Virtually Gay: The Internet and the Construction of Hybrid Queer Identities and Transnational Gay Cultures.

This paper draws on my dissertation which is a mutli-sited ethnography of sexual identity formation among queer men in Mexico City and Cuernavaca and queer Mexican immigrant men living in Los Angeles. Based on interviews with the immigrant and non-immigrant participants and hundreds of hours of participant observation, this paper explores the potential impact that the Internet has on the development of sexual identities and transnational queer communities for the men in my study. I show that the men in my study, through their use of the Internet, are part of a transnational Pan-Latino gay culture since most of their virtual contact takes place with other queer Spanish-speaking Latinos worldwide I argue that the Internet acts as an agent of socialization where certain ideas and discourses about what it means to be gay as well as certain established norms and practices shape the sexual subjectivities and queer communities of the informants. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]