Since 2015 I’ve been studying LGBTQ culture and gay life, and much of that time has been spent trying to untangle and understand the tensions and prejudices within gay culture. While social scientists have explored racism on online dating apps, most of this work has centered on highlighting the problem, a topic I’ve also written about.
I’m seeking to move beyond simply describing the problem and to better understand why some gay men behave this way.
From 2015 to 2019 I interviewed gay men from the Midwest and West Coast regions of the United States. Part of that fieldwork was focused on understanding the role Grindr plays in LGBTQ life.Ī slice of that project – which was recently published in the journal Deviant Behavior – explores the way gay men rationalize their sexual racism and discrimination on Grindr. The gay men I connected with tended to make one of two justifications.
