“I’m Just a Dude Who is into Guys”: Identify and the Negotiation of Competing Master Narratives of Gender and Sexuality among Young German Gay Men

This month we highlight a research study about gay men in Germany. We spoke to Dr. J. -O.H Gmelin about what his findings mean for the future of studying the evolving identities of queer identity development and the foundations of typical thought around “healthy” identity development.

Gmelin, J. -O. H., Tasker, F., & Kunnen, E. S. (2025). “I’m just a dude who is into guys”: Identity and the negotiation of competing master narratives of gender and sexuality among young German gay men. Psychology of Men & Masculinities. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000539

Photo by Cottonbro Studios: Pexels

What were the key questions you were addressing in this article?

Young gay men develop their identities within socio-cultural contexts that privilege heterosexuality and traditional forms of masculinity while marginalizing non-normative identities. Our article examined the mechanisms through which youth draw on, negotiate, and internalize competing conceptions of sexuality and gender in the process of developing their sexual identities. Specifically, we asked how these young men navigate the constraints imposed by dominant cultural “master narratives” and where they find spaces for agency in narrating their own sexual and gender identity development.

What were the main conclusions of your article?

Despite the seeming homogeneity of our sample of eight young gay men from Germany their narratives differed considerably in the aspects they understood meaningful to their sexual identities. Our analysis highlighted that youths’ sexual identity development was characterized by a growing sense of awareness and agency in engaging with cultural understandings of what constitutes “good” sexuality and gender in their everyday life. At the same time, we also found that the flexible, and tool-like way in which our participants adapted and presented their identities across contexts not only led to internalization of these identities, but also of the cultural expectations associated with them.

What are the key implications of your article for research, policy, or practice?

Our findings underscore the importance of using frameworks, such as the master narrative framework, which link individual identity development to structural discourses such as that of hegemonic masculinity and heteronormativity to study of (queer) masculinities. We also argue that interventions aimed at supporting the development of (queer) identity development should encourage young people to critically engage with both heteronormative and queer narratives around sexual identity. Importantly, such interventions must also reflect critically on the normative assumptions about “healthy” identity development that underpin their own approaches.

Where do you see this line of research heading in the future (i.e., what’s next)?

Future research should more carefully consider how identities function as tools or resources in young people’s everyday engagement with social and cultural contexts: if we understand identities not as static attributes that young people “have” (or have to discover) but as something that they actively construct and use to manage their everyday lives, then studying these situated contexts becomes essential. In particular, longitudinal studies of social interactions could illuminate how identities and identity narratives evolve over time as young adults move through different environments.

How did you become interested in this line of inquiry?

There is broad agreement in developmental psychology that the self and identity develop within social contexts, yet we still know relatively little about how this process actually works. I became interested in studying identity through a master narrative framework because it offers us conceptual tools for understanding how “culture” or “discourses” come to shape individuals’ developmental pathways. What intrigues me is the dual nature of cultural conceptions: they do not simply constrain or rigidly determine individuals’ identities, but are the very resources that make it possible for people to engage with each other in flexible and agentive ways. This double nature of cultural narratives as both constraint and affordance  motivated me to study both possibilities for, but also limitations on, the agency of young people in shaping who they become.

Dr. J. -O.H Gmelin

Department of Theory and History of Psychology
Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences
University of Groningen