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

Contents:

• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• NAVIGATG BORRLE PERSONALY DISORR AS A GAY MAN
• AM I GAY?
• IS THERE A “GAY PERSONALY”?
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY
• PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

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. 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. 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.

NAVIGATG BORRLE PERSONALY DISORR AS A GAY MAN

The relatn between sexual orientatn and personaly was examed a meta-analysis wh a total sample of 2, 724 heterosexual men, 799 gay men, 157 bisexual men, 5, 053 heterosexual women, 697 lbian women, and 317 bisexual women. Bisexual men were much more like gay men than like heterosexual men their Self-M-F and genr-related terts, whereas bisexual women were termediate between lbian and heterosexual women. However, a certa issue between myself and members of the muny has arisen to the pot where I feel like Gil Corey, gettg cshed om some huge weight that I sperately want to get off of my cht: the (for the lack of a better word) gayns of LGBTQ+ is not a sensil personaly tra.

Specifilly, many aspects of the velopment of homosexualy (both the male and female varieti) are not as well unrstood as they should be to make some of the claims that many people felt nfint exprsg.

There's a lot to discs regardg the rults of the paper (Skorska et al, 2016): The rearchers were examg the possibily that a maternal immune rponse might play a key role the velopment of a homosexual orientatn mal. Effectively, then, the mother's immune system would (sometim) treat certa male protes produced by the fet as a foreign pathogen and attempt to attack , rultg out that uld clu a homosexual orientatn, but also fetal loss if the reactn was strong enough (i. Already there is a lot to like about this hypothis on a theoretil level, as don't pos any hidn adaptive benefs for a homosexual orientatn (as such proposed benefs have not received sound empiril support historilly).

AM I GAY?

The rearchers reced approximately 130 mothers and classified them on the basis of what kd of children they had: those who had at least 1 gay son (n = 54), and those who only had heterosexual sons (n = 72).

The mothers were then classified further to one of five groups: those wh gay male only-children (n = 8), those wh gay male offsprg that had no olr brothers (n = 23), those wh gay male offsprg wh olr brothers (n = 23), those wh heterosexual male only-children (n = 11), and those wh heterosexual male offsprg wh siblgs (n = 61). As birth weight tends to crease over succsive pregnanci, the parisons were limed to first live-born sons only (n = 63); this left 4 gay male only-children, 7 gay mal wh no olr brothers, 14 heterosexual mal wh gay younger brothers, 10 heterosexual male only-children, and 28 heterosexual mal wh siblgs.

The rults mirrored those of the fetal-loss data: mothers of gay male only-children tend to give birth to fants that weighed signifintly ls (M = 2970 grams), than all other groups (d = 1. While 's important to not get rried away wh this fdg given the relatively small sample size (I wouldn't put too much stock an N of 8), there is some suggtive evince here worth pursug further that somethg is atypil fetal velopment the se of gay male offsprg.

IS THERE A “GAY PERSONALY”?

Skorska et al (2016) pos that this might have somethg to do wh some mothers showg a greater immune rponse agast male offsprg, rultg more fetal loss, the rult beg that such mothers are both ls likely to have any children at all and more likely to have gay male children particular. If mothers of gay men do not tend to have a greater rat of female-to-male offsprg, this would st some doubt on the explanatn (and, sce the only data I've heard reports that gay men tend to have more olr brothers, seems they would have noticed the sister pot by now if existed). On the other hand, if this is a more general immune reactn agast fetal bodi, regardls of their sex, we would not expect such a pattern ( might also predict that mothers takg immunosupprsants would be ls likely to have gay offsprg/misrry, but thgs are unlikely to be that simple owg to the fact that other effects would rult too).

