Gay people 'at risk of a lonelier old age' | Long-term re | The Guardian

Contents:

• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• SAVAGE LOVE: I AM A LONELY, AGG GAY MAN; WHAT SHOULD I DO?
• A GAY MAN AT MIDLIFE PONRS BEG LONELY AND ‘INVISIBLE’
• GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL
• GAY PEOPLE 'AT RISK OF A LONELIER OLD AGE'
• IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

Part of realizg you're gay, or bi, or trans, or non-bary, or anythg other than cisgenr and heterosexual is acceptg you’re different—and somewhat separated—om the majory.

SAVAGE LOVE: I AM A LONELY, AGG GAY MAN; WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Here he shar his journey to overe the sense of isolatn he felt growg up gay a small U.

At the time, there were no real gay role mols except for Graham Norton and Jack om Dawson's Creek—and I certaly didn't intify wh him bee I wasn't a football player. I felt like I was pletely on my rried on until I was 16, when I started gog out to gay bars my hometown.

For the first time I've been able to form a good group of gay iends and create my own support work.

A GAY MAN AT MIDLIFE PONRS BEG LONELY AND ‘INVISIBLE’

I'd go on gay chatrooms but that was jt a facels nversatn wh someone who uld have been anyone.

I thk if I'd had iends who were gay when I was growg up, my life would have been so different. I now know there were other kids at my school who were gay, but they didn't e out till much later.

Only a few of the nam of the gay men this article are real. For years I’ve noticed the divergence between my straight iends and my gay iends. “And told me two sentenc later that she knew I was gay.

GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL

My parents still claim that they had no ia I was gay. 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.

Public support for gay marriage has climbed om 27 percent 1996 to 61 percent 2016.

” Gay characters the days are so monplace they’re even allowed to have flaws. 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 'AT RISK OF A LONELIER OLD AGE'

Gay people are now, pendg on the study, between 2 and 10 tim more likely than straight people to take their own liv. 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. I’m a perpetually sgle gay guy who was raised a bright blue cy by PFLAG parents.

“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.

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

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.

“The fg feature of gay men ed to be the lonels of the closet, ” he says.