Research on gay male self acceptance of gay identity

Introduction1

“Holding the gay identity is a long journey of the search

of self.” Mr. C, one of my respondents, is a retired man

who used to be a head teacher in a local primary school.

“I take it very easy and feel nothing about it.” Mr. H,

another respondent, is a Master student here who came

from China. H told me this when we talked about his gay

identity. It is true that they are different generation

as well as grow up in different countries. Are these the

merely factors which influence their acceptance of gay

identity?

Gay often refers to those men who attracted to men, which

always correspond to lesbian in women. Gay/lesbian is

within the three categories in sexual orientation.

American Psychological Association defines sexual

orientation as “an enduring pattern of emotional,

romantic and/or sexual attractions to men, women or both

sexes” which “also refers to a person’s sense of identity

based on those attractions, related behaviors and

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membership in a community of others who share those

attractions”(American Psychological Association, 2008).

Being gay is illegal in certain countries; however, the

same sex persons can marriage in some countries. It is

known that being a gay person is not that easy no matter

in which country. Therefore, to some extent, it is

difficult for them to accept their gay identity. Among

all the gay men I have interviewed, they all have a

period of time for them to accept their gay identity no

matter how long it takes. In my opinion, research on how

gay men accept their identity not only wants to know them

more then as the “others” we may accept them more, but

also it is a way to interrogate how we accept the

identity of “straight”. In this way, finally we may be

“equal”. We cannot deny that in the society, not every

can be the “same”, there must be some people as the

“minority”. If we just focus on how different we are

compared with the “minority”, we do not treat them as the

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way we treat friends. If we focus more what are the same

then we may get along with others better.

In this essay, I am going to explore what influences

homosexual males to accept their gay identity which is

based on the field work that I conducted from the

beginning of October 2013 until late November 2013. In

the period of nearly two months, I tried my best to

engage in the gay identify through attending their

activity which include taking part in their party and

visit the LGBT society in Leeds University Union, getting

in touch with gay persons in Leeds via gay network

applications, and doing individual interviews with

different background gay persons in the campus as well as

out of the campus.

First part of this essay will try to look at this issue

from a historical and theoretical view which is based on

the literature review. Second, I will explain my research

method in detail. Then I will analyze the data which I

collected and gathered from my field work and compare my 4

findings with the literature. Lastly, I will discuss the

limitation of my research and what should be research

further.

Literature Review

Sexuality is always a hot topic along the history not

matter in the west or east, not only because it is

human’s nature, but also it really works relate to power.

The difference about the discussion on it between the

west and east is that maybe there are not many famous

scholars doing researches on sexuality in the east. One

of the most famous scholars in the west should be Michel

Foucault. His book – The History of Sexuality – revealed the

relationship between sexuality and power, which we might

not think about it before.

He wrote “Sexuality must not be described as a stubborn

drive, by nature alien and of necessity disobedient to a

power which exhausts itself trying to subdue it and often

fails to control it entirely” (Foucalt, 1984, pp.103). He

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found there are four “great strategic unities” which

“formed specific mechanisms of knowledge and power

centering on sex”. They are “a hysterization of women’s

bodies; A pedagogization of children’s sex; A

socialization of procreative behavior; A psychiatrization

of perverse pleasure” (Foucalt, 1984, pp.104).

Related to sexuality, homosexuality is also a complex

concept. There are a large number of researches doing on

it. Here I just focus on certain researches related to

my topic.

In the development of models of homosexual identity

development, different researchers have different views.

The main controversial points of them are whether

homosexuality is an objective fact and whether it is the

nature of human. Depend on this, there are two

theoretical frameworks - essentialism and social

constructionism - formed. Theorists who are in favor of

essentialism believe that sexual orientation is a

fundamental attribute of humanity, which has a 6

consistency that not relate to culture, time, and place.

The sexual orientation cannot be chosen because it is

formed in fetal or early age of child and it is

determined by hormones or other biological factors. Thus,

the homosexual identity development is just a way of

realizing and accepting one’s nature (Delamater & Hyde,

1998; Hammack, 2005)

Delamater and Hyde (1998) propounded the view that the

basic hypothesis of E are: (1) sexual orientation exists

in essential way (homosexual or heterosexual); (2) sexual

orientation is just two choices, not something can be in

the middle (no bisexual); (3) It is constant and

permanent.

