Latinos on the Down Low: Catching AIDS Incognito.

Tying HIV prevention to sexual identity has been an effective public health strategy. However, HIV infection among young Latino/a and African Americans continues to mount. "On the down low," a youth term for secretive or undercover, has become a code for the furtive same-sex sexual practices of young men who reject Gay or bisexual identities. This phenomenon received the attention of African Americans but Latino communities have largely, ignored it.

The articles on the down low published in the popular press describe young men unfazed by the tension between their non-normative sexualities and their otherwise conventional Black and Latino working-class male identities. At the core of their secrecy, is their refusal to politicize their intimacy, that is, to adopt a public gay identity.2 While the literature on same-sex practices among African Americans lists religion as a paramount deterrent of sexual expression, men on the down low do not cite choosing between right and wrong as a dilemma. Like the broad smile of our "handsome Latino" in the South Bronx club suggests, the young men quoted in these articles do not seem to experience guilt for rejecting Judeo-Christian strictures. Their quandary is not ethical but socio-cultural. They would not flout age-, race-, and class-sanctioned masculinities: gay is not an option.

The initial reports focused on youth, linking life on the down low to Hip-Hop culture's hyper-masculine stance (Trebay, 2000; Venable, 2001; Wright, 2001). The connection of the term down low with youth of color was consistent with linguistic assessments that place it emerging in the early 1990s among young African Americans (Green, 1998). Thus defined, the notion of the down low, although charged with moral and racial implications, is useful in public health terms because it delineates the sexual identity and behavior of a population, at a specific historical moment.

The sensationalist possibilities of expanding the rubric to all bisexual Black men who keep their men-loving activities to themselves, regardless of age or micro-cultural niche, proved too tempting, and soon the term down low, was applied liberally. In Essence Magazine, Tamala Edwards wrote that the down low was not just youthful sexual exploration, a common interpretation of bisexuality (Muñoz, 2004), but an established feature in the lives of some adult Black men (Edwards, 2001). Scotty R. Ballard, of Jet Magazine, argued that their refusal to identify as "gay" prevents these men from heeding prevention messages directed to the gay community. Health experts speculated that "some of those on the down low apparently learned the lifestyle in prison, then began dual lives after being released" wrote Ballard (2001), showing that for some people, the down low connotes crime and urban pathology.

Criticism also came from the gay community. In February 2000, Guy Trebay asked from the pages of the Village Voice, "Homo-thugz? Doesn't everybody know that [H]ip-[H]op hates faggots?" Men-loving men "dancing to music that in certain cases may advocate their demise," bewildered Mr. Trebay. Although there are socially responsible rappers (Marable, 2002), Trebay voiced the widespread gay resentment against homophobic rap lyrics. The irony was that young men on the low seemed to have guilt-free sex lives, in great measure as result of the sex education the gay movement imparted. Yet, in refusing gay identity, they undermined the political hypothesis that "[Gays] are everywhere."

In sum, in the down low debate, the rage caused by the alleged bisexuality of men of color, contrasted with the historical silence on white men's bisexuality (Mukherjea and Vidal-Ortiz, 2002). In spite of the possibility of there being a continuum between "DL fashion" and strict sexual concealment (Gordon, 2002), press reports on down low sexualities were treated as monolithic and unquestionable truths. The lessons learned about non-judgmental tailoring of HIV prevention to specific lifeways and worldviews, were muffled by loud self-righteousness. Although most press descriptions of the down low included young Latino men, Latino/a HIV workers and communities have eluded the discussion.

From: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/lst/journal/v5/n1/full/8600238a.html  Adjusted to fit this Blog.

Roots of Homosexuality in Hispanic Community:

The popular take on “how the West was won” evokes images of rowdy cowboys and brave Indians slugging it out, with the noble but obsolete Indians gradually falling back and fading away before the military might of the Europeans, and the moral force of “manifest destiny,” the principle that the white American has a God-given mandate to conquer and rule the entire temperate zone of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. All the while the Indian is seen as faithfully paired off with his “squaw,” and the cowboy or the soldier as getting his rocks off on the run in the local bordello, under the tough but benign gaze of the hard-nosed madam: “Wham, bam, thank you m’am!” 

