Delineating differences : sub-communities in the San Francisco gay community

B. Peacock, S. Eyre, S. Quinn, S. Kegeles

This paper analyses community members' descriptions of subgroups of gay and bisexual men in San Francisco. Five group categories are identified and subjected to detailed allalysis. These are labelled leather, men of colour, activists, men who go to clubs and younger. While some of these groups meet established criteria of 'community', they do so in different ways suggesting the existence of relatively discrete sub-communities within the San Francisco gay community. While the gay community is often conceived of as monolithic it may in fact be culturally heterogenous. An altemate multi-constitutive model of community is proposed to account for this cultural heterogeneity. We also discuss how some sub-communities develop around culturally charged areas of differece, and consider the possible implications of these differences for future community interventions.