Queer Men Research Articles

It's in Me to Give: Canadian Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Men's Willingness to Donate Blood If Eligible Despite Feelings of Policy Discrimination.

Blood donation policies governing men who have sex with men have shifted significantly over time in Canada—from an initial lifetime ban in the wake of the AIDS crisis to successive phases of time-based deferment requiring periods of sexual abstinence (5 years to 1 year to 3 months). We interviewed 39 HIV-negative gay, bisexual, queer, and other sexual minority men (GBM) in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal to understand their willingness to donate blood if eligible. Transcripts were coded following inductive thematic analysis. We found interrelated and competing expressions of biological and sexual citizenship. Most participants said they were “safe”/“low risk” and “willing” donors and would gain satisfaction and civic pride from donation. Conversely, a smaller group neither prioritized the collectivizing biological citizenship goals associated with expanding blood donation access nor saw this as part of sexual citizenship priorities. Considerable repair work is required by Canada’s blood operators to build trust with diverse GBM communities.

Barriers to sexual recovery in men with prostate, bladder and colorectal cancer.

Survivors of prostate, bladder, and colorectal cancer endure many sexual side-effects of treatment that negatively impact their relationships and diminish their quality of life. Multiple barriers exist in addressing men's sexual concerns in oncological care. To describe barriers of sexual recovery in men with prostate, bladder, and colorectal cancer. We searched PubMed for peer-reviewed, English-language articles published from 1999 to 2019 using the following search terms: "prostate cancer," or "bladder cancer," or "colorectal cancer," and "male," and "sexual function," or "sexual barrier" or "sexual dysfunction." Criteria for inclusion consisted of peer-reviewed articles (review, cross-sectional, longitudinal, interventional, or pilot studies) addressing sexual issues in men with a history of prostate, bladder, or colorectal cancer. Barriers to sexual recovery in men with prostate, bladder, and colorectal cancer include psychosocial barriers such as the feeling of loss, grief, depression and anxiety, the poor utilization, and excessive cost of pro-erectile aids, a diminished sense of masculinity and reluctance to seek help for sexual problems, as well as poor couple coping. Barriers in healthcare also exist, as healthcare providers often do not effectively address sexual issues due to poor communication, lack of comfort in discussing sexual issues, time constraints, and patients' hesitation to initiate discussions on sexual dysfunction. Patients with stomas and gay, bisexual, and queer men face additional challenges in their recovery of sexual intimacy. Barriers to sexual recovery are present in men during all stages of cancer and all modalities of treatment including surgery, radiation, or androgen deprivation therapy. There are multiple overlapping psychosocial and healthcare system barriers to sexual recovery after prostate, bladder, and colorectal cancer treatment. Oncological providers must be cognizant of these complex barriers so they can facilitate patients' access to resources needed for successful sexual recovery after genitourinary cancer treatment. Evidence based interventions, such as couple psychosexual counseling and peer support should be implemented via multidisciplinary care.

Reflections in comics: the views of queer artists in producing body image comics and how their work can improve health

ABSTRACT Comics are an innovative way to translate health knowledge and research to service providers and communities. A theoretical framework intertwining poststructuralism and queer theory was used to explore the experiences of queer artists in the creation and production of body image comic anthology entitled Rainbow Reflections: Body Image Comics for Queer Men. The aim was to examine the beliefs of the artists about the potentiality of comics to address body image concerns for queer men. Body image concerns may create negative health experiences, isolation, loneliness, and sexual intimacy concerns. Nineteen self-identifying queer artists participated in the study. Discourse analysis revealed five threads of discourse that bring understanding on how comics can improve body image, and the health and well-being of both the artists through the act of creation and the reader through the act of consumption. Theses threads of discourse include: 1) Creating a unique language, 2) Revealing and healing themselves, 3) Exploring cultural influences, 4) Expanding spaces for queer men and their bodies, and 5) Connecting men. The findings reveal that comics can create knowledge and stimulate discussions about body image and has the potential to positively influence the health of queer men.

