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

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• AM I GAY?
• SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
• INDIA'S FIRST OPENLY GAY PRCE REVEALS HIS PARENTS WANTED HIM TO UNRGO BRA SURGERY
• GAY NYC DANCER FATALLY STABBED WHILE VOGUG AT GAS STATN; HATE CRIME VTIGATN LNCHED
• BROOKLYN MAN WHO WAS VOGUEG AT A GAS STATN FATALLY STABBED POSSIBLE ANTI-GAY HATE CRIME, POLICE SAY
• BEYONCé HONORS FATALLY STABBED GAY MAN ON HER OFFICIAL WEBSE
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

It very much appears that same-sex sexual attractn is not a choice but actg on is; so if you fe gay as the mere prence of same-sex attractn, then om everythg we unrstand, beg gay is not a choice. As every gay man knows who has been sulted or asslted for his actual or perceived sexual orientatn, there are steep penalti for vlatg the Boy Co as there are for anyone who is “different” om the prumed (typilly whe, heterosexual, middle-class) standard.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

How do a gay kid survive the trma he suffers for beg different a culture that still nmns his difference as somethg bad or “ls-than” and wants to mold him to the same shape tri to mold every boy? Robert Pollack says the most important thg a fay n do to support their gay son is to keep lovg him, “to nvey to him, as soon as he shar his feelgs, that he is still loved through and through, that his sexual orientatn will not any way dimish how much he is admired and rpected.

Fortunately there is a long history of gay men who bucked the accepted fns of masculy and created liv that exprsed their unrstandg of themselv and how they choose to exprs their inty as men who don’t necsarily f tradnal molds. The late Harry Hay often lled "the father of the morn gay movement, " found the Mattache Society Los Angel the fall of 1950 for gay men to gather and ponr the qutns Hay had long been askg: Who are gay people?

Hay didn’t tend the Mattach to be a polil anizatn per se, but a group that would e together to enhance their self-unrstandg and explore the ntributns gay people had ma to the human race through the ag.

AM I GAY?

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. He said gay men look at the world differently, are uniquely nonaggrsive, nonpetive, oriented toward sharg and cled to velop what Hay lled “subject-subject” love relatnships of equals. Gay - While this adjective has historilly scribed men who are attracted to other men, the term now is ed to refer to anyone who experienc romantic, emotnal, or physil attractn to people of the same genr.

A group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexuals get that tra om their oppose-sex parents: A lbian will almost always get the tra om her father, while a gay man will get the tra om his heredary lk of homosexualy has long been tablished, but scientists knew was not a strictly geic lk, bee there are many pairs of intil tws who have differg sexuali.

SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

Scientists om the Natnal Instute for Mathematil and Blogil Synthis say homosexualy seems to have an epigeic, not a geic thought to have some sort of heredary lk, a group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexualy is lked to epi-marks — extra layers of rmatn that ntrol how certa gen are exprsed. In homosexuals, the epi-marks aren't erased — they're passed om father-to-dghter or mother-to-son, explas William Rice, an evolutnary blogist at the Universy of California Santa Barbara and lead thor of the study. "There is pellg evince that epi-marks ntribute to both the siary and dissiary of fay members, and n therefore feasibly ntribute to the observed faial herance of homosexualy and s low nrdance between [intil] tws, " Rice and his team created a mathematil mol that explas why homosexualy is passed through epi-marks, not geics.

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

But bee the epi-marks provi an evolutnary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals om unrexposure to ttosterone and mothers of homosexuals om overexposure to ttosterone while they are gtatn.

INDIA'S FIRST OPENLY GAY PRCE REVEALS HIS PARENTS WANTED HIM TO UNRGO BRA SURGERY

"The epi-marks protect fathers and mothers om excs or unrexposure to ttosterone — when they rry over to oppose-sex offsprg, n e the masculizatn of femal or the femizatn of mal, " Rice says, which n lead to a child beg gay. Rice not that the markers are "highly variable" and that only strong epi-marks will rult a homosexual scientists have long spected some sort of geic lk, Rice says studi attemptg to expla why people are gay have been few and far between.