In the view of social constructionism, the scholars

believe that sexual orientation is not an inherent nature

of individuals, it is given by society, culture, history

and politics. Homosexual identity is constructed identity

by human being. The construction of the identity is a

process that how one learns to treat themselves as a 7

homosexual and use this label to organize their own

needs, behavior, and beliefs. A person’s recognition will

change as the social and cultural context changes. So

sexual orientation is not constant and permanent, which

can change. It is in a fluid situation (Delamater & Hyde,

1998).

In the essentialism-oriented stages models, the earliest

as well as the mostly used model is Cass’s model, which

is “outlined within the framework of interpersonal

congruency theory”. Her model bases on three elements of

intrapersonal matrix which are: “(1) A person (P)’s

perception of some characteristic that P attributes to

self. (2) P’s perception of P’s own behavior directly the

result of that characteristic. (3) P’s perception of

another person’s view of that characteristic”. There are

six stages of her model: (1) Identity confusion – P

begins to aware his “difference”, and may feel confused

and experience turmoil. (2) Identity Comparison – P may

accept the possibility of being homosexual, and may feel

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alienated from all “others”. (3) Identity Tolerance – P

acknowledges that they are more likely be homosexual and

seeks out more “same” persons as they are. (4) Identity

Acceptance – P now accepts rather than tolerates a

homosexual self-image and increasingly engages with the

gay culture. (5) Identity Pride – P totally accepts the

homosexual identity and gets “a strong sense of pride in

being gay” and “prefers it to a heterosexual one”. (6)

Identity Synthesis – “P’s personal and public sexual

identity becomes synthesized into one image of self,

receiving considerable support from P’s interpersonal

environment”.

In Cass’s model, the formation of homosexual identity is

a completely linear process; one not going through each

of the stages will not come to adopt the homosexual

identity actively. The case where one fails one stage of

the six stages will be called “identity foreclosure”.

(Cass, 1979) In my opinion, her model is great from the

perspective of an interpersonal aspect and psychological

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aspect, but she did not take other factors, like culture,

religion, into account.

Another well-known Essentialism-oriented stages model is

put forward by Troiden (1988). Unlike Cass’s model,

Troiden’s “ideal-typical” model just has four stages

where he thought it “represents a synthesis and an

elaboration on previous research and theorizing on

homosexual identity development”. The first stage called

“sensitization” which often occurs before puberty.

Teenagers in this stage begin to have a sense of being

different from their same-sex age mates. This difference

is not usually labeled as sexual differentness or

homosexuality. When they begin to “reflect upon the idea

that their feelings, behaviors, or both could be regarded

as homosexual”, they go into the second stage – “identity

confusion”. During or after late adolescence, they come

to the third stage – “identity assumption”. “In this

stage, the homosexual identity becomes both a self-

identity and a presented identity, at least to other

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homosexuals”. They “come out” and seek more interaction

with the same sex people. Finally, when they totally

accept their identity, they achieve to the final stage –

“commitment”. In this stage, they will treat the

homosexual identity as a way of life.

Troiden’s model is not a linear process model, it is a

reciprocated and spiral up model. This increases this

model’s applicability. But he argues that only the person

who is in the homosexual love relationship can achieve a

positive acceptance of homosexual identity. This may need

to be thought more about.

Scholars who are in favor of social constructionism have

no intention to seek a common model to explain homosexual

identity development. They summarize the different stages

in homosexual identity development as a multi-dimensional

structure, including the individual’s internal variables

(such as self-esteem, happiness, confusion, homophobia,

etc), interpersonal variables (such as the extent of

“come out”, supports from the society, participation in 11

homosexual society’s activity, sexual practice, etc) and

some “special” points (like bullying, the first time one

accept his/her identity, etc). They try to analysis how

these variables influence the homosexual identity

development and find a pattern of homosexual identity

development (Mohr & Fassinger, 2000).

Base on social constructionism, Frable and other two

American scholars put forward their model in 1999, which

is according to a 825 homosexual and bisexual men

enrolled questionnaire. This model considers the factors

which influence positive identity and positive self-

perception including three big factors: community

networks, personal visibility, and cultural stigma.