A Biometric Logic of Revelation: Zach Blas’s <em>SANCTUM</em> (2018)

A Biometric Logic of Revelation: Zach Blas’s <em>SANCTUM</em> (2018)

The Photographic Gaze Meets the Medical Gaze: Two Cross-Dressing Men in Christer Strömholm’s Place Blanche

In 1963, Christer Strömholm photographed the cross-dressing men Zizou and Carla on successive days in a Paris bar. The images are unique in Strömholm’s Place Blanche archive in that in one photograph Zizou is the “man” and Carla the “woman,” and in the other they switch. Who were Zizou and Carla? Strömholm’s captions for the images do not say. But two years after he photographed them the men were interviewed by a medical school Ph.D. student for a thesis on trans and gender non-conforming prostitutes in Paris. Denise Fidanza’s completed thesis contains detailed summaries of the men’s elicited self-stories. What can be learned about Zizou and Carla by comparing the photographic and verbal evidence? To what extent do the sources align? My analysis reveals that the information conveyed by Strömholm’s photographs and Fidanza’s interviews exists on largely parallel tracks. Indeed, given that the men are identified only by aliases, without the corroborating visual evidence of a distinctive tattoo on Carla’s left arm and a small photograph of Zizou in Fidanza’s thesis, a conclusive match would be impossible. Considered together, Strömholm’s photographs and Fidanza’s interviews provide rich insights into the lives of two marginalized queer men in 1960s Paris.

Exploiting Ambiguity:Murder!and the Meanings of Cross-Dressing in Interwar British Cinema

The crime film Murder! (1930), directed by Alfred Hitchcock for British International Pictures and based on the novel Enter Sir John (1929) by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, has long been cited in debates about the treatment of queer sexuality in Hitchcock's films. Central to these debates is the character of Handel Fane and the depiction of his cross-dressed appearances as a theatre and circus performer, which many critics have understood as a coded reference to homosexuality. This article explores such critical interpretations by situating Murder! more firmly in its historical context. In particular, it examines Fane's cross-dressed performances in relation to other cultural representations of men's cross-dressing in interwar Britain. These include examples from other British and American films, stories in the popular press and the publicity surrounding the aerial performer and female impersonator Barbette (Vander Clyde). The article argues that Murder! reflects and exploits a broader fascination with gender ambiguity in British popular culture, and that it anticipates the more insistent vilification of queer men in the decades after the Second World War.

Belonging, Citizenship and Ambivalence among Young Gay, Bisexual and Queer Indian Singaporean Men

ABSTRACT This article explores the attitudes and experiences of young ethnic Indian gay, bisexual and queer (GBQ) men in Singapore, where the state’s investments in economic progress, racial governmentality and “traditional” family policies significantly influence sexual and cultural citizenship. Based on abductively analysed in-depth interviews conducted on a subset of a larger qualitative study involving Singaporean lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer young adults, this article uses the concept of sociological ambivalence – which attends to the tensions between social structures and participants’ lives – to understand everyday experiences at the intersections of ethnicity, sexuality, gender and youth status. Three themes were identified from participants’ experiences: significant feelings of racialised liminality and marginality; tensions between personal desires and family pressures to get married and have children; and strategies taken in response to complex marginality. While participants were broadly satisfied with the material aspects of life in Singapore, their responses signal significant frustration with societal and sexual racism, a deeply ambivalent sense of belonging, and the desire for emigration to mitigate conflicting responsibilities to themselves and their families. By examining belonging and citizenship through the lens of sociological ambivalence, this article makes a theoretical and empirical contribution towards limited knowledge about the experiences of marginalised populations in Singapore.

Traditions in (re)Negotiation: Geosocial Networking Apps and Intimate Relationships Among Men Seeking Men

Information and communication technologies have introduced profound changes to how individuals pursue sexual and romantic connections. One class of communication technologies that has become especially popular in recent times is that of geosocial networking apps, which characteristically use smartphones’ global positioning system technology to transmit and receive users’ location data. To date, however, most research investigating the impact of internet-mediated communication on socio-sexual relations has focused on more established systems like chat rooms, social networking sites, email, and instant messaging. The present study thematically analyzes interview data from gay, bisexual and queer men to explore how geosocial networking apps influence the development and organization of intimate relationships. Our findings reveal a simultaneous entrenching and subversion of traditional understandings of intimacy shaped by the heteronormative model of lifelong, monogamous marriage, which undercuts attempts by grand theory to paint contemporary intimate relationships in broad strokes as being either in a state of radical democratization or moral decline. Such cultural contestation, we argue, should be taken as a starting point in future research attempting to faithfully capture the complex and tentative transformations occurring with love and sex in the digital age.

