Rather than a defined endpoint that is waiting to be discovered or developed, racial and sexual identities can be considered social identities which are fluid, malleable, and socially created through a social process that defines what it means to be a member of a social group. Drawing on these cultural tropes, gay men of color create a social identity that is simultaneously raced and sexed through the use of shared cultural tropes that define what it means to be a member of this group. Few other activities are so widely practiced among a myriad of different groups than story telling.

Yet stories about personal experiences are more than simply anecdotal accounts of past events. Instead, they are structurally situated recollections that help us make sense of those experiences as well as our own place within a larger social context Aguirre Because they are embedded in larger social understandings about shared experiences, we are not free to form any story.

We connect ourselves to others by drawing on diverse cultural resources that help frame those stories along a shared pattern of experiences that helps us to build connections to, and identify with, those people we believe share those experiences Rowe Stories become powerful precisely because they draw upon social themes that are widely shared and root us in our experiences in relation to the experiences of others who we believe are like us thereby creating a shared identity based on shared experiences Chaudhary In this paper, we examine the ways that gay men of color construct what it means to be a member of this group by specifically using a number of anecdotes that highlight their collective shared experiences in the larger gay community and their racial and ethnic communities.

Doing so, we argue that gay men of color actively construct what it means to be a gay man of color based on these shared experiences. More importantly, we extend the existing literature on the social construction of identities by demonstrating that intersectional identities are collectively constructed by negotiating different minority attributes within social spaces and social context.

That is, how members of minority groups come to define the social space and their social context itself leads to the ways that minority identities are socially constructed. Examining the life stories of gay men, Ken Plummer Seemingly anecdotal accounts that shape the ways that we tell others about ourselves become shared stories in that collections of anecdotal accounts come to have common themes that are shared among many who consider themselves to be members of the same group.

Thus, storytelling is not just about constructing ourselves but about constructing a community of people who have similar experiences. Collectively, these works demonstrate how individuals claim membership in a group by placing their experiences within a shared social context, embedding their personal experiences in shared cultural knowledge, and framing those seemingly anecdotal accounts along shared collective experiences. In doing so, individuals claim knowledge of, and membership within, the group to which they believe they belong.

Gay Men’s “Coming Out” Stories

More importantly, as Klein and her colleagues For example, in examining life story essays by thirteen gay men, Jason Orne Yet the problem with many of the studies that explore the context in which gay men come to develop a sexual identity is that they often ignore the fact that not all gay men experience these contextual influences in the same way. This paper expands on earlier works on how gay men construct a social identity by examining the anecdotes that gay men of color use to discuss their personal experiences within both their communities of color and the larger gay community.

As bell hooks noted in her now seminal work, Feminist Theory: Since then, intersectional analysis has broadened to include ways that multiple different social positions and social identities have come to influence and impact the lives of those who occupy these positions, including people who are raced, gendered, and homo sexualized.

In doing so, we argue that it is important to not only examine the social context in which identities are created but also how members of social groups come to define the social space and the context itself. This is a larger quantitative study designed to examine the impact of discrimination, sexual partnership, and social networks on sexual risk behaviors among gay black, Latino, and Asian Pacific Islander American men in Los Angeles, CA.

Individuals were recruited from a variety of sources, including organizations that target members of these groups, gay newspapers, and notices placed in venues frequented by gay men. A theoretical sampling frame was used to ensure diversity among participants. Inclusion criteria included 1 being at least 18 years old, 2 self-identified as black, Latino, or Asian Pacific Islander, 3 being proficient in English, 4 reporting at least one male sex partner in the past 6 months, and 5 residing in Los Angeles county.

The interview sample included 12 black men, 11 Latino men, and 12 Asian Pacific Islander men. Sixteen men were between the ages of 18—29 years old, 19 were 30 and older. One of 11 Latino men and 9 of the Asian Pacific Islander men were foreign-born.

West Hollywood is Not That Big on Anything But White People: Constructing “Gay Men of Color”

All black men were born in the United States. Men were asked to discuss the relationships they had with their families, their sense of their racial and sexual identity, the racial and sexual composition of their social networks, and their experiences of discrimination based on both their race and sexuality. Questions were designed to allow participants to provide small description of their lives rather than elicit short, blunt answers. Data were analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach as outlined by Corbin and Strauss We began by coding the interviews and identifying a number of different anecdotes that men used to frame their answers to the interview questions.

Rather than looking only at their specific answer, we were interested in how the men gave their answers and how they contextualized their answer to make a point. We then grouped these categories of answers into larger themes. Doing so, we found that gay men of color not only use a number of different anecdotes that represent a number of themes but sequentially place them in their own lives to build a life-trajectory that goes from 1 feeling alienation from their communities of color, 2 feeling the need to preserve family ties that led to them believing that they could not be openly gay in their racial and ethnic communities that led to them exploring the gay community while keeping their racial and sexual identities separate, 3 feeling disillusionment in the gay community, 4 then finally claiming an intersectional identity based on race and sexuality by meeting other gay men of color.

