Before They Were Men

Essays on Manhood, Compassion, and What Went Wrong

By: Jacob Tobia

Gender nonconforming thought leader and bestselling author Jacob Tobia offers a paradigm-shifting argument for fundamentally reframing how we think about men.

The conversation about masculinity, patriarchy, and misogyny has never been so prominent or heated. Alarmed by a new generation of angry, broken young men, genderqueer writer Jacob Tobia set out to explore what was going on and came to a shocking conclusion: emotionally and spiritually-speaking, men and boys may be the ones suffering the most under the gender binary right now.

Jacob should know. For their gender-defying adolescent heart, the nonconsensual process of being “made a man” was crushing. After spending a lifetime fleeing manhood and masculinity, Jacob dares to ask the question: what happens if we stop understanding men as categorical beneficiaries of patriarchal institutions and start understanding them for what they are–co-survivors of patriarchy itself?

In a series of personal and devastating essays, Before They Were Men argues that we must rewire our entire framework of feminism. A much-needed nonbinary intervention into a two-sided discourse gone stale, Jacob boldly posits compassion and empathy as the paradigm-shifting forces that will lead men—and us all—to a brighter future. Urgent, surprising, and at times, hilarious, they cover topics like:

• The unspoken body image issues and dysmorphia confronting men and boys.
• The difficulty of challenging a world that glorifies war, aggression, and the violence of men.
• The case for rethinking, and ultimately retiring, counterproductive terms like “Toxic Masculinity” and “Male Privilege.”

From exploring the abuse endured by men in the name of gender norms to addressing the myriad failures of feminist discourse in addressing men’s suffering, this book calls everyone–men, women, and nonbinary people alike–back to the table.

©2025 Jacob Tobia (P)2025 Random House Audio