Banjee

Banjee or banjee boy is a term from the 1980s or earlier that describes a certain type of young Latino or African American man who has sex with men and who dresses in stereotypical masculine urban fashion for reasons which may include expressing masculinity, hiding his sexual orientation and attracting male partners. The term is mostly associated with New York City and may be Nuyorican in origin.Attitude, clothing, ethnicity, masculinity, physique and youth are all elements of what has been called "banjee realness".

An African-American man writes:

Banjee. That was the identity I was given back in the summer of 1991, when I, half out/half in approached the colored museum of the Christopher Street piers. I was new to the life, so I had no reference for what people were talking about, but I soon gathered that "banjee" meant that I wasn't a "queen." Whatever the terms of identification, all I knew was that there was one thing that brought both the banjees and the queens (and whatever lies between) to the pier: we were men who loved men. An anxious 19 year old, I wore my banjee realness designation like a badge of honor. [...] a queen schooled me on how my masculinity was something that carried great weight, not only in the gay world, but the straight world as well.

The 1990 documentary film Paris Is Burning featured "banjee realness" as one of the categories in which contestants competed for trophies. According to The Village Voice "banjee boy categories have been a part of vogue balls since at least the early 1980s".

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