Jennifer Kaylin summarizes the results of a new study:
Young gay and bisexual men who leave their hometowns and move to cities in search of greater social and sexual freedom may take risks to make new friends, say researchers. The finding is based on results from one of the most comprehensive studies to date of the migration of young gay and bisexual men and the physical and emotional health implications.
Researchers found that when these men moved to New York City from hometowns where homophobia and discrimination were present, they experienced mental health issues, substance abuse, and engaged in HIV-risk behavior. Higher incomes upon moving were associated with lower HIV and mental health risks, but with more alcohol use.
The men studied had, within the past few months since their arrival in the city, engaged in frequent behaviors that placed them at higher risk for HIV, suggesting that one of the ways migrants seek connections in their new home is by forming fleeting, but high-risk sexual contacts.
First reaction: homophobia and discrimination are present in New York City. Less present, taken seriously by the authorities, legislated against (not the opposite), and NYC queers fight back. But present.
Second reaction: A young gay or bi man who moves to New York City to escape homophobia, discrimination, and shitty/hostile family back in his hometown is taking a huge risk—so we already know this guy and others like him are risk-takers by nature. If they weren’t risk-takers… they wouldn’t be in New York City. And while NYC may provide this self-selected group of (perhaps natural-born) risk-takers with more opportunities to take risks, choosing to remain in places with higher levels of homophobia and discrimination isn’t exactly risk-free. And researchers didn’t compare health outcomes for young gay and bi guys who left shitty places to health outcomes for young gay and bi men who chose to stay in those shitty places:
To conduct the study, published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine, researchers used popular mobile apps that gay and bisexual men use for meeting other men to recruit 273 men, ages 18 to 29, who had come to New York in the past year.
Without being able to compare outcomes for young gay and bi guys who fled places with less social and sexual freedom—and more anti-LGBT bigots—to outcomes for young gay and bi guys who stayed behind in those same places…. it’s really hard to justify the DANGER! DANGER! headlines engendered by the results of this study. Because not only doesn’t this study prove moving to New York City induces risk-taking behaviors by otherwise risk-averse gay or bi men, it also doesn’t prove that young gay and bi men are any safer back in their hometowns. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. But we can’t make any predictions based on the results of this study.
Are the risks of moving to the big city greater or lesser than the risks—social, sexual, emotional, professional—of opting to live in a shitty place filled with shitty bigots? We’re going to need more science, please, because this study doesn’t answer that question. Young gay and bi men who don’t leave their shitty hometowns for New York City are definitely at less risk of winding up at a drunken/druggy post-Black-Party orgy. But they’re most likely at higher risk of employment discrimination, anti-gay violence, the emotional violence meted out by homophobic/biphobic families, and on and on. And without measuring the risks of staying behind—without attempting to quantify those risks as well—we can’t say which choice is riskier: Moving to New York, New York, or staying in New Houlka, Mississippi.
The study is here.