Studying South African Black Gay Men’s Experiences: A First-Time Researcher’s Experience of Reflexivity in a Qualitative Feminist Study

Qualitative research on gay experiences in South African society is slowly gaining momentum. However, it is accompanied by serious ethical implications and positionality dilemmas that should be considered in carrying out such research. Black gay researchers’ discussions of reflexivity in research that focuses on gay identities and realities in South Africa remain minimal. This paper focuses on a first-time gay male researcher’s experience of being reflexive in a qualitative feminist study on the realities of Black gay men in mining workplaces. It highlights the importance of reflexivity and how it is enacted by a gay researcher who studies a gay population that they are in some way a part of, especially in South Africa, where sexuality is still a contentious topic. It is easy for a researcher to alter participants’ narratives when they are a part of the population because they already have certain perceptions based on their personal experiences. This paper posits that the sexual and other intersecting identities and personal experiences of a researcher matter in research on vulnerable sexual minorities and should be a basis for critical reflections in qualitative feminist research.

Sexuality in Later Life and Mental Health Among Older Black Gay Men

Self-acknowledgement and integration of racial and sexual identities are significant to one’s overall sense of identity because of their implications for mental health and wellbeing. These issues are important as one ages because older people experience a wide range of factors that add layers to their ability to (re)integrate subsets of their identity into their overall self-identity such as age and age-related disabilities. This study examined the intersection of race and sexual identities on overall health status in older Black gay men, a demographic group that has historically received less attention. Data from the Social Justice Sexuality (SJS) survey of LGBTQ+ people of color which occurred over a 12-month period in the United States were analyzed. Participants (N=160), 50 years and over, responded to questions about their sexuality, social identity, family dynamics, community connection and engagement, and mental and physical health. Results show an association of mental wellbeing with racial and sexual identities. Further, results show that a strong sense of connection to other sexual minorities is positively associated with mental health in older Black gay men. We discuss the implication of findings for mental health interventions targeting this gendered population.

Sex, lies, and videotape: A content and textual analysis of media coverage of the HIV criminal prosecution of Michael Johnson

Media coverage of HIV criminal cases has deployed sexualized and racialized tropes, and portrayed defendants as villains. Several media analyses of HIV criminal trials have been conducted, though only one was in the US, and none involved young Black gay men, who are disproportionately impacted by HIV. We conducted content and textual analyses of 91 media stories focused on the 2015 case of Michael Johnson, a Black gay college student living with HIV who was convicted under Missouri’s HIV non-disclosure laws. To capture both dominant and resistant meanings in news stories, we included mainstream news outlets, as well as HIV-related, African American and GLBT community-oriented outlets. Open and axial coding were carried out by a team of four researchers and thematic analysis was used to explore how media framed Johnson, his sexual activities, condom use, and alleged nondisclosure. Results showed that media stories portrayed Johnson as dishonest and sexually predatory by drawing on narratives of deception and framing him as the sole agentic actor in his sexual encounters. We argue that these media frames, coupled with what is included and excluded in media coverage negatively impacts public opinion of PLWH, reinforces HIV criminalization ideologies, and performs a disciplinary function in the lives of PLWH.

“You Met My Ambassador”

This chapter focuses on race, sexuality, and self-monitoring by exploring the language practices of black gay men. We show how black gay men use language to creatively navigate the double-bind of homophobia in some black communities and the widespread racism found in predominantly white gay male communities. In our analysis of the speech of one black gay man (Bakari), we examine how he monitors his language and comportment as he constructs a black gay identity. Bakari creates the persona of an “ambassador,” which affords him more acceptance within discriminatory contexts, at least temporarily. We show how individuals who are both sexual and racial minorities use a complex set of linguistic resources in order to navigate the harmful, discriminatory discourses that they face in their daily lives.

A Disease, Not a Lifestyle

This chapter describes the work of Blacks Educating Blacks about Sexual Health Issues (BEBASHI), one of the country’s first Black AIDS organizations, under the leadership of Rashidah Hassan, a Black Muslim nurse. Hassan confronted racism within existing AIDS agencies, which were predominantly made up of white gay men, and maintained that Black gay and bisexual men could be reached only by canvassing Black neighborhoods outside of the downtown core, which was home to the mostly white “gayborhood.” This approach, she argued, additionally would help prevent AIDS among the straight Black men, women, and youth who were also shown to be at increased risk of the disease. But this approach also drew accusations of homophobia and hurt the group’s credibility with the Black gay men who were among the most at risk.

Nurturing Growth in Those Empty Spaces

This chapter describes the work of the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention (NTFAP), an organization that grew out of the work of the National Association of Black and White Men Together, and Reggie Williams, its charismatic leader. NTFAP was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1988, and produced some of the earliest knowledge about Black gay men’s sexual practices in the age of AIDS through a nationwide survey that it conducted under the auspices of the CDC grant. At the local level, in San Francisco, the NTFAP also forged a multicultural model of AIDS prevention and safer sex education, situating Black gay men within the broader category of “gay men of color.” However, NTFAP’s federal funding also opened it up to public scrutiny, as when the group was targeted by conservative pundits and politicians for its sexually explicit approach to AIDS prevention.

Black Men Loving Black Men Is a Revolutionary Act

This chapter describes the work of Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD), the leaders of which argued that Black gay men suffered from low self-esteem due to both racism and homophobia, which made them more likely to put themselves at risk for HIV through drugs and unprotected sex. As a remedy, GMAD offered up affirming images of Black gay men, often looking to the past to do so. Discussion topics frequently included homosexuality and queer identity in African and African American history, including Egyptian and Yoruba culture, the Harlem Renaissance, and the life of gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. At other times, the group highlighted literary and artistic work by luminaries in the Black gay renaissance, such as Joseph Beam, Essex Hemphill, and Marlon Riggs. The group also sought to claim a place for Black gay men within Afrocentric ideology, at one point collaborating with the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS to produce an AIDS education and prevention program based on Kwanzaa principles. GMAD leaders argued that these interventions helped equip members with the self-esteem necessary to protect themselves from HIV by practicing safer sex.

Body, ancestry, and ecstasy: reading Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s photographs in contemporary times

This article addresses different appropriations and representations of the lives of Black gay men, from the African diaspora and with transits established in late twentieth-century Europe, concerning the photographic essays of the Nigerian artist Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989), who lived for a long time in late twentieth-century England. This work seeks, through the analysis of the transit experienced by the artist between Africa and Europe, as well as in the power of the most diverse languages used in his photo essays, to give a contemporary reading of the male homosexual black body based on an eroticism and spirituality that escape the hegemonic and heteronormative narratives that have long imprisoned these ways of seeing and narrating Black gay men in the enclosure of racial tensions, homophobic crimes and conflicts of other order of sexuality.