Why International Gay Men’s Day?
For years, there have been lesbian awareness and bisexual awareness days and weeks. LGB International is proud to support them - check out our Lesbian Visibility Day video here. And we can’t escape that almost every month is some “transgender” awareness/visibility day/week - sometimes a whole month being dedicated to this group.
But have you noticed there has never been anything for gay men? Nothing. Why is that? Is it that we are all so privileged, rich and happy that we don’t need one? And we are definitely privileged:
In the 67 countries where homosexuality is criminalised, it is mostly male homosexuality that is criminalised and targeted. These privileged men face prison sentences and even death sentences if caught.
Gay men had to live through the AIDS crisis and had the privilege of dying while our health needs were ignored. Heterosexuals were quick to focus all the funding on themselves and ignore those privileged gay men dying.
In many countries, poorer homosexual men are forced into sex work to survive. In some countries the sexual market demands these men dress up as women or even take hormones. Some get murdered by their homophobic clients and then have the privilege of their deaths being co-opted.
During the time of the Holocaust, homosexual men were privileged to have our own special badge, the pink triangle, so that we could be further stigmatised in the concentration camps and, when the camps were liberated, survivors were sent to German prisons to complete their sentences.
The urban, middle-class, Western gay lifestyle is widely publicised but hides the reality that gay men from poorer communities, from ethnic minorities, with disabilities and in countries where gay rights are far from reality are definitely not privileged. Gay lifestyle celebrates the young, the fit and the wealthy and as we get older we have the privilege of becoming invisible. Even in wealthy countries, low self-esteem and mental health lead to drug and alcohol problems and the chemsex culture.
So, because gay men are so privileged, LGB International is part of International Gay Men’s Day. And because we can laugh at ourselves, watch and share our video and join us in marking International Gay Men’s Day on Sunday 6 September.