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

• In Event: 249 - Regular Session. Sociology of Sexuality

Abstract

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. This paper expands the work on how social identities are constructed using narratives to explore the ways that gay men of color come to see themselves as “gay men of color.” In doing so, we find that gay men of color use a number of cultural tropes that provide them the framework necessary to structure their experiences within a larger social context of a largely white, heterosexual society. Drawing on these cultural tropes, gay men of color create a social identity that is simultaneously raced and sexed through active storytelling that define what it means to be a member of this group.

Authors

• Chong-suk Han, Middlebury College

• Kyung-Hee Choi, UCSF

• Jay Paul, UCSF

• George Ayala, Global Forum on MSM & HIV