Abstract
The research on which this study reports was informed by the following questions: Do Black gay men identify more closely with a racial identity or with a sexual identity? What experiences influence the saliency of a racial or sexual identity for Black gay men? How do Black gay men use daily interactions to inform a sense of self? Essentially, how do Black gay men negotiate stigmatized identities? Based on 50 in-depth interviews with self-identified Black gay men, the author highlights three emergent models of identity negotiations: interlocking identities, up–down identities, and public–private identities. Identifying the strategies Black gay men use to understand both themselves and the larger Black and gay communities helps illuminate the diversity within those communities and highlights the ways in which individuals who find themselves at the intersections of racial and sexual stigma understand themselves and the larger communities to which they belong.
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Notes
It is not my intention to place full authorship of the notion of intersectionality with Collins and Crenshaw. Other texts offer conceptual framing and understandings of intersectionality (see Anzaldua 1987, 1990; Battle and Bennet 2005; Carbado 1999; Cohen 1999; Combahee River Collective 1983; Davis 1981; Glenn 1985; Hull et al. 1982; Hooks 1984; Johnson and Henderson 2005; King 1995; Mohanty 1988; Moraga 1983; Moraga and Anzuldua 1984; Sandoval 1991; Smith 1983; Spelman 1988).
The names of respondents have been changed to preserve anonymity. In accordance with institutional review board policies, all respondents signed consent forms. These forms provided an outline of the goals of the study and also ensured that the identities of the respondents would remain private.
The term self-identified Black includes West Indians and multiracial respondents. In this article, such terms as race and racial identity are used to refer to Blackness, and the term Black is used to refer to respondents’ racial identity.
In this article the terms sexuality, sexual orientation, and sexual identity are used interchangeably to reference gay identity, especially when discussing respondents.
Other notable works in this area include those of Arlene Stein (Bernstein 1997; Butler 1990; Epstein 1994; Foucault 1976; Plummer 1992; Seidman 1994; Stein 1989; Stein and Plummer 1994; Warner 1993; Weeks 1991; Williams and Stein 2002) and Dunne (1997). The discussion here is meant to be not exhaustive but illustrative; for a more detailed discussion of the accomplishments and limitations of the study of sexuality in the social sciences, see query Gamson and Moon (2004).
The term self-identified refers to men’s willingness to express their gay identity to me when scheduling the interview. Self-identifying as gay should not be confused with being open or out.
In this study, I use the term Black to refer to the respondents in my sample because I am working with a specific racial framework that acknowledges and demonstrates similarities across nationalities. These men, regardless of national origin, because of their physical location together in the USA, experience the same sort of negotiations of identity because of their shared ascribed Black or racial existence (Waters 1999).
Men on the down-low have sex with other men but maintain a heterosexual public identity.
Those who were Black-then-gay accounted for 65% of those within the dominant model, whereas gay-then-Black accounted for 35%.
In many ways, this process harkens to a process of supplementarity (Derrida 1967)—a process of defining self through defining what it means to be other.
It is important to note that although individuals articulated themselves as “Black and gay,” for them, “gay and Black” would connote the same meaning. They are only imagining themselves as arranging public and private, wherein public equals Black and private equals gay.
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Hunter, M.A. All the Gays are White and all the Blacks are Straight: Black Gay Men, Identity, and Community. Sex Res Soc Policy 7, 81–92 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-010-0011-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-010-0011-4