The Young and the Prejudiced? Millennial Men, “Dude Bro” Disposition, and LGBTQ Negativity in a US National Sample

The young are often considered to be among the most open-minded age group, especially as compared to older adults. Millennials have been regarded as particularly interested in commitment to social justice and diversity issues, including LGBTQ acceptance. Yet recent political and socio-cultural shifts along with the emergence of “dude bros” (typically young (millennial), straight, White cisgender males of privilege who express masculinity in entitled, obnoxious, and toxic ways) may be related to a trend in decreasing LGBTQ support among millennial men that drastically contradicts previous research that suggests that being “young” and being “woke” are one in the same. Data collected via online panelists in November 2018 are utilized to investigate how being a millennial cisgender man relates to attitudes toward LGBTQ people (lesbian women, gay men, bisexual women, bisexual men, trans women, trans men, non-binary people, queer women, queer men) among a nationally representative sample of US adults aged 18–64 stratified by US Census categories of age, gender, race/ethnicity, and census region (N = 3104). Findings show that being a millennial cis man is robustly related to the stigmatization of LGBTQ people and that overlapping layers of patriarchy, aversion to being “hit on” by other men, and the use of anti-LGBTQ slurs (“fag,” “faggot,” “queer,” “dyke,” “tranny,” “no homo,” and “that is so gay!”) relate to these patterns in diverse ways.

Categorizing Identity: Literary, Performative, and Legal Languages in Oscar Wilde’s Libel Trial vs the Marquess of Queensberry

Wilde has been generally accepted as one of the first figures of the queer man that is now known, however, how he came to represent this identity has not been much discussed. While his criminal trials, which led to his eventual conviction of ‘gross indecency,’ undoubtedly played a strong part on his emerging portrayal as a gay man, his first trial involving a libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry is little discussed in relation to the start of his downfall and portrayal as a gay man. Thus, this project looks at Oscar Wilde’s libel trial and its effects on the identity of the homosexual man. By looking at the language used in the libel trial and its use of The Picture of Dorian Gray as evidence, the project concludes that by using the interpretations of Wilde’s novel during the trial, the law created a concrete image of what ‘gross indecency between men’ was, and of the type of person who participated in it, using Wilde as a representative for this identity. The way that his identity was forged allows us to see that while homosexuality as a way of being began to take shape thanks to Wilde’s trial, it was still imbued with negative connotations and seen as pederastic, tying it to anxieties around child prostitution and trafficking of the 1800s. The development of this new identity and its portrayal betters the understanding of the vilification of Wilde during his downfall and his novel’s role in this.

(Un)seen work: the pedagogical experiences of black queer men in faculty roles

While the body of literature that deliberately underscores the experiences of Black faculty is growing in volume and complexity, the intersectional experiences of Black faculty members have seldom been a focus of inquiry. To address this gap, this study explores how Black queer men reconcile and engage their Blackness and queerness while occupying roles within the academy. Insights from this collaborative autoethnographic study, informed by a quare conceptual lens, illuminated the pedagogical experiences of Black queer men faculty at historically White institutions (HWIs). Using these insights as a point of departure, we close with a message for Black queer men who are currently in or aspiring to faculty roles.

Crafting “Youthful” Desire, “Doing” Masculinity: Narratives of Middle-Aged to Older Men in Grindr Grid and Offline Spaces in Mumbai, India

This study utilizes queer gerontology as a framework to raise questions and rethink theoretical tools by weaving personal biographies and intimate histories of queer men in Mumbai, India. In particular, drawing on narratives and self-presentation aesthetics of 30 middle-aged to older men in the online dating app, Grindr, as well as face-to-face interviews, this study harnesses the somatic turn in gerontology to show how the (neoliberal) triad of self-care, stylistic consumption and an invocation of “metrosexual” masculinity become critical signifiers of the never-aging cultural enterprise of the Third Age (Laslett 1989). In the process it shows how the putative marginality of the homosexual aged body both destabilizes and strengthens the rationality of normative heterosexuality through its enduring emphasis on (sexual) functionality and moral duty. The men’s narratives allow us to question the limits of “western” cultural anxieties of “coming out” in a context where homosociality offers reticent acceptance without threatening the heteronormative matrix. All in all, this study with its focus on men’s bodies as erotic capital allows us to reimagine aging where desire remains socially and culturally meaningful for most men across their lives, thereby de-centering the heteronormative and asexual gaze of mainstream gerontology in India.

