What Do It Mean to Be a Gay Man? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• GAY MEN AND AGG: FDG YOUR PURPOSE
• GAY MEN’S HEALTH AND INTY: SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE LIFE COURSE

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

The phrase “g out” is ed to refer to several aspects of lbian, gay, and bisexual persons’ experienc: self-awarens of same-sex attractns; the tellg of one or a few people about the attractns; wispread disclosure of same-sex attractns; and intifitn wh the lbian, gay, and bisexual muny. In a 1987 say tled “A Separate People Whose Time Has Come, ” Hay scribed homosexuals as “spir people, ” who, throughout the ag, had served society their rol as “msengers and tercers, shamans of both genrs, prits and prits, imagemakers and prophets, mim and rhapsos, poets and playwrights, healers and nurturers, teachers and preachers, tkers and tkerers, searchers and rearchers. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTOp-Ed ContributorNormal as FolkJune 21, 2012Ann Arbor, ’S gay pri month aga, and that means ’s time for the straight media to liver s annual state-of-the-gay experience is any gui, this exercise will volve a lot of triumphalism about the progrs of the gay movement, as measured by the creasg cultural assiatn of young lbians and gay men to Amerin society as a men particular, who ed to ighten the hors wh flamboyant displays of sexual outlawry, genr treason and fabulons, have supposedly dropped their signia of tribal belongg and joed the mastream.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Olr gay men may still thrill to torch songs, show tun, classic Hollywood melodramas and Lalique; they may still spend hours arrangg the furnure jt all that foofy stuff looks irrelevant to morn gay men, who don’t see themselv as belongg to a separate culture, let alone such a queeny one. At least sce the 1970s, gay men have been drawg vid generatnal parisons between gay boys their teens and 20s — morn, liberated, enlightened, untouched by gay culture, “utterly distguishable om straight boys” and “pletely lm about beg gay” (as Andrew Holleran put his 1978 novel, “Dancer From the Dance”) — and olr gay men, fanatilly attached to an outdated gay culture and nvced that is the only gay culture there is. (Of urse, those sorry gay men their 30s and 40s, who allegedly clg to an outmod, passé versn of gay culture, mt be the very same people who, only a few years earlier, were those pneerg gay teenagers, takg their first nocent steps a brave new world whout homophobia, ignorant of gay culture and different to .

GAY MEN AND AGG: FDG YOUR PURPOSE

Instead of worryg that the feme associatns of diva worship, terr ratg or the performg arts may make gay male psychology look diseased, the real qutn we should ask about gay style is what s refal of nonil masculy achiev and what enabl s practners, straight or gay, to quire to melodrama, mp, irony, drag, bodybuildg or Art De as “gay” styl is to seek the ntent of gay culture s practic — to scribe the terventn gay culture mak the world as is given.

Biblil terpretatn ma illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female drs, and sensatnalized public trials warned agast “viants” but also ma such martyrs and hero popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chillg origs of the word “faggot” clu a stick of wood ed public burngs of gay men.

This creasg awarens of an existg and vulnerable populatn, upled wh Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vtigatn of homosexuals holdg ernment jobs durg the early 1950s outraged wrers and feral employe whose own liv were shown to be send-class unr the law, cludg Frank Kameny, Barbara Gtgs, Allen Gsberg, and Harry Hay. Fstrated wh the male learship of most gay liberatn groups, lbians fluenced by the femist movement of the 1970s formed their own llectiv, rerd labels, mic ftivals, newspapers, bookstor, and publishg ho, and lled for lbian rights mastream femist groups like the Natnal Organizatn for Women. The creasg expansn of a global LGBT rights movement suffered a setback durg the 1980s, as the gay male muny was cimated by the Aids epimic, mands for passn and medil fundg led to renewed alns between men and women as well as angry street theatre by groups like Aids Coaln to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and Queer Natn.

GAY MEN’S HEALTH AND INTY: SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE LIFE COURSE

Wh greater media attentn to gay and lbian civil rights the 1990s, trans and tersex voic began to ga space through works such as Kate Boernste’s “Genr Outlaw” (1994) and “My Genr Workbook” (1998), Ann Fsto-Sterlg’s “Myths of Genr” (1992) and Llie Feberg’s “Transgenr Warrrs” (1998), enhancg shifts women’s and genr studi to bee more clive of transgenr and nonbary inti. The Ksey report of 1948, for example, found that 30 percent of adult Amerin mal among Ksey’s subjects had engaged some homosexual activy and that 10 percent reported that their sexual practice had been exclively homosexual for a perd of at least three years between the ag of 16 and 55.

In rponse to their activism, many jurisdictns enacted laws banng discrimatn agast homosexuals, and an creasg number of employers Ameri and European untri agreed to offer “domtic partner” benefs siar to the health re, life surance and, some s, pensn benefs available to heterosexual married upl.