Moving Beyond Risk: An Exploration of Acceptance Among Black Same-Gender-Loving Men in Atlanta

This thesis explores how Black same-gender-loving men in Atlanta experience, define, and practice acceptance in their everyday lives. Moving beyond dominant public health frameworks that position Black SGL men primarily through risk, deficit, and pathology, this study centers acceptance as a lived, relational, and culturally grounded phenomenon. Using a qualitative multiple-case study approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews, observations, and review of relevant cultural and community materials identified by participants. Guided by Africana Studies, Black queer theory, and womanist thought, the analysis examines how acceptance is cultivated through chosen family, community institutions, spirituality, embodiment, and everyday practices of care and belonging. Findings reveal that acceptance operates not as a singular outcome, but as an ongoing process shaped by history, stigma, resistance, and collective meaning-making. This study contributes to scholarship on Black queer life by reframing acceptance as a critical analytic for understanding esteem, agency, and survival beyond biomedical models.