Suicide is by any stretch of the imagination a difficult subject to talk about, which is why it was both surprising and remarkable that roughly 75 people in San Francisco recently showed up on a Wednesday evening for a town hall-style meeting called "When the Rainbow Isn't Enough" to do just that.
Using only word of mouth, Facebook, and other social media outlets, the event was organized by community members who had grown increasingly concerned by a series of well publicized suicides by adult gay men over the last few years. While self-harm by gays, young and old, is by no means a new phenomenon, these particular suicides have hit a nerve in LGBT communities across the whole country.
Some of the most notable victims �" a dashing high-profile New York City psychotherapist, several stunningly handsome porno stars at the top of their game, a much beloved San Francisco businessman with a decades-old iconic travel agency �" all seemed to be very capable individuals living out a fantasy version of the "gay dream," which made their self-inflicted deaths all that more unsettling.
The fact that these men were residing in some of the most gay-friendly environments imaginable, at a time of historic social progress for LGBT people, made their deaths still yet even more troubling. Unlike instances of suicide by gay teens or by gays living in severely repressive societies, these seemed more triggered by internal gay community dynamics rather than by outside ones.
Or, to put it another way, these suicides force us to look at the world we ourselves have created �" to look at how we treat each other �" for answers rather than just point to effects of mainstream homophobia. Are gays, and in particular gay men, creating a community, a way of life, in which things actually do "get better" as we become adults? If not, what can we as a community do to remedy the situation?
These were the difficult questions that a large number of community members came together to tackle at that town hall meeting. After several hours of quite sincere introspection, the evening produced some very provocative and helpful insights that might help move the discussion forward.
One of the most important moments of the evening came early on when one of the panelists, trans activist Veronika Fimbres, asked who in the room had ever seriously thought of suicide as an adult. In a very dramatic fashion, nearly all the people in the room raised their hands.
Suddenly, the whole notion of suicide, a subject that is typically portrayed as the personal problem of the troubled few (the depressed person, the drug abuser, the terminally ill, etc.) became something else entirely. It became quite clearly a social issue and not just a mental health one. For the rest of the evening, the discussion did not follow the usual "us-them" dichotomy that often appears when professionals or experts are present and talk about prevention or providing treatment and services. Instead, we were all talking about how we can help ourselves and each other. The sense of empowerment that ensued was palpable.
Another critical moment came when an audience member admitted that it was hard for him to go out and meet other gay men in the bars, clubs, and other venues because he felt that there was always an effort by other gays to make him, and each other, feel "lesser than."
Once again it was a feeling that nearly everyone in the room shared no matter what their station in life. Many of the older men in the room stressed how invisible they now feel and how they feel squeezed out of the mainstream of gay life. Their comments echoed the chilling sentiments of that handsome New York psychotherapist who, before killing himself on the eve of his 50th birthday, wrote as part of his suicide note "it's a lie based on bad information" on the title page of his forthcoming book on how to thrive after midlife as a gay man.
It quickly became clear, however, that this feeling of being "lesser than" was not confined to the more mature or, for that matter, the HIV-positive, those without stellar looks, or a fat paycheck. For example, adult film star Michael Brandon, one of the original organizers of the event, stressed how it affected him too. "Porn is all about validation," he explained, "but it's a never-ending and exhausting struggle since it's only my porn persona that is being validated. Still today I hide the real me, who I feel is deeply inadequate and unlovable, which has made me time and time again vulnerable to drugs and depression."
While much of the evening's discussion focused on problematic feelings and social dynamics, near the end it turned toward a more constructive direction. When an audience member stated that his social circles were both too big and too small, the question of community, or rather the lack of it, came to the fore. At this point panelist Race Bannon, a popular local blogger and community activist jumped in. "People always think community work involves big projects," he argued, "when actually all it really is is simply bringing people together, whether it's meeting for coffee, having a dinner party, or organizing a meeting like this one. Everyone can do it and everyone needs to do it."
These last comments may possibly point to where the discussion about suicide and self-harm by adult gays needs to go. Despite all the social progress of recent times, gay social networks, especially those of gay men, have been ravaged, first by AIDS and now increasingly by hyper-gentrification as locals fear they are being priced out of their own communities. The beloved local San Francisco businessman's suicide, for example, was preceded by eviction struggles over both his apartment and his travel agency.
To counter this ongoing sense of isolation, we must all actively and consistently rebuild our social connections �" no one else can do it for us. Yet we must also take care to do so in a way that allows for our real selves to come "out of the closet" rather than hide behind projections of idealized personas that are becoming more and more common online and in real life.
There are no easy answers for all this. But as the recent town hall meeting's heavy turnout and active participation demonstrates, already the word is out and now it is up to all of us to continue the discussion.
Timothy Vollmer, Ph.D., is a writer, cultural anthropologist, and community organizer. He is currently president of the board of directors for the nonprofit San Francisco Gay Men's Community Initiative, which sponsored the "When the Rainbow Isn't Enough" town hall forum on May 29, 2013.