When asked to about their experiences as both a racial and sexual minority, the men drew extensively from existing cultural tropes about racism, homophobia, and the struggle of being marginalized in a largely white heterosexual world.

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Specifically, we found that the master story-pattern included feeling alienated from their communities of color which leads them to seek out acceptance in the larger gay community. Yet once they become active in the gay community, they experience high levels of racism levels of racism which leads to a disillusionment with the gay community.

It is this disillusionment with the gay community that leads them to search for a more comprehensive life narrative that incorporates both a racial and sexual identity. A common theme among gay men of color was their shared belief in the difficulty of being a gay man in their racial and ethnic communities due to what they perceive is an attempt to hide the existence of gays and lesbians due to both structural and cultural factors. For example, one black man said:. It really, I mean honestly, it hurts.

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They — they -- and they would rather that you not do certain things because then they have to talk about it or then they have to address the behavior. Because of the unwillingness to discuss sexual identity gay men of color occupied a unique space within communities of color that did not necessarily reject them based on their sexuality but also failed to validate their experiences fully in the same way that they validated the experiences of non-gay members of their community. For example, an Asian man noted that in the Asian community, the expectation of heterosexuality made it difficult to openly proclaim a gay identity:.

The two quotes above demonstrate the frustration many gay men of color feel regarding their invisibility in communities of color. It is important to note that a part of the difficulty comes from the importance that gay men of color place in their racial communities. Cultural factors also influence the ways that men of color perceive how openly they can be gay in communities of color.

For example, one Latino man had this to say about growing up gay in the Latino community:.

11 Black Men Share Stories About Encountering Racism Within The Gay Community

Like for example, the South American society, specifically the Argentinean society. In fact, many of the men believed that publicly proclaiming a gay identity within racial communities was contradictory to either their racial identity or their cultural values. For example, one black man specifically noted:. This sense of contradiction between their racial and their sexual identities was particularly problematic given that men in our study placed a high level of importance on their racial and ethnic identities and expressed a strong sentiment to being a part of those communities.

As one black man noted:.

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I want to identify with the struggles of the black man and our past and try to rise above that, not just overlook it. As Russell Leong has noted, for gay people of color, their families are often the only source of racial affirmation in a largely racist society which makes it more difficult for them to risk losing family support by being openly gay.

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Not surprisingly, many of the men in our study specifically pointed to their families as a result of their hesitation to be more open about their sexual identity. One black man stated:. One Asian man who indicated that his family was aware of his sexual orientation but he was nonetheless hesitant to be more open about it in public stated that:.

Or feeling shame if the topic of marriage or anything like that comes up. For the man quoted above, and many of the men in our study, the difficulty in being openly gay in communities of color was intimately connected to how their families would be negatively impacted by their decision to live an openly gay life.

Dear White Gay Men, Racism Is Not "Just a Preference" - them.

The man quoted above shared that everyone in his family knew that he was gay. In fact, he also shared that his family members asked about his partner if he attended their monthly family gatherings alone. For example, one Asian man noted that:. I mean, like I said with my family. I gave some examples with that. Similarly, a black man who stated that his family was aware of his sexuality nonetheless also noted:. You know, I helped raise my brothers and you know, I made sure they did certain things that they were supposed to do, and it always felt uncomfortable in being out in front of my family.

While initially excited to find other gay men, many of the men in our study noted that the excitement quickly dissipated.

In fact, one of the most common anecdotes shared by gay men of color was the sense of disillusionment they experienced once they made their way into the gay community. As one gay Asian man stated:. And then when I first moved out [from the family home], I moved to West Hollywood, because I thought it would be like a more accepting neighborhood to be in.

I stayed there for like over a year, almost, I think, a year-and-a-half. I moved out because, of course, the rent is expensive, and also it was exactly the opposite of what I thought it would be. Like I really thought it would be more accepting, but yet people do see you like what you are. Like what you look like, what color of your skin is.

And your look is really important in West Hollywood, and being a minority, you know, majority of people that live there are like white.

Certainly, disillusionment with the gay community is not isolated to gay men of color Weston This led to many of the men actively avoiding places that they viewed as being largely for gay white people. The white bigots in West Hollywood, who should be the most understanding, are the most bigoted.

So the smallest microcosm in our society that has been discriminated against is one of the biggest discriminators and disrespectful. Well, I went to a meeting the other day. I probably will never go back to West Hollywood. For example, one Latino man stated:.