Culture stigma contains those stigmas form family,

heterosexual world (also called general stigma) and other

gay man. These three stigmas have negative influence on

positive self-perception and stigma from family also has

a relatively significant direct negative influence on

positive identity acceptance. Namely, if family does not

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accept gay person, this may influence on the positive

identity acceptance most. In this model, it also points

out that gay networks can help forming positive identity

(more details about this model see Figure1-3 in appendix)

(Frable, et al., 1997). Similarly, Elizur and Ziv (2001)

“propose that the main effect of family

support/acceptance on gay identity is related to the

process of disclosure and that both general family

support and family acceptance of same-gender orientation

play a significant role in the psychological adjustment

of gay men”.

Other scholars also try to find out what factors will

influence homosexual identity development. Scholars in

The City University of New York, they analyze the

influence of gay identity formation from the impacts of

psychosexual developmental milestones, sociosexual

developmental milestones, sexual behaviors, involvement

in gay-related integration, and seven other measures.

They also point out the sexual identity may change over

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time and “changes in sexual identity were hypothesized to

be associated with corresponding changes in aspects of

the identity integration process” (Rosario, et al. 2006).

The debate about the theoretical bases (essentialism

and social constructionism) has been around for ages.

However, as contemporary psychology developed, more

theories have been put forward. These include three main

theories (or perspectives): (1) life-span human

development perspective, (2) ecological theory, (3) life

course theory. Researchers based on these theories

proposed their model of homosexual identity formation.

In the life-span human development perspective, scholars

believe that individuals’ behavioral and psychological

development do not stop at a certain stage, it extends to

the entire life-span. The main concept of this is

“developmental plasticity”, which means that human

development is a dynamic and interactive process that is

determined by the environment in which an individual

lives. “Therefore, community, cultural, socio-political 14

and religious beliefs or attitudes affect the way in

which an individual develops, and all of the above are

bounded by historical contexts which are themselves

subject to change” (Rivers, 1997).

According to this theory, D’Augelli established a model

of lesbian-gay-bisexual development which “illustrates

the stages young men and women go through before they

identify themselves and are accepted as lesbians, gay men

and bisexual men and women”(D’Augelli, 1994a, cited in

Rivers, 1997). Based on D’Augelli’s model, Rivers(1997)

put forward his more suitable model. In this model the

way people develop their sexual identity is a circle.

Homosexual can became heterosexual, vice versa. The top

point of the circle is heterosexuality and the bottom

point of the circle is homosexuality. Rivers argues that

the clockwise order of heterosexuality to homosexuality

is the model which was identified by D’Augelli. But the

order which is from homosexuality to heterosexuality also

works. Rivers also argues that the top and bottom point

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are not necessarily the beginning point or ending point,

which mean “some may develop a personal homosexual

identity (item 2), there is no guarantee that they will

go on to develop a social or familial homosexual identity

(items 3 and 4) or feel able to seek a same-sex partner

(item 5)” (see Figure4). In this model, the bisexual

identity is included and it is also point out the

development plasticity in sexual identity.

Ecological theory focuses on researching individuals’

psychology and behavior in the real environment; it

explores all the possible factors’ influence on human

including internal and external factors of individual.

Alderson (2003) began to use ecological theory to explain

the gay male identity development. He divides the

identity formation process into three stages: before

coming out, during coming out, and after coming out.

In the stage of before coming out, the societal

influences impact on individuals most. Individuals may

have a sense that they may be gay. In this stage, there 16

are catalysts and hindrances which influence on persons’

self-identifying as gay. Hindrances like internalized

homophobia and negative views of homosexuality will make

the self-identity process hard. “Examples of catalysts

are having dreams with homosexual content, feeling

sexually attracted to males, and falling in love with a

male” (Alderson, 2003). He also points out there are

“some influences serve as either catalysts or hindrances,

including influences from: (1) parents and family; (2)

culture and church; (3) peers; and (4) society.” “When

there is enough psychic press, or cognitive dissonance,

to push the catalysts above the hindrances, a gay male is

able to come out and self-identify as gay” (ibid.). Then

it comes to the stage of coming out. In this stage youth

deals with the cognitive dissonance. Individuals in order

to define themselves’ identity analyze themselves by the

extent of homosexual cognitions, behaviors and

affections. In the final stage, the challenge for gay

persons is to find a way of connection between

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themselves, homosexual world and the heterosexual world.

After this the stable gay identity is formed (ibid.).

