"...Pachankis and his colleagues found that the stress gay and bisexual men reported experiencing related to their community’s preoccupation with sex, status and competition, as well as racism within their ranks, was associated with compromised mental health, especially for those lower on the gay-status totem pole. These connections held even when the investigators controlled for traditional factors tied to the stress of being a stigmatized sexual minority as well as general life stress... Pachankis’s research suggests factors such as physique, income and race can be major sources of compare-and-despair anxieties... Local men in his studies rarely report, he says, "‘I had a really difficult week because someone called me a fag.’ It’s much, much more common that folks are talking about intraminority stressors of a lot of dating apps, judgment, and sexual racism within the community... I would hope this set of findings would never compromise the drive for LGBTQ equality," he says. "Every minority group must face stressors from within."

"...Gay culture’s preference for a specific physical ideal does indeed affect those who fall short of the prevailing standards. Some of these negative effects include low self-esteem, eating disorders, and body dysmorphia... Some gay men who don’t measure up might even develop 'an increased use or dependency' on drugs and alcohol."

"...One-third of the gay men they surveyed reported experiencing 'anti-fat bias' - even among those who weren't classified as overweight by the Body Mass Index... For instance, were a 'fat' gay man to approach someone in a bar, ...there was a 'greater likelihood that the overweight man would be blatantly ignored, treated rudely, or mocked behind his back' than a heterosexual male of the same size... Gay men face enormous pressure to fit into a very narrow view of beauty—often defined on hookup apps like Grindr and Scruff by the groups they leave out: 'No Fats, No Femmes.' These politics of exclusion leave many feeling left out of a community that, after coming out, they hoped would embrace them... This cycle of insecurity sets a nearly impossible beauty standard and sends a toxic message to queer men: If you don’t look a certain way, you don’t deserve to be loved."

"There is only one thing that keeps gay men in shape: fear... Gay men are afraid that they will be alone for the rest of their lives. If a gay man is not 'serving body' while competing to find a trick or boyfriend in one of the more muscle-bound climates of gay culture, he will be sorely shut out. That is why gay men don't get fat, because if they don't have pecs, guns, and glutes, they're going home alone... Many gay men spend their adolescence as outcasts or misfits, and when they finally get to a place where they can join the gay culture at large, they react to their years of social solitude by conforming with the sort of fervor usually reserved for packs of teenage girls."

"I was once told that coming out as a gay man was like being welcomed into the best club in the world... When you first come out, you’re automatically granted inclusion - if not by friends and family, then by the gay community as a whole... And they’re eager to let you know that you’re not alone, and that you have a seat at the table. Unless, of course, you’re also fat, in which case, no, you can’t sit with us... There is a widely held understanding that being gay means maintaining a certain standard of physical beauty, with very little room for deviation from the norm."

"Now, I consider myself a gay male with some extra pounds, so I had to honestly ask myself is the gay community THAT superficial? Yes, I’ve been shot down before, but I’d like to think it was because I was approaching the wrong people; people who didn’t care about me and who wouldn’t care about me if we were to become friends/lovers/whatever. Yes, seeing “no fats” on every other gay personal is frustrating, but then again that’s just their preference and their loss, right? Yes, there is pressure to be slim or more muscular, but isn’t that a preference not shared by all gay men? Maybe my fat ass is just being naive, but I’d like to think there are guys out there who are not just attracted to the size 28s, because if what I overheard is any inkling of the truth, then it kind of makes me not want to be gay anymore. Unfortunately, that sucks because there’s not a hell of a lot I can do to change that... There are too many people dealing with weight and body issues on the brink of doing something drastic. Overhearing a conversation like that is enough to drive them over the edge."

"...He was found dead in the garage of his Miami home, hanging by a yellow cord, discovered by a friend in what the police determined to be a suicide... In recent years, friends said, they began to see signs that Dr. Brandt was having trouble adjusting to some of the less glamorous aspects of his life, one of which was being a single, 65-year-old gay man. He hadn’t been in a relationship since his 20s or 30s... In the winter of 2014, Dr. Brandt’s friend Elizabeth Hayt went to Dr. Brandt’s New York apartment for a last-minute visit. At one point, she said, she went to the bathroom, where she discovered a pile of syringes and needles and blood-stained gauze pads."

“...A publisher specializing in gay literature was scheduled to print a self-help guide [Mr. Bergeron] had written, "The Right Side of Forty: The Complete Guide to Happiness for Gay Men at Midlife and Beyond"... He had also seen how few public examples there were of gay men growing older gracefully... On Jan. 5, Mr. Bergeron was found dead in his apartment, the result of a suicide... he privately expressed misgivings about what the future held.

...The book also emphasized what to do when you’re not attractive or you no longer have the appeal you once had. The idea was to transcend that and expand your sexual possibilities... [As a suicide note] Mr. Bergeron also wrote, "It’s a lie based on bad information." An arrow pointed up to the name of the book. The inference was clear. As Mr. Bergeron saw it at the end of his life, the only right side of 40 was the side that came before it."