The impact of homophobic trauma on gay men

Abstract

This article is based on a presentation I made to a Group Analytic Society International (GASi) event on ‘The Impact of Homophobia on Mind, Body and Soul’ in May 2021. Much of what I discuss applies to gay women and people who are transgender. However, I will foreground the experience of gay men because I have more clinical and personal experience in this field. I provide a working definition of homophobia and how it impacts on the psychological development of gay men at various points during their earlier life stages. My contention is that the presentation of gay men in our clinics and practices in terms of their psychological difficulties and issues can be attributed, largely, to the impact of homophobic trauma rather than anything that is innate. This is largely due to gay men, from very young ages, having to manage a wide range of traumatizing negative responses and betrayal from their families and communities, ranging from ostracism to extreme violence and rejection from those who are meant to care for them. The more damaging impacts of these attitudes occur at points in the early developmental stages of gay men when they do not have a mature psychic apparatus with which to process and manage repeated and relentless homophobic trauma. This has implications for their personality formation and can lead to their developing some very unhelpful and dysfunctional defences. It is, in fact, surprising that gay men are such positive contributors to society and are not far more disturbed and destructive, given the amount of trauma that they face throughout their early development. I conclude with a discussion of the clinical needs of gay men.