“As a general theory of human development, life course

theory emphasizes the salience of social, cultural, and,

in particular, historical context on individual lives

over time” (Hammack, 2005). There are two principles

“which are particularly relevant to the study of sexual

orientation” in the life course theory. “First, the

principle of historical time and place posits that ‘the

life course of individuals is embedded in and shaped by

the historical times and places they experience over

their lifetime’” (ibid.). For example, Dube (2000) argues

that as the society developing, the youth have easier

access to social resources and information and the

society is more likely to accept homosexuals. So the

young generation will take less time on the acceptance of

homosexual identity than the older generation. The second

principle is human agency: “individuals construct their

own life course through the choices and actions they take

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within the opportunities and constraints of history and

social circumstances” (Elder, 1998, p. 4, cited in

Hammack, 2005). Hammack (2005) put forward his model of

sexual orientation based on the life course perspective

(see Figure 5). In the model, “sexual orientation is

defined as the biologically based affective disposition

of sexual desire which motivates behavior and assumption

of identity”. “Society offers the social identity

category – the categorical marker of self we call ‘sexual

orientation.’”

Hammack through the life course perspective proposes a

new paradigm of researching sexual orientation which is a

neutral stand between essentialism and social

constructionism. On one hand, he acknowledges that

biological factors play a key role in sexual desire and

causes different individual subjective experiences. On

the other hand, he agrees that in a certain context of

time and place, society makes the meaning of homosexual

identity.

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Method

The main method of this research project is interviewing,

from which I want to obtain both qualitative and

quantitative data. The purpose of these interviews is to

analyze what influence the acceptance of gay identity

among homosexual males. The result of these interviews

also helps to compare with the theoretical models of

homosexual identity development. My study mainly focuses

on three factors: First, is how the culture influences on

their acceptance of having gay identity. Secondly, how

their religion influences their chosen identity and

lastly, how the technology has helped them or

influenced them to accept their own identity.

I have interviewed 10 participants and from this small

population of participants, I will try to get an idea of

what the factors are exactly as perceived by participants

and how they affect participants’ decisions to accept

their identity. These 10 participants were found in the

Gay Network Applications: “Grindr” and “Jack’d”.20

The types of participants that I chose are based on the

three categories. The first category is age. I divided my

participants in to two different age groups, one is the

young age group (22-29), and the other is the elder group

(50+). The participants in this group are all British so

that this may consider that they share a same culture

from a macroscopic view. Thus I want to analyze what

other factors influence on their acceptance of gay

identity. The second category is nationality. There are

four British interviewees, four Chinese, one Bruneian,

and one Mexican. From the different nationality, I am

trying to focus on how different cultures’ influence the

participants’ acceptance of gay identity. The third

category is religion. In my participants, there are

Christian, Muslim and Buddhist. In this case, I am going

to figure out religion’s influence. One thing should be

mentioned here is that, in these three categories, there

are some participants could be divided into more than one

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category. For, example, one of my interviewees is 25

years old British who is Christian.

The way I conducted the interviews was actually having a

conversation. I tended to avoid conducting it in a formal

way, and this is to make sure all the respondents felt

comfortable all the way. I also avoided getting stuck

asking questions. To achieve this, I did my homework

about what to ask and focusing on the issues. The type

of the questions asked are more like to be ‘open ended’

questions so that it will not be possible to respond with

the words, "yes" or "no". Although, sometime I should ask

“yes” or “no” questions, I tried to add more “open ended”

questions following his answer. I also asked some factual

questions which help me to conclude quantitative data. I

tried to get along with my participants longer other than

conducting my interview. By doing this I want to know

more about my participants and also let them to be

familiar with me so that they would like to tell me more

about their experiences of having gay identity.

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The questions which I asked frequently are as below:

Do you accept your gay identity now?

When did you accept it?

When and how did you first realize or recognize that yourgay identity?

Do you think your culture influences you on the acceptance of gay identity? How does it influence you?

Do you think your religion influences you to accept your identity? How does it influence?

Do you think technology (the media) influences on your acceptance of gay identity? How?

Which factor do you think that influence you most on youracceptance of gay identity?

Results

Generally, my results from interviewing 10 participants

show some agreements with those theoretical models that I

stated above in the literature review. It also shows some

interesting points which have not been covered in those

models. In doing my interviews, my hypothesis is that the

influence of acceptance of gay identity in gay males is

complex thing which could include a number of variables.

