A local group's review of data from a survey it's been conducting since 2004 indicates the city's gay men are far from having a tight-knit community. Only about half of the respondents say there's a gay community with which they identify. The survey results, which might not be surprising to many people, also show that men with different racial, economic, age, HIV status, and body types often don't mix.
Hoping to help change that, members of the San Francisco Gay Men's Community Initiative are holding a community celebration and fundraiser Sunday, October 14.
Doug Sebesta, Ph.D., executive director of GMCI, recently helped review the data. He said the results will hopefully help the city's gay men start gaining a better understanding of each other and engaging with each other.
"So many people are saying 'we don't have a community,' and those same people are saying that's exactly what they feel they need and want," Sebesta, who is also a medical sociologist at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said. The group's review said the isolation indicates a lack of support at the individual level and a lack of political involvement at the community level.
Sebesta freely acknowledges the surveys aren't scientific. The group didn't do anything like random sampling, and altogether only 1,300 gay men in San Francisco have responded in places such as bars, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, and the group's Web site. GMCI didn't conduct the survey in 2006.
In each year of the survey, only about half of gay men said there's a community with which they identify. In 2007, only 36 percent of men under 29 felt that there's a gay community with which they can identify, as opposed to 56 percent of everyone else, according to the review.
One anonymous respondent said, "I consider myself gay ... but I do not consider myself part of a gay community because the gay community seems to symbolize conformity, shallowness, codependency, drug use, and lack of personal responsibility."
Sebesta noted most respondents don't want to be disconnected. In 2007, almost eight out of 10 respondents said "feeling part of a gay community" was important to their health and well-being.
GMCI was formed a little over three years ago to encourage community building among gay men. The group's activities include "Wilde Chats," where gay men discuss issues affecting them and their community. Sebesta hopes the survey results will prompt more socializing and encourage men to deal with what's kept them apart.
The barriers are numerous. Half of the respondents this year said people of different races don't socialize. Sixty-seven percent see economic status as a barrier, and 64 percent said people with different HIV status don't mix. Only one out of three respondents felt they trust what another man says his HIV status is.
More than three quarters say people of different ages or body types don't mix. Also this year, almost 80 percent of gay men say a fear of rejection is an obstacle to meeting other gay men.
Sebesta said the Internet has been beneficial because it offers immediate communication, but it's also given many men an excuse to stay home alone.
"I've had therapists who've told me they're asking their clients to go back to the bars as a way of social interaction with people," Sebesta said.
He also said, however, people are increasingly "getting out from behind their computer screen and actually talking to people."
Sebesta said men have often come together through activism, but issues like same-sex marriage haven't brought people together like "the outward health crisis of AIDS," which killed thousands of the city's residents in the 1980s and 1990s.
Tim Vollmer, Ph.D., who's on the GMCI's board of directors, said the data worries him.
"A strong community is the basis for effective action in a whole range of areas," he said. "We may not notice it now, but down the line ... we may find we're unable to deal with issues or problems" that arise.
Sunday's benefit takes place at Foreign Cinema, 2534 Mission Street, from 6 to 9 p.m. The event, entitled "Community Heroes – Honoring Volunteer Leadership" will recognize Rodger Brooks, Jeff Cotter, Lucky Choi, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and Eric Rofes (posthumously). Tickets are $25 and can be purchased by e-mailing mailto:[email protected] or at the door.
To take the survey, visit www.isparksf.com/survey.html.