Coming out in a hostile social environment : challenges for HIV prevention among young gay men / Peter A. Newman

P. Newman

Young people below the age of 24 years account for almost half of all new HIV infections in the United States; young men who have sex with men are disproportionately represented among this population (Centers for Disease Control, 2000). The major assertions of this article are: 1) the social context of coming out may be vital to the overall psychological health and well-being of gay youth and, in turn, to their HIV risk behavior; and 2) coming out is a multifaceted developmental process: different pathways of coming out may be related to different types and determinants of HIV risk behavior. Evidence of a milieu of stigmatization, anti-gay hatred, harassment and violence among gay youth suggests that merely addressing HIV risk with even high quality individual-level interventions that myopically focus on sexual behavior may be insufficient. Interventions targeting anti-gay attitudes and behaviors in families, schools and communities, as weIl as combating discriminatory social policies and institutions, may be a vital aspect of HIV prevention for gay youth.