Negotiating Ethnic and Sexual Identity: The Experiences of British South Asian Young Gay, Bi, and Queer Men

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, scholarship has shed light on the challenges faced by British South Asian gay, bisexual, and queer young men. These studies have shifted over time, however. While earlier literature alluded towards the negotiation of ethnic, religious and sexual identities, more recent literature homogenises South Asian ethnicities within Britian as bounded, monolithic, cold and patriarchal. This has reproduced the dynamics of the ‘race relations’ paradigm, which has been highly criticised. Moreover, while shedding light on the experiences of British South Asian gay, bisexual, and queer men, more recent literature has also tended to be speculative surrounding the reactions of family, and there has been an additional focus on South Asian Muslim men. There is little literature that explores how British South Asian gay, bisexual and queer men come out to their parents, and to which degree their sexual identity may or may not affect ethnic and religious identification. In this thesis I address some gaps about how British South Asian gay, bisexual, and queer men come out to their parents, to which degree this may fracture their relationship (if at all), and how this affects their ethnic and religious identification. In addition, I discuss how they relate to other British South Asian gay, bisexual, and queer men and negotiate the broader gay/queer community through their experiences in physical and digital spaces, and within dating. I have conducted nineteen semi-structured interviews with British South Asian gay, bisexual, and queer men, and I show how my participants identities are highly situated, complex and varied, and that through their experiences, they unsettle some of the culturalist assumptions about the dissonance between their ethnic and religious and sexual identities.

Date of Award	5 Jun 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Claire Alexander (Main Supervisor), Meghan Tinsley (Co Supervisor) & Brian Heaphy (Co Supervisor)