Whatever may be the merits of that colonial mentality, still prevalent de facto and de jure throughout the U.S., the fact is that this image has little to do with how either the victor or the vanquished lived. But only a handful of scholars are likely to be aware of the rich veins of homoerotic tradition pervading the culture of the invaders as well as that of the First Nations whose lands they barged through.

For the moment the ancient patterns of male love woven through the fiber of almost every (yes, variety allowed even for the occasional homophobic tribe) Native culture on the American continent is of greater interest. The many forms of this tradition have until recently been lumped by historians under the rubric of berdachism, “berdache” being defined by Webster’s Dictionary as a “homosexual male – an American Indian transvestite assuming more or less permanently the dress, social status, and role of a woman.”

Not surprisingly, the experience of Native peoples is something other than either the popular or the professional stereotype. Though it would be presumptuous to claim to represent its essence from the perspective of an outsider, we can still look at certain features of two-spirit life in Native cultures, features that delineate how First Nations peoples integrated individuals with uncommon gender identity into their society.

The first step on the path to a two-spirit life was taken during childhood. The Papago ritual is representative of this early integration: If parents noticed that a son was disinterested in boyish play or manly work they would set up a ceremony to determine which way the boy would be brought up. They would make an enclosure of brush, and place in the center both a man’s bow and a woman’s basket. The boy was told to go inside the circle of brush and to bring something out, and as he entered the brush would be set on fire. “They watched what he took with him as he ran out, and if it was the basketry materials they reconciled [sic] themselves to his being a berdache.”
The Mohave ritual, usually carried out when the child is between the ages of nine and twelve, has a different form, but keeps the central element of allowing the child’s nature to manifest itself: A singing circle is prepared, unbeknownst to the boy, involving the whole community as well as distant friends and relatives. On the day of the ceremony everyone gathers round and the boy is led into the middle of the circle. If he remains there, the singer, hidden in the crowd, begins to sing the ritual songs and the boy, if he is destined to follow the two-spirit road, starts to dance in the fashion of a woman. “He cannot help it,” say the Mohave. After the fourth song the boy is declared to be a two-spirit person and is raised from then on in the appropriate manner.
What manner was that? It consisted of teaching the young boy to do women’s work as well as that reserved for men. He would also spend time with healers, often two-spirit people themselves. Above all, his childhood was marked by acceptance and understanding. That did not necessarily insulate the boy from being ribbed about his ‘otherness.’ Joseph Quinones, the cousin of a Yaqui two-spirit youth, relates that: “One time we kids got down on him for not being typically masculine, but my Great Aunt, who is the clan matriarch, came down on us real strongly. She said it was part of his character and we should respect him.” 
All tribes were aware of the existence of two-spirit people, and each still has a name for them. The Dinéh (Navaho) refer to them as nàdleehé one who is ‘transformed’, the Lakota (Sioux) as winkte, the Mohave as alyha, the Zuni as lhamana,the Omaha as mexoga, the Aleut and Kodiak as achnucek, the Zapotec as ira’ muxe, the Cheyenne as he man eh. [5] This abundance of terms testifies to the familiarity of Native Americans with gender-variant people. For proof of the sacred role they held, and hold, in Native society we again turn to Native sources. Terry Calling Eagle, a Lakota man, recounts: “Winktes have to be born that way. People know that a person is going to become a winkte very early in his life. At about age twelve parents will take him to a ceremony to communicate with past winktes who had power, to verify if it is just a phase or a permanent thing for his lifetime. If the proper vision takes place, and communication with a past winkte is established, then everybody accepts him as a winkte.”

From: http://www.gay-art-history.org   Adjusted to fit this blog.