Exploring queerphobic geographies in Southern Africa

abstract Space in Southern African countries is continuously constructed as heterosexual, putting queer individuals at risk of violence. This paper explores the experiences of queer men and transwomen in spaces that they have identified as queerphobic and violent in South Africa and Namibia. In an effort to locate geographies of queerphobic violence, the paper focuses on how queer men and transwomen are prone to both implicit and explicit violence in these spaces. It uses queer geographies as an analytical framework and analyses a subset of qualitative data with 109 partnered queer individuals and 27 queer couples. Our analysis revealed a plethora of spaces that were identified as queerphobic. The data is presented under three major themes: Intersectionality of queerphobia and space; queerphobic and unsafe spaces; and adjustment to self when navigating queerphobic spaces. Spaces identified included participants’ homes, immediate communities (mostly rural and township areas), public areas (such as police stations and healthcare centres), roads and local transport areas, shopping areas and places of worship. We found that in order to navigate these spaces, queer participants had to remould themselves both in dress and performance. While decriminalisation is a key agenda for Namibia, social attitude change and challenges to heterosexuality are necessary in both Namibia and South Africa. Further empirical work is needed to understand how queer people locate, use and express their identities in these violent and homophobic spaces.

Effect of a web drama video series on HIV and other sexually transmitted infection testing among gay, bisexual and queer men: study protocol for a community-based, pragmatic randomised controlled trial in Singapore: the People Like Us (PLU) Evaluation Study

IntroductionGay, bisexual and queer (GBQ) men are at disproportionately higher risk of acquiring HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI). While HIV/STI testing rates among GBQ men are increasing worldwide,...

Psychological wellbeing of middle-aged and older queer men in India: A mixed-methods approach.

Borrowing concepts from public health, we examined the association of several social determinants with the mental health of middle-aged and older queer men in India by combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies. A cross-sectional survey guided by Meyer’s Minority Stress Model was carried out to assess the links between minority stressors (internalized homophobia and degree of closetedness), age-related stressors (ageism and fear of ageing) and psychological wellbeing (loneliness, depressive symptoms and sexual compulsivity) among 207 Indian men (aged 40 years and above) who identified themselves as non-heterosexuals. Results from simple and multivariable linear regression models showed significant positive associations of ageism, internalized homophobia, and fear of ageing with loneliness, even after accounting for sociodemographic and stress mitigating factors. Ageism was not significantly related to depressive symptoms. However, fear of ageing and internalized homophobia was positively associated with depressive symptoms after accounting for covariates. Further, regression models demonstrated a consistent and statistically significant inverse association between income and adverse psychological outcomes suggesting the centrality of social class in the lived experience of Indian gay and bisexual men. The qualitative inquiry addressed the same research questions as the quantitative survey through in-depth interviews of thirty middle-aged and older gay and bisexual men in Mumbai. We found that older and midlife gay and bisexual men with higher income (a proxy for social class) found ways to manage their masculinities with no discernible adverse psychological outcomes. Depressive symptoms and loneliness in this population made them further vulnerable to excessive sexual impulses, especially in the older queer men who were passing off as heterosexuals. Overall, the theory-driven empirical findings suggest that even in India, where family and friends are social insurance for later life, the issues of ageism and internalized homophobia have the potential to lead to worse mental health outcomes among older queer men.

Negotiating multiple identities while gifted: Reflections from black queer gifted men

In the last decade, there has been increasing research on the identity formation and experiences of Black queer men on college campuses (Mitchell & Means, 2014; Harris, 2003; Patton, 2011; Strayhorn et al., 2008, Goode-Cross & Good, 2008). However, there is scant research examining how these layered identities develop for students who are not only Black and gay, but also gifted, during their K-12 education. Through the reflections of four Black queer men who attended gifted programing in New York City for their K-12 education, this study’s findings begin to unpack these negotiations. This work centers Mitchell & Means’ (2014) conception of quadruple consciousness for understanding the experiences of Black gay and bisexual men in predominantly white colleges. It is also theoretically framed by Whiting’s scholar identity model (2006). The findings speak to how participants were able to achieve and persist in gifted education programing with particular attention paid to notions of masculinity, while navigating early experiences as Black queer students.

