Prsure to keep up: stat imbalance a major factor strs gay men | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• PRSURE TO KEEP UP: STAT IMBALANCE A MAJOR FACTOR STRS GAY MEN
• THE GAY COMMUNY’S OBSSN WH STAT AND LOOKS HAS HUGE MENTAL HEALTH COSTS
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• SAD GAY QUOT & SAYGS
• UNTTHS AND FACTS ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE GAY, LBIAN, OR BISEXUAL
• SAD GAY POEMS
• GAY SAD QUOT & SAYGS
• DO SOUTH CAROLA HAVE TWO GAY U.S. SENATORS?

PRSURE TO KEEP UP: STAT IMBALANCE A MAJOR FACTOR STRS GAY MEN

The persistence of mental health hardships among gay and bisexual men, which endure even as LGBTQ people ga greater acceptance and civil rights, n be explaed at least part by the rrosive effects of stat nscns, petivens and racism wh the gay muny are the strikg and potentially ntroversial fdgs of a study published January the Journal of Personaly and Social Psychology that may broan appreciatn of the unique strsors faced by gay and bisexual and lbian people have a more than fourfold higher rate of suici than the general populatn.

Photograph: Chris CassidyIn 2017, the journalist Michael Hobb bucked this trend a ep dive for HuffPost to what he lled an epimic of gay lonels. The article’s populary among gay and bisexual men was a ttament to a hunger for narrativ that validate persistent feelgs of unease about gay culture.

THE GAY COMMUNY’S OBSSN WH STAT AND LOOKS HAS HUGE MENTAL HEALTH COSTS

Pachankis’s paper reprents the field of psychology tchg up wh somethg that to many has long been pafully self-evint: gay men n be awfully hard on each other. Pachankis’s study is the most rigoro five-year study is based on five psychologil studi, cludg four meticuloly signed experiments wh ne horts of gay and bisexual men. Pachankis and his lleagu found that the strs gay and bisexual men reported experiencg related to their muny’s preoccupatn wh sex, stat and petn, as well as racism wh their ranks, was associated wh promised mental health, pecially for those lower on the gay-stat totem nnectns held even when the vtigators ntrolled for tradnal factors tied to the strs of beg a stigmatized sexual mory as well as general life study culmated wh a seri of experiments which gay and bisexual men participated a chat room wh other men.

When the participants experienced rejectn om gay or bisexual men they perceived to be of superr stat, bee of a higher level of masculy, attractivens and e, this proved particularly a stat imbalance did not tensify feelgs of rejectn if the higher-stat man was straight.

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

Rejectn om gay and bisexual peers, Pachankis found a follow-up study soon to be published the Annals of Behavral Medice, was also associated wh an creased likelihood that men would engage sex that put them at risk for fdg reveals an apparent bld spot HIV preventn. “In the HIV-risk article, ” Pachankis says, “we repeatedly mentn, ‘Why not look at the people gays are actually havg sex wh as sourc of strs?

Th, any subculture posed entirely of the male sex – thk the NFL or a at hoe – is likely to be trsilly stat gay male culture, such petn is pound by the fact that members pete for social and sexual ga and for sex wh each other. Body-nsc gay men often go to extensive lengths to outmatch petors and attract higher-stat efforts n give rise to body dysmorphia, eatg disorrs and harmful e of anabolic steroids, says Aaron Blashill of San Diego State Universy, who rearch body image among men who have sex wh men his studi rarely report, he says, “‘I had a really difficult week bee someone lled me a fag.

SAD GAY QUOT & SAYGS

”‘No silver bullet’Historilly, most psychologil rearch to health and mental health dispari among sexual mori has foced on the trma of growg up and livg a homophobic 1957, psychologist Evelyn Hooker published a groundbreakg study that found homosexuals were psychologilly healthy, parable to heterosexuals that regard. Pachankis’s Personaly and Social Psychology paper troduc a new paradigm he lls the “gay muny strs theory” and which is meant to plement mory strs theory. “This paper and this work on tra-gay muny strs, ” Meyer says, “is fely potg to a problem that LGBTQ advot and muny centers and people who al wh therapy or rcg distrs the muni need to pay attentn to.

