“Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions.” Tom Wingfield, in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
My first impression of Chris Girman was of a tall, lean, easygoing guy in a flowery shirt, standing in the middle of a living room during a friend’s birthday celebration.
Later, I learned he is a highly regarded nonfiction writing professor at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. I also found that his first recognized work was daringly titled Mucho Macho, with the not-so-subtle subtitle Seduction, Desire, and the Homoerotic Lives of Latin Men.
What defines his work is audacity. He does not keep the recommended distance from the subject he observes. He gets close, becomes involved, and even falls in love with it. Yes, I mean Latino men. But he also turns the lens on himself, making his own experience the core of the story.
Bringing sex, emotion, and desire into a master’s thesis sounds like a recipe for disaster, but the result is the opposite: a compelling, honest work.
Far more than a meticulous observer of Latino men, Girman explores in essays like Tennis Lessons, 1983 and What’s Left of You, topics such as his own queer adolescence, vulnerability, and recovery from an accident that left him single-sided deaf (SSD) and without a sense of smell.
After reading this second essay, Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie came to mind, leaving me with the aftertaste of “bits of a shattered rainbow,” as the character Tom Wingfield puts it in his final monologue. Yes, we know that rainbows can shatter.
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Your interest in Latino men began on a personal level, but academic research requires long-term commitment. Why did you devote so much time to this work?
It started accidentally. I grew up on the west coast of South Florida, where there weren’t many Latinos at the time. Spanish classes in high school led me to continue studying it in college as part of an international affairs program. I’d always been drawn to the idea of the world beyond the U.S.
At one point, someone suggested I study Spanish in Guatemala. I wasn’t out yet and didn’t feel fully myself. A traveler I met there introduced me to backpacking, a world I hadn’t even known existed. The experience offered a different way of being with other men—warm, open, physically expressive, but not sexual—and I wanted to stay close to that.
That trip stayed with me, and in many ways, I’ve been revisiting it for the last 30 years.
Your work challenges a major academic boundary; you’re personally involved in what you study. How did you reconcile that?
It happened in reverse. The experiences came first; the academic framework followed. I studied international relations and then law, both very structured and objective. Later, Latin American studies and anthropology offered me new perspectives, but authority to compete with established scholars still felt out of reach.
What I did have were my own experiences—falling in love, transformative moments—that I couldn’t imagine removing from my work. I wanted to be honest about that.
What has that approach taught you over time?
I’m proud that my work has entered conversations around Latin American queer studies and masculinity. But the bigger change is that more scholars are now open to the personal.
In many ways, it confirms what feminists and queer theorists have said for decades: the personal is political. That said, I wish I’d trusted myself more. At times, I held back, thinking it wasn’t my place to speak. Maybe I should have gone further.
On a personal level, were you in love with Latino men?
Yes. But it raised questions. I realized that this could be idealizing a culture, a community. When you put people on a pedestal, you stop seeing them clearly.
But in Latin America, I felt seen. Confidence grew. Even now, when traveling, it feels like stepping into a different version of myself, more open, more alive. And that feeling has stayed.
Your essays seem to explore a wider universe beyond that.
Initially, my focus was on American perspectives on Latino men, but essays like Tennis Lessons, 1983 delve into being a queer teenager, not recognizing your own strengths. Those reflections are deeply personal.
Do you still carry any of that teenager with you?
I don’t think that ever goes away. Gay men, and women too, often carry early insecurities because so much of life is about navigating and overcoming them. I was always a skinny kid, and even after building muscle or gaining weight, I still see that version of myself.
Internalized homophobia or discomfort with oneself also lingers in many gay men. Even confident or flamboyant men often overcompensate. That’s partly why I focus on masculinity studies: so many of us spend years questioning how we walk, talk, and present ourselves.
In Tennis Lessons, 1983, you reflect on which balls to hit and which to let go. How do you apply that today?
Over time, you learn which battles to fight and which to let go. I try to release the pressure to be perfect or overachieve, focusing instead on what feels authentic: enjoying sports, reading, writing, and connecting with people.
Life is about staying in the game, hitting the balls you can, and letting the rest go. Even as you age, you can still be sexy, funny, interesting, and stylish in the gay world.
What are you focusing on in your current writing?
I’ve recently published essays on topics like the Supreme Court. Drawing from my legal background, I try to combine personal narrative with professional insight. My goal is to write for myself and communities I care about, particularly Latino communities.
I’ve also considered writing about undocumented minors at the border, based on my experience in Texas. These stories highlight humanity, law, and systemic issues.
Are you engaging with immigration through literature?
Yes. I’m interested in immigrant narratives and would like to teach a class on them. I’ve worked with books like Solito by Javier Zamora, The Undocumented Americans, and Daisy Hernández’s The Kissing Bug.
I’d like to start writing reviews of these books. That feels like a meaningful way to contribute.
You’ve spoken about wanting to “offer something” to the Latino community. What does that mean now?
That question has stayed with me for a long time. What do I really have to offer? This community has shaped so much of my life: my relationships, my research, my confidence.
There are small, tangible ways I try to give back, but I still wonder what my larger role is.
Has that search influenced the direction of your writing?
Definitely. My work has shifted toward more personal and, I think, more mature topics: raising a teenage nephew or writing about my parents and dementia.
I’m trying to figure out what I can say that will resonate. If that intersects with Latino or Latin American experiences, that’s important, but it doesn’t have to define everything I write.
Looking back on your relationships and friendships with Latino men, what would you say to them today?
I’d say, “Thank you for inviting me into your lives, for trusting me to appreciate, honor, and become friendly with your friends and family. I remember our time together, hanging out, going places, being there for one another. Thank you for helping an introvert like me feel more comfortable, to trust myself and be who I wanted to be.”
For a few I didn’t pursue romantically but probably should have, I’d add, “I wish I had been more open, slowed down, accepted invitations, and embraced the wonderful experiences we could have shared.”