes. Just because the community hasn’t popularized it.
Men’s Mental Health Month is not a clapback at Pride.
It’s a call to reconnect with your brothers, with softness with feelings, and advocate against toxic systems.
Stop turning it into a fight.
Start turning it into a mirror.
You matter. Look deeper. You will find love.
Because honestly?
We’re all just trying to make sense of ourselves in this noise. I know I am.
Some of us just do it in neon crop tops and glitter eyeliners or even just sit at home and watch pride.
And guess what that doesn’t invalidate your masculinity.
Two Sides of the Same Coin
Pride and men’s mental health aren’t in competition — they’re reflections of the same truth:
We’re all aching for space to be ourselves.
Queer folks fight for the right to exist authentically. Men are begging to feel without shame.
At their core, both movements are saying:
"Please, let me be human without punishment."
So maybe June isn’t about choosing one over the other. It’s about realizing that softness, vulnerability, and truth belong to all of us.
Let’s stop making pain a battlefield.
Start making it a bridge.
We are the human race, after all we are bound to live in solidarity.
So why not?
And maybe, that’s how we all get free.
Not tryna be famous
just tryna feel less alone.
[@inkedinemotions] if u wanna read the mess that made me