”Pachankis, Meyer and others have neverthels exprsed ncern that the new fdgs may be misnsted or even liberately misread and manipulated to serve an age-old narrative characterizg homosexualy as herently damagg. ”Skyler Jackson, a postdoctoral fellow unr Pachankis who studi tersectnaly, says he hop that “ addn to makg a splash the general arena of LGBTQ health – and gay and bisexual men’s health specifilly – gay muny strs theory may generate new rearch directns among many other populatns that are at risk for tramory strs. ”To unter the imprsn that membership the gay world is overwhelmgly leter, Pachankis emphasiz gay men’s nsirable rilience and creativy the face of great hardship and the myriad means by which gay men provi mutual rg and support agast life strsors.

UNTTHS AND FACTS ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE GAY, LBIAN, OR BISEXUAL

If you’re lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, or queer(LGBTQ) or are explorg your sexual orientatn or genr inty, and you stggle wh anxiety or prsn, let’s start by puttg thgs to ntext. All of , whether gay, straight, cisgenr, or not — or somewhere between — are more than a nstellatn of the difficulti that we’ve had to face.

SAD GAY POEMS

But what Pachankis and his lleagu began to notice their work was that gay and bisexual men reported feelg much of their strs g om their peers, or what a new study led by Pachankis lls tra-mory strs. And is the most signifint of s kd to exame muny strsors among gay and bisexual fdgs reveal what many the muny know all too well: that gay and bisexual men n be pretty harsh wh one another and wh ourselv tryg to measure up.

GAY SAD QUOT & SAYGS

Spoke to Pachankis about the leadg strsors that origate wh the muny, their effects on mental and physil health, and how gay and bisexual men might better support one another and venture to move forward were the major prsur you found affectg the mental health of gay and bisexual men? The fourth was that the gay muny is exclnary of diversy, cludg racial-ethnic diversy and age diversy, and discrimatory towards gay men wh rearch fds that each of the class of strsors is associated wh prsn and anxiety. But some likely have a distct impact pendg on where a gay or bisexual man falls along the stat-based peckg orr that a lot of people talked about perceivg as a e of strs.

To the extent that we know ourselv through the reflectn of others, what we fd is that gay and bisexual men might be particularly likely to size themselv up g the same standards of attractivens and succs and masculy that they e to size up their potential sex partners, which n be particularly groups did you fd were disproportnately affected? We also found that younger men pared to olr men were more strsed, and that bisexual men were ls likely to experience this type of gay muny strs.

DO SOUTH CAROLA HAVE TWO GAY U.S. SENATORS?

Obvly, the greatt sourc of HIV risk are stctural disadvantag, particular the stctural forms of homophobia and racism that affect gay and bisexual men of lor, disproportnately.

To my knowledge, no prev studi had really homed on the strs that gay and bisexual men might experience wh each other as predictors of HIV found a rrelatn where gay and bisexual men who are particularly strsed by the gay muny’s foc on sex, stat, and petn or who were likely to perceive the gay muny as exclnary of diversy were more likely to engage sex whout ndoms or PrEP their daily liv.

At the same time, I knew that any rearch that shows stigma or heterosexism is not the sole e of gay and bisexual men's poor mental health uld potentially be ed to somehow return to this old historic argument that somehow gay and bisexual men were herently I was fortable proceedg wh the studi bee I knew they uld potentially be a ll for actn wh the gay muny, to crease s embrace of what have historilly been s most remarkable attribut—s abily to support each other the fac of ernment neglect, to thk creatively about how to form iendships and partnerships, and ultimately how to urageoly look wh and form a muny that LGBTQ+ people n be proud there solutns to the muny dynamics suggted by your rearch? One of the least equently endorsed ems on our surveys was that gay men aren’t good iends to each other, which really suggts that relyg on and strengtheng iendships the face of some of the more strsful aspects of the gay muny would be a sure route to protect agast that type of the extent that gay muny spac move onle to platforms like Grdr, the norms for munitn and for muny get grad and brought down to the lowt mon nomator.