" Homosexual behavr has been observed black swans, pengus, sheep, and other animals, he 's mol still needs to be tted on real-life parent-offsprg pairs, but he says this epigeic lk mak more sense than any other explanatn, and that his team has mapped out a way for other scientists to tt their work. The term “homosexualy, ” while sometim nsired anachronistic the current era, is the most applible and easily translatable term to e when askg this qutn across societi and languag and has been ed other cross-natnal studi, cludg the World Valu Survey. Dpe major chang laws and norms surroundg the issue of same-sex marriage and the rights of LGBT people around the world, public opn on the acceptance of homosexualy society remas sharply divid by untry, regn and enomic velopment.

For example, Swen, the Netherlands and Germany, all of which have a per-pa gross domtic product over $50, 000, acceptance of homosexualy is among the hight measured across the 34 untri surveyed.

GAY NYC DANCER FATALLY STABBED WHILE VOGUG AT GAS STATN; HATE CRIME VTIGATN LNCHED

The study is a follow-up to a 2013 report that found many of the same patterns as seen today, although there has been an crease acceptance of homosexualy across many of the untri surveyed both years. However, while took nearly 15 years for acceptance to rise 13 pots om 2000 to jt before the feral legalizatn of gay marriage June 2015, there was a near equal rise acceptance jt the four years sce legalizatn. This staggerg 56-pot difference exceeds the next largt difference Japan by 20 pots, where 92% and 56% of those ag 18 to 29 and 50 and olr, rpectively, say homosexualy should be accepted by society.

BROOKLYN MAN WHO WAS VOGUEG AT A GAS STATN FATALLY STABBED POSSIBLE ANTI-GAY HATE CRIME, POLICE SAY

In South Korea, for example, those who classify themselv on the iologil left are more than twice as likely to say homosexualy is acceptable than those on the iologil right (a 39-percentage-pot difference). In Spa, people wh a favorable opn of the Vox party, which recently has begun to oppose some gay rights, are much ls likely to say that homosexualy is acceptable than those who do not support the party. And Poland, supporters of the erng PiS (Law and Jtice), which has explicly targeted gay rights as anathema to tradnal Polish valu, are 23 percentage pots ls likely to say that homosexualy should be accepted by society than those who do not support the erng party.

But even untri like France and Germany where acceptance of homosexualy is high, there are differenc between supporters and non-supporters of key right-wg populist parti such as Natnal Rally France and Alternative for Germany (AfD). Relign, both as relat to relative importance people’s liv and actual relig affiliatn, also plays a large role perceptns of the acceptabily of homosexualy many societi across the globe.

BEYONCé HONORS FATALLY STABBED GAY MAN ON HER OFFICIAL WEBSE

In 25 of the 34 untri surveyed, those who say relign is “somewhat, ” “not too” or “not at all” important their liv are more likely to say that homosexualy should be accepted than those who say relign is “very” important. Among Israelis, those who say relign is not very important their liv are almost three tim more likely than those who say relign is very important to say that society should accept homosexualy.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

For example, those who are religly unaffiliated, sometim lled relig “non, ” (that is, those who intify as atheist, agnostic or “nothg particular”) tend to be more acceptg of homosexualy.

Though the opns of religly unaffiliated people n vary wily, virtually every untry surveyed wh a sufficient number of unaffiliated rponnts, “non” are more acceptg of homosexualy than the affiliated. Ahead of the Internatnal day agast homophobia and transphobia on 17 May, we asked our rears what 's like to be LGBT their than 100 submissns were sent via GuardianWns om all over the world. Photograph: JOERG CARSTENSEN/EPA Photograph: JOERG CARSTENSEN/EPAPenal § 175, outlawg gay sex, was of urse abolished s ago, we have openly gay foreign misters and other openly lbian and gay policians - and 's been legal now to "marry" your partner by mtg to a civil unn (whout some rights like the right to adoptn as a uple etc.