Yet today’s gay men aren’t as reliant on representations crafted by others, with social media helping to democratize storytelling by providing a platform for people to share their experiences. Historically, gay stereotypes have been even less kind. To find out what else was gay, I looked to popular-culture, where I saw gay men mostly adhering to a fairly one-dimensional set of stereotypes: fashionable, witty, effeminate. Growing up, people would often tell me that I “walked gay.” I used to wonder how putting one foot in front of the other could seem gay, but I heard it so frequently that I accepted it as truth.
