Petrelis Files

What's Wrong With Calling Gays "MSM?"

When I moved to San Francisco in 1995 and began paying attention to what the Department of Public Health was doing regarding gay male health and sexuality, it bugged me that the health authorities used the phrase "men who have sex with men" in describing their programs targeting both self-identified gay men and closet cases.

I recall conversations with S.F. DPH officials about how the acronym MSM denied the identity and community of out gay men and our needs. The officials claimed that in order to reach the closeted men it was necessary to use the MSM term instead of gay because it would allow them to reach more men at-risk for HIV and other STDs.

Seemed to me this approach was basically shoving out gay men back into the closet and a willful denial of the gay identity and all of the good benefits of such an identity, but my concerns were dismissed by the S.F. DPH.

Well, I came across this abstract today from the American Journal of Public Health that sums how why I find the MSM term so offensive and a detriment to public health.

I will send it along to the MSMs, er, gay men who work at the health department in the hope to generate discussion about the term and S.F. DPH's approach to effective public health for both gay men and closet cases who don't identify as such.
^^^


AJPH First Look, published online ahead of print Jun 16, 2005

American Journal of Public Health, 10.2105/AJPH.2004.046714


The Trouble With "MSM" and "WSW": Erasure of the Sexual-Minority Person in Public Health Discourse

Rebecca Young 1
Ilan Meyer 2*

1 Barnard College
2 Columbia University

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: im15@columbia.edu.


"Men who have sex with men" (MSM) and "women who have sex with women" (WSW) are purportedly neutral terms commonly used in public health discourse. But they are problematic terms that often imply a lack of lesbian or gay identity and an absence of community, networks, and relationships in which same-gender pairings mean more than merely sexual behavior. Overuse of "MSM" and "WSW" adds to a history of scientific labeling of same-sex pairing that reflects, and inadvertently advances, heterosexist notions. We do not advocate for the complete demise of "MSM" and "WSW," but believe that a decade after their introduction, the terms have become institutionalized and risk inattentive usage. We urge public health professionals to be vigilant about use of the terms: while helpful sometimes, MSM and WSW must be recognized as a sort of "lowest common denominator" and reserved for occasions when it is impossible to ascertain information on social aspects of sexuality.

Key Words: HIV/AIDS, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Persons