In this study, we document life stories of gay men who attempted suicide as adults. Our goal is to expand the collection of narratives used to understand this persistent health inequity. We interviewed seven adult gay men, each of whom had attempted suicide two to four times, and identified five narratives. Pride narratives resist any connection between sexuality and suicide. Trauma-and-stress narratives enable coping through acknowledgment of sexual stigma as a fundamental trauma and cause of subsequent stress and suicidal thoughts. Memorial narratives prevent suicide by maintaining a strong sense of "permanent" identity. Outing narratives demand that the listener confronts the legacy of unjust practices of homosexual surveillance and "outing," which historically resulted in gay suicides. Finally, postgay narratives warn of the risk of suicide among older generations of gay men who feel erased from the goals of modern gay movements. Sexual identity concealment or invisibility featured prominently in all five narratives.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 39. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 August 2026.
All research outputs
#1,325,762
of 34,208,280 outputs
Outputs from Qualitative Health Research
#90
of 2,168 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#21,463
of 372,358 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Qualitative Health Research
#4
of 37 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,208,280 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,168 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 372,358 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 37 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its contemporaries.
