Big gay man

I chimed in on the conversation when asked.

Big men of color, as well as their loving male admirers, deserve weekends that are all their own, created especially for them.

Heetizm Myami

The inaugural Heetizm occurred in 2011 over Fourth of July weekend. Black bears and big men of color, already underrepresented at these events, come to feel ignored and are made to recognize their marginalization when other guests avoid talking to them.

Certainly, weekend runs are for socializing and sexualizing, which makes it even more difficult to engage big men’s organizations in social change; leadership often throws its hands up in the air and says people come for a good time, rather than wanting to make a social statement – all this, at the expense of big men of color who would like to enjoy a sense of inclusion.

Heavy Hitters Pride

In 2015, prior to the M3 podcast, a third event was formed for big men of color, Heavy Hitters Pride, an annual empowerment summit held in Houston, Texas that celebrates the “urban man of size, his admirers and allies.” It is a three-day event held at the end of July, this year being its third season.

Therefore, one could see why same-gender-loving big men of color would forge their own groups, wanting to resist Bear imagery, or to revamp existing imagery to be more racially inclusive, more sensitive to the histories of people of color. The main attraction of his recent podcast was Tony Davis, a Bahamian-American who is the founder and organizer of Heetizm Myami – a weekend run to Miami, Florida for same-gender-loving big men of color and their supportive others.

For example, maybe one is outed as gay in one’s teens, and yet he feels unable to fit into the gay scene because of his body shape and size, or hairiness, so he comes out a second time as a Bear. Emilio, a regular attendee who spoke about this Urban Bear Getaway for big men of color, accompanied Davis. Yet, this year’s Heetizm marketing certainly doesn’t shy away from animal imagery, which begs the question whether Hennen’s theory is correct: it may be that men of color choose to dis-identify with Bear groups as it would complicate their efforts to reclaim black masculinity from the image of the beast.

In his essay, “Gender fuzz, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bisexuality” (2014), Bear writer Ron Suresha writes about the experience of coming out multiple times in order to convey newly affirmed identities.

This might mean that joining a group with a Bear as its symbol reads quite differently to those subjected to a history of colonists depicting them as less than human, as beasts and animals. If such imagery like that put out by Heetizm or Big Boy Pride did not exist, if same-gender-loving big men of color could not recognize themselves in existing imagery, then they might internalize the message, “You are not welcome.” Oodles of Bear events happen every year, but only a few big men of color events exist, which speaks volumes.

They promote being proud of who we are and knowing that issues that affect us all can be shared with each other to foster and generate a healthy environment for all.

They also hold annual conventions in various cities called Convergence.