If is tly the se that maternal immune rpons are the drivers of homosexual velopment humans, would be very cur that siar out don't appear to obta across at least other mammalian speci. I image what life might have been like if I had only known who I was, every holds many parallels to my gayns: the stigma that acpani our culture, the challenge of navigatg ght relatnships, and the seemgly endls qut for a sense of self. Kate FaganWrer, ESPN@KateFagan3ESPN ntributor and lumnist Kate Fagan wr about basketball (and genr and sexism and homophobia) om a place of knowledge and ep, personal appreciatn.

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. Let’s dive eper to this manner I am referrg to is one of an outward feme nature, characterized by affi wh strong female ins, tennci to almost exclively teract wh femal or other gay mal, adherenc to fashn-forward clothg, and displays of physil mannerisms that match or exceed that of a hyper-normal, pop-culture-obssed adolcent girl. While I am not objectg to the claim that the shared valu and attus among gay men might brg about a sense of muny, I am objectg that any behavrs or manners outsi of this acceptable realm of “gayns” should be emed or seen as anti-gay, femmephobic, or tanm wh an ternalized homophobia.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY

Let’s unpack what I mean by the key a documentary, tled Do I Sound Gay?, producers David Thorpe and Howard Gertler try to explore the phenomenon of a “gay slur”, characterized by melod pronunciatns and articulated emphasis on k, t, p, and s sounds, by observg the var speech patterns of a llectn of male dividuals differg sexual orientatn. Durg the urse of the documentary, Thorpe terviewed several straight men that had recurrgly been assumed to be gay, based on the tonaly of their voic, and several gay men that had been assumed to be the oppose based on the same qualifitn. From ductns based on the Toronto study, rearchers, along wh Smyth, nclud that what those perceive to be a “gay voice” is jt a male voice that sounds more stereotypilly feme––one characterized by higher pch, clearer annunciatn, and melody.

This uld expla why gay men might adapt a certa speech pattern to f wh their gay peers, or to, along wh other behavrs, market signal their sexualy and/or availabily to nearby voice, several YouTube channels have sought out to challenge the personaly stereotyp associated wh the members of the LGBT muny, cludg gay men, by askg dience members and terviewe to gus the sexualy of var dividuals based on their appearanc and behavrs. While the are not scientifilly nstcted studi and the producers of the vios uld have tentnally cherry picked dividuals that fied mon gay stereotyp or, on the other hand, “straight stereotyp”, the vios still monstrated that ferrg sexualy based on physil appearanc or mannerisms is rather difficult to acplish wh full accuracy.

YouTube Personaly Davey Wavey on Gay StereotypNow, of urse, there are some monali that all gay men might share and that are too important to ignore the current day and age: g out, beg opprsed by an vasive state, alg wh femme/homophobia, etc…And while I do see the value sharg, wh each other, our experienc and sights om the particular gay-centric issu, I nnot sympathize wh gay men that shame for not sirg to share siar opns or valu on other issu. Beg gay should not, and nnot, lim you to a certa set of beliefs, valu, or behavrs, bee then we are eher bldly nformg to society’s stereotyp––often exprsed entertament and media––or rtrictg the potential of diversy our muny.

PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS

In the article, “The Epimic of Gay Lonels”, Michael Hobb explas more of this, of what higher levels of prsn and anxiety among gay men that have e out and started livg among other high nsy gay populatns. What we n duce om this is that perhaps gay men should stop rippg to each other for actg the way that we do, like ditg our liv to a sport, à la the above-pictured Major League Soccer fenr Robbie Rogers, or like embracg our ner diva, à la YouTube sensatn Tyler Oakley.

Homosexualy is still the rrect term clilly, but even though homosexualy is no longer nsired immoral, some people feel there are still negative overton to the word given s orig. " This hypothis suggts lbians have an creased likelihood of remblg the typil heterosexual man terms of personaly, while gay men's personaly tras are relatively likely to remble those of the typil heterosexual woman.

To be clear, even though the personaly tras of gay and lbian dividuals dite shifts, acrdg to the theory, do not follow that gay men are jt ‘‘like women’’ and lbians are jt ‘‘like men.