Existing and Resisting: The Pedagogical Realities of Black, Critical Men and Women Faculty

ABSTRACT The existing discourse highlighting Black faculty experiences in the classroom are largely hidden among studies that center the experiences of Faculty of Color who teach courses about race, gender, and/or diversity, regardless of their faculty status. And, even fewer of those studies unpack how their pedagogical approaches further complicate the experiences of Black faculty, especially Black faculty without tenure. The authors, who are Black hetero women and Black queer men, used embodied text as a framework to explore their teaching experiences as faculty and critical pedagogues. Where embodied text establishes the body as a site for learning and knowledge, critical pedagogy asserts that neither the classroom nor the knowledge constructed within that space are apolitical. The study findings illuminated how Black faculty bodies were scrutinized and ultimately showed that Black hetero women and Black queer men who were critical pedagogues embodied a resistance text that when read, oftentimes created intertextual pedagogical situations that invalidated their humanity. This research expands the scholarship on embodied text and critical pedagogy by examining the teaching experiences of Black faculty who not only centered critiques of power and privilege in non-diversity courses, but whose bodies were also disruptive in White, hetero, cis-patriarchal academic spaces.

Exploring the Q in LGBTQ: Demographic characteristic and sexuality of Queer people in a U.S. representative sample of sexual minorities.

Although queer identity has been used among sexual minorities for decades, little is known about the population of queer-identified people in the U.S. We compared people who identify as queer (unweighted n = 88; weighted % = 5.8%) with those who identify as lesbian/gay (n = 833; 46.9%), bisexual (n = 493; 40.6%) or other sexual minority identities (n = 93; 6.7%), in order to describe queer-identified people as a distinct sexual minority group. The study is the first to estimate demographic characteristics and sexuality of queer-identified people using a U.S. nationally representative sample. We found that queer people are overwhelmingly cisgender women and genderqueer/ nonbinary (GQNB), younger, and more highly educated than other groups. After stratifying by gender identity (cisgender women; cisgender men; GQNB), survey-weighted descriptive differences in attraction, sexual partnering, and relationship patterns show that queer individuals are more likely to report attraction to, and sexual relationships with, transgender and GQNB people, though differences by respondent gender identity were noted: The majority of queer women are attracted to and partnered with both women and men, and were more likely than other groups to be attracted to and partnered with cisgender and transgender people. In contrast, queer men are split in their attractions-about half were attracted exclusively to men, and half to men and women-but the majority partnered with men only. Of all groups, queer men are the most likely to partner with transgender men, but none had partnered with transgender women. GQNB people are more likely than cisgender people to identify as queer (25.9%) and are attracted to both cisgender and transgender women and men, yet predominantly partnered with cisgender people. The results provide support for queer as a distinct sexual identity.

Discursive representation of masculinity and femininity in Tinder and Grindr: Hegemonic masculinity, feminine devaluation and femmephobia

By analysing 200 Tinder profiles of Spanish heterosexual men and 200 Grindr profiles of Spanish queer men, this article examines these men’s online gendered and sexualised self-representation strategies. More specifically, the study develops a discourse and feminist analysis of post-feminist media cultures which contrasts these men’s discursive representations. In so doing, the article attempts to cast light on the (d-)evaluating discursive strategies these Spanish heterosexual and queer men deploy when creating their profiles. Importantly, the analysis gives evidence of how occupying the masculine or the feminine position goes hand in hand with the devaluation and policing of femininity. Furthermore, the analysis calls attention to the contradictory gender ideas present in their personal profiles and this, in turn, sheds further light on the ways they construct multiple masculine identities to negotiate their sexual gendered identities.

Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Men's Attitudes and Understandings of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Assault.

Gay, bisexual, and queer (GBQ) men experience significant rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault (SA); however, there is limited research into their attitudes and understandings of IPV and SA. This article presents the findings of a 2018 survey of 895 GBQ men currently residing in Australia, focused on their views and experiences of healthy and unhealthy relationships. The survey included quantitative and open-ended qualitative questions. The findings presented in this article are primarily descriptive, with cross-tabulations and t tests to demonstrate significant differences between groups and correlational statistics to outline associations between variables. Qualitative data were coded under broad themes. The study found a considerable proportion of men (three in five) identified that they had experienced an unhealthy or abusive relationship in the past, with minimal disclosure to police or health services. Men with a history of partner abuse or violence were more likely to report binge drinking or drug use and more likely to know a friend who had abused his partner. 40% of the sample had witnessed an incident of relationship violence between GBQ men, and two-thirds intervened in the violence in some way. The findings of this study underscore the need to engage GBQ men in discussions about respectful relationships, address the role of alcohol and drugs in GBQ socialization and relationships, and provide bystander skills for men to intervene in situations of aggression or violence between men in relationships.