Where are all the lonely gay men?

Contents:

• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• GAY LONELS: IS IT A SYMPTOM OR A BYPRODUCT OF LIFE?
• IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?
• GAY LONELS IS THE SILENT EPIMIC FACG THE QUEER COMMUNY
• 5 SYMPTOMS OF GAY LONELS
• I'M A GAY ARMY OFFICER—QUEER TROOPS MT FIGHT BACK
• WHERE ARE ALL THE LONELY GAY MEN?

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

In our lifetime, the gay muny has ma more progrs on legal and social acceptance than any other mographic group history. As recently as my own adolcence, gay marriage was a distant aspiratn, somethg newspapers still put sre quot. Still, even as we celebrate the sle and speed of this change, the rat of prsn, lonels and substance abe the gay muny rema stuck the same place they’ve been for s.

Gay people are now, pendg on the study, between 2 and 10 tim more likely than straight people to take their own liv.

GAY LONELS: IS IT A SYMPTOM OR A BYPRODUCT OF LIFE?

In a survey of gay men who recently arrived New York Cy, three-quarters suffered om anxiety or prsn, abed dgs or alhol or were havg risky sex—or some batn of the three. Dpe all the talk of our “chosen fai, ” gay men have fewer close iends than straight people or gay women. “Marriage equaly and the chang legal stat were an improvement for some gay men, ” says Christopher Stults, a rearcher at New York Universy who studi the differenc mental health between gay and straight men.

In the Netherlands, where gay marriage has been legal sce 2001, gay men rema three tim more likely to suffer om a mood disorr than straight men, and 10 tim more likely to engage “suicidal self-harm.

TTravis Salway, a rearcher wh the BC Centre for Disease Control Vanuver, has spent the last five years tryg to figure out why gay men keep killg themselv. “But now you’ve got lns of gay men who have e out of the closet and they still feel the same isolatn.

IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?

By the late 2000s, he was a social worker and epimlogist and, like me, was stck by the growg distance between his straight and gay iends. He started to wonr if the story he had always heard about gay men and mental health was plete.

GAY LONELS IS THE SILENT EPIMIC FACG THE QUEER COMMUNY

When the dispary first me to light the ’50s and ’60s, doctors thought was a symptom of homosexualy self, jt one of many maniftatns of what was, at the time, known as “sexual versn.

” As the gay rights movement gaed steam, though, homosexualy disappeared om the DSM and the explanatn shifted to trma. “That was the ia I had, too, ” Salway says, “that gay suici was a product of a bygone era, or was ncentrated among adolcents who didn’t see any other way out.

5 SYMPTOMS OF GAY LONELS

The problem wasn’t jt suici, wasn’t jt afflictg teenagers and wasn’t jt happeng areas staed by homophobia. He found that gay men everywhere, at every age, have higher rat of rdvascular disease, ncer, ntence, erectile dysfunctn, ⁠ allergi and asthma—you name , we got . In Canada, Salway eventually disvered, more gay men were dyg om suici than om AIDS, and had been for years.

“We see gay men who have never been sexually or physilly asslted wh siar post-trmatic strs symptoms to people who have been bat suatns or who have been raped, ” says Alex Kroghlian, a psychiatrist at the Fenway Instute’s Center for Populatn Rearch LGBT Health. Sce he looked to the data, Salway has started terviewg gay men who attempted suici and survived. “When you ask them why they tried to kill themselv, ” he says, “most of them don’t mentn anythg at all about beg gay.

“The trma for gay men is the prolonged nature of , ” says William Elr, a sexual trma rearcher and psychologist. By the time he got to high school, Adam had learned to manage his mannerisms so well that no one spected him of beg gay.

I'M A GAY ARMY OFFICER—QUEER TROOPS MT FIGHT BACK

And I kept nyg was a problem bee I had always told myself, ‘I’ve e out, I moved to San Francis, I’m done, I did what I had to do as a gay person. For s, this is what psychologists thought, too: that the key stag inty formatn for gay men all led up to g out, that once we were fally fortable wh ourselv, we uld beg buildg a life wh a muny of people who’d gone through the same thg.

“It’s like you emerge om the closet expectg to be this butterfly and the gay muny jt slaps the ialism out of you, ” Adam says.

You go om your mom’s hoe to a gay club where a lot of people are on dgs and ’s like, this is my muny?

WHERE ARE ALL THE LONELY GAY MEN?

“I me out when I was 17, and I didn’t see a place for myself the gay scene, ” says Pl, a software veloper. It got so bad that I ed to go to the grocery store that was 40 mut away stead of the one that was 10 mut away jt bee I was so aaid to walk down the gay street. “Gay men particular are jt not very nice to each other, ” says John, the adventure tour gui.

Every gay man I know rri around a mental portfol of all the shty thgs other gay men have said and done to him.