It is not possible that for me to consider all the

influences of the gay identity acceptance. Therefore, I 23

merely select three factors which I think is the most

influential ones. These factors are: culture, religion,

and technology. One thing should be mentioned here is

that I consider that technology is one of the main

reasons which changes the time of acceptance between

different generations in Dube (2000)’s research.

First of all, all of my 10 participants have a period of

identity confusion. I measure the length of this period

simply, which I define the period of time with between

the first time they realize gay identity and the time of

they consider they accept their gay identity. I use this

to define the identity confusion stage because in this

research I just consider the influences on gay male self

acceptance of gay identity, albeit this may not be

accurate.

I find that 9 of my interviewees found that they first

realize their “difference” before puberty and this has a

conformity which crosses cultures and generations. Mr. C,

a retired British man, told me he felt his difference 24

when he was very young. Because he did not like the

activities which his same-sex peers do, such as football,

basketball, and the games involving physical competition.

Mr. R, a Chinese MA student, also told me the same thing.

He told me that he likes to play with girls doing indoor

activities rather than go out running with boys in his

young childhood. This supports the stage of sensitization

in Troiden’s model of gay identity development. Most of

my respondents make sure that they are gay when they come

into adolescence in which they were attracted by men. Mr.

B, another Chinese student, told me that when he like to

see the topless men in summer when he was in middle

school, he also feel that the sexy female body did not

attract him. Mr. S, a 59 years old British man told me

that he began to recognize his gay identity when he found

his fantasies involved only men. This verifies Hammack’s

model that shows the impact of sexual desire on

homosexual identity development.

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In terms of the length of it takes for my respondents to

accept their gay identity, there is not a significant

difference between different generations. This does not

fit Dube’s hypothesis, that younger generation will take

less time for them to accept gay identity. But the result

of my research shows that younger generation will realize

their gay identity earlier than the older generation. In

the comparison of the different generation British

interviewees, the two elder participants, both realized

their gay identity at 15 years old. It just took two

years for one of them to accept his gay identity, but it

took five years for the other one. Mr. K, a 22-year-old

undergraduate student, he first realized that he may be

gay when he was 12, however, he fully accepted his

identity at 19 years old and did not felt shame about it.

My another younger British participant also has the same

it takes him five years to accept his gay identity after

he first realized that at 14 years old. This phenomenon

also happens in other countries participants, Mr. F, a 25

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years old student who comes from Brunei, even told me

that he felt he liked his same-sex classmate in the age

of 8.

All my respondents accept their gay identity now, but

none of them comes to the stage that Cass (1984) called

“identity pride”. They take the gay identity easy,

however, they do not criticize the heterosexual and feel

proud of having gay identity and most of them do not

think they are different from others apart from the

sexual orientation. Namely, they do not think that

holding gay identity means it should be a different way

of life. Mr. K is very comfortable being honest about his

gay identity, but he also quite like it when people tell

him they did not realize he was gay. In his view it means

that they did not associate him with the standard gay

stereotype. Mr. D, a PhD student who is from Mexico, said

that “yep, we are the minority in society, but this does

not means we should be tagged the label of ‘gay’. We are

not that different, I am not proud of myself is gay, but

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not I also do not feel bad about it.” Mr. R told me that

if someone asked his sexual orientation, he would answer

it honestly, but if no one ask, he still like to keep it

in secret.

Regard with the cultural influence on the acceptance of

gay identity, from my interviews, it shows that culture

relatively influence more on the old generation than the

younger generation. I think this is partly because that

the culture changes as time goes, nowadays cultures in

different countries seems more open than before. Mr. S

considered that he could accept his gay identity

relatively easy not only because that his family support

him when they know he is gay, but also because he was

living in a relatively cultural open place where had a

couple of gay bars and was quite an accepting town. On

the contrary, three of my Chinese MA student respondents

thought that culture did not influence on their

acceptance of gay identity. This surprised me, because

normally we consider that the Chinese culture is more

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conservative than the western culture. One of them said

“I know that the Chinese culture may influence on the

older generation to accept gay, but it does not impact on

me. I know it is ridiculous to some people in my culture,

but I do not care.” “I think Chinese culture or may be

the Chinese society influence on my parents heavily, so

still now I do not tell them that I am gay. But I fully

accept my gay identity. I come out to most of my friends,

classmates in China,” another my Chinese interviewee told

me. Like Chinese culture, Malay is also considered as a

conservative culture. But Mr. H told me: “I know it is

definitely wrong in my culture, so why should I care

about it. And I know there must be some people are the

same as me in Brunei.” Culture is a complex concept,

although in the same country, the culture can be

different in different part.

Mr. A, another Chinese MA student, is the only example

who realized his gay identity after puberty and he just

accepted his gay identity four months ago when he came to

29

the UK. He had a girlfriend in China, and whilst he got

along with her, he began to realize his gay identity and

finally he told her he might be gay by texting. He told

me that he thought the culture influences him most on

acceptance of gay identity. He said: “I think if you live

in a culture that accepts the existing of gay, you would

accept yourself naturally. But if not, you are difficult

to accept yourself because you would judge yourself from

others’ views.” Now he thinks he is in a culture more

accepting gay. “I have attended the Leeds Gay Pride here,

I saw lots of families and even children joined the

activity. It was like a festival. The mayor even gave a

speech on the stage. This made me feel better when I know

lots of people are not against gay persons,” he said. I

am not sure that his case can support Rivers model that

people’s sexual orientation can change. I am sure that

cultural influence is different on different person. His

example might be the example that influenced by culture

more heavily.

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Looking at the influence of religion on gay male’s self

acceptance of gay identity, the result from my research

shows that religious factor does not impact on my

interviewees that much. Mr. E, a 25-year-old Christian,

even told me that he did not think that his religion

influenced his acceptance of gay identity at all. Mr. K

said: “I was baptized when I was a kid but honestly, I

don’t go to church, I don’t believe in an especial god or

do something by faith. Catholic religion doesn’t accept

gay people and maybe it helped me to accept my identity.

I would say, catholic rules made me move away from them

because I’m someone who is not accepted because of my

sexual preferences.” Mr. F also told me the same

experience, because he know in Islam, it is totally wrong

of being gay and it is shameful. So in his mind there was

not any struggling of accepting gay identity related to

his religion. Unlike Christianity and Islam, Buddhism

seems more accepting gay identity. Mr. A is a Buddhist,

he told me that in Buddhism they do not talk about

31

sexuality. I do not these cases are coincidence or not,

but these cases subvert my assumption that religion

influences on gay persons’ acceptance of gay identity a

lot.

There is one thing that the scholars’ theories do not

touch much in the development homosexual identity is the

technological factor which related to the improvement of

media caused by the improvement of technology. In my

research, I find that the technological factor helps the

younger generation participants’ acceptance of gay

identity. Mr. R told me that after he found that he was

attracted by the same sex in his young age. He felt

anxious about his sexual orientation. He cannot tell his

parents about this because the topic of sex still is an

untouched topic in most Chinese family. However, when he

searched his “problem” on line, he found the answer. The

website told him that he is homosexual and the

homosexuality is not a disease. This made him better and

he thought this helps him on accepting gay identity. In

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Brunei, homosexual is illegal. In the past, gay people

just can get in touch with other gays via friends.

However, in the Internet age, people can make gay friends

on line, although it is still illegal. Mr. F shared a

story of him with me. In 2001, there is a chat room named

“gayborneo” on Mirc chat website. That year he was 13

years old, he felt curious and even horny. He had the

feeling to try to give a blowjob to a guy. And yes, Micr

was his platform to find the guy. He also found a

boyfriend there. Since that time, he knew that being gay

is not a “problem” for him. This website also helped him

to find gay friends and they spent lots of happy time

together. Then he started to become open and able to

accept his gay identity. Mr. A also told me this, “Of

course, the technology helps me to accept my gay

identity. Social media for gays enable you to find other

gays and you would feel there are still many people are

the same with you. So you would accept yourself more.”

Discussion

33

Since I engage with gay identity, I find that concept of

gay identity is a much more complicated thing than I have

thought before. And also the sexual identity is not a

thing that has just two sides. There is not an only

“correct” way of living for human beings. Yes, in terms

of sexual orientation, we can easily divide it in to

three kinds: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual. But if

we consider it deeper, it is not that easy. As Foucault

(1984) argued that sexuality is related to power, I think

the gay identity also relates to power. I doubt that

whether the way we treat the minorities is right, because

we may focus more on the differences that we have. After

I interviewed my participants, I do not find that they

are that “different” as us. The way they accept their gay

identity is just like the way that we find who we are. I

think we all have a time that we doubt who we are. But it

is relatively hard for them to accept their identity

because numbers of factors.

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Back to my results that I find in my engagement with gay

identity, I find that the technology to a certain extent

helps the younger (who born in the 1980s) gay male’s self

acceptance of gay identity and the cultural and religious

influences on their acceptance may be not very big. These

are the points that the theoretical models and researches

may not focus on much.

Due to the limited time and my method, there are numbers

of limitations in this research which are as below:

The respondents are relatively lacking in

representativeness, although I found them randomly. It is

just a very small amount of participants (only 10). When

I do comparison between different factors that influence

on the gay male self identity acceptance, the old age

group is only two persons. The result of this may just

represent their individual experiences. So that the

pattern that I found above may be just only fit all my

participants.

35

The method is too simple. Although I try to combine

quantitative and qualitative questions in my interviews,

the data I collected are more qualitative and not

impersonal. All of my participants already accepted his

gay identity, which means that when they answer my

question they are recall the past. In the situation,

there may have errors and it is also impossible for me to

check the reality.

A larger amount of participants using a quantitative

questionnaire should be done, which helps to check the

result that I found during my field work. Another

question also needs paying attention to, which is what

the media’s role in the self acceptance of gay identity?

I have found that the technology and new media helps the

acceptance of gay identity in my younger (22-29)

participants. But I do not discuss the role of mass

media. It is true that my research is only a glance at

gay identity. Each of these parts can go into further

research in depth and detail.

36

References:

Alderson, K. G. 2003. The ecological model of gay male identity. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. 12(2), pp. 75–85

American Psychological Association. 2008. Sexual orientation and homosexuality. [online]. [Accessed 10 November 2013]. Available from: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx

Cass, V.C. 1979. Homosexuality Identity Formation: A Theoretical Model. Journal of Homosexuality. 4(3), pp. 219-235.

DeLamater, J. D. and Hyde, J. 1998. Essentialism vs. social constructionism in the study of human sexuality. Journal of Sex Research. 35, pp. 10–18.

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Dube, E. M. 2000. The role of sexual behavior in the identification process of gay and bisexual males. The Journal of Sex Research. 37(2), pp. 123–132.

Elizur, Y. and Ziv, M. 2001. Family Support and Acceptance, Gay Male Identity Formation, and Psychological Adjustment: A Path Model. Family process. 40(2), pp. 125-144.

Foucault, M. 1984. Domain. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 103-111.

Frable, D. E. S. et al. 1997. Predicting self-esteem, well-being, and distress in a cohort of gay men: The importance of cultural stigma, personal visibility, community networks, and positive identity. Journal of personality. 65(3), pp. 599–624.

Hammack, P. L. (2005). The life course development of human sexual orientation: An integrative paradigm. Human Development. 48,pp.267–290.

Mohr, J. and Fassinger, R. 2000. Measuring dimensions of lesbian and gay male experience. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development. 33, pp.66–90.

Rivers, I. 1997. Lesbian, gay and bisexual development: Theory, research and social issues. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology. 7, pp.329–343.

Rosario, M. et al. 2006. Sexual identity development among lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths: Consistency and change over time. Journal of Sex Research. 43(1), 46–58.

Troiden, R. D. 1989. The Formation of Homosexual Identities. Journal of Homosexuality.17(1-2), pp.43-74.

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Appendix:

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Figure 1: Theoretical model of the Interrelations of Culture Stigma, Personal Visibility, Community Networks, Positive Identity, and Positive Self-Perceptions (Frable,et al., 1997).

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Figure 2: Saturated Structural Model Linking Stigma, Visibility, Community Identity, and Positive Self-Perceptions (Frable, et al., 1997).

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Figure 3: Final Structural Model Linking Stigma, Visibility, Community, Identity, and Positive Self-Perceptions (Frable, et al., 1997).

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Figure 4: Lesbian, gay and bisexual development: modelinghuman plasticity (Rivers, 1997).

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Figure 5: Svhematic representation of the development pathway for sexual orientation (Hammack, 2005).

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