Introducing a Sense of Purpose to Gay Identity:
The Case for Gay Men of Wisdom
Executive Summary
The Movement:For the last five years, Raymond Rigoglioso, the founder and executive director of Gay Men of Wisdom, has been honing a vision and set of programs to help gay men recognizetheir distinct gifts to humanity. Now a 501c3 nonprofit based in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Gay Men of Wisdom has become a movement to help gay men discover their distinct gifts, express them for social good, and build community while doing so.
What We’ve Accomplished:Gay Men of Wisdom provides a community-based model for how to value gay men’s differences. The founder employed a unique, iterative methodology: Drawing from the literature on gay men’s nature and purpose, he field-tested ideas with gay men in dozens of groups. In 2015, he published Gay Men and The New Way Forward, which synthesizes these ideas into a framework that identifies gay men’s 14 distinct gifts to humanity.
Using the 14 Distinct Gay Male Gifts framework, in 2017 we launched Living Out Your Gifts, a curriculum-based drop-in group that invites gