UC Irvine

Gay sexuality has been racialized as White and Latino ethnicity opposes a homosexual identity. Adopting a gay sexual identity thus seemingly requires the shedding of an expressive and instrumental ethnic identity, something that is challenging if not impossible for Latino men. I argue, however, that it is possible to be both gay and Latino and I show how that happens for my Latino gay men respondents. The focus of my dissertation is on gay men who are out to their family members and invested in a romantic, committed relationship. I analyzed Latino gay men’s lives in order to shed light on how LGBTQ people of color reconcile historically unreconcilable aspects of their lives: sexual identity and ethnic identity. I find that my respondents contest ethnosexual boundaries in their everyday interactions with family members. The Latino gay men in my study, predominantly of Mexican origin, become gay within the family context as they engage family in processes that are shaped by broader shifts in the cultural, social, economic, and political contexts in which they and their families are embedded.