In the City and Out of the Gayborhood: How Black, Queer Men Contend with Spatial Inequalities in the Pursuit of Urban, Queer Community

Abstract

Scholars have paid particular attention to the various ways that queer sexuality is organized within the modern metropolis. Especially through focusing on the development of sexual enclaves and gayborhoods, they have illustrated the ways that these neighborhoods and communities have come to epitomize queer life, culture, and commerce in American cities. Despite the growth of these neighborhoods, many queer men remain excluded, either by force or by choice, and locate their queer participation outside of marked urban, queer communities. This dissertation examines how the gayborhood as emblematic of urban, queer life, coupled with other patterns of urban stratification, have contributed to urban sexual inequality, specifically through the centralization of the gayborhood at the expense of pluralistic understanding of urban, queer place-making. Using a multi-method analysis, I examine the ways that Black, queer men create, produce, and participate in urban, queer place-making outside of the gayborhood. Focusing on how queer men traverse urban space in pursuit of queer community, partners, and spaces, I utilize a combination of qualitative methods to show that urban, queer, sexual inequality is structural, resulting from a combination of multiple types of sexual and urban inequalities. Specifically, I examine how the asymmetrical distribution of queer sexual spaces throughout the city places additional burdens on some queer men in navigating and negotiating access to such places, especially when those spaces are located outside of their residential neighborhoods and among different demographics of people. I further investigate how access to urban resources mitigates one’s access to these spaces. Using transportation as a lens to illuminate differences in urban resource allocation, I show how men outside of the gayborhood more frequently must contend with unreliable, unaffordable, or non-existent transportation options as they navigate the urban terrain. These arguments, taken in tandem, lead urban, queer men to understand the queer sexual landscape in varying ways, many of which benefit the most privileged at the expense of the most marginalized. Finally, I conclude by focusing on the various strategies that queer men outside of the gayborhood utilize to contend with structural inequalities highlighting novel ways of negotiating interpersonal impression management and leveraging community ties to create forms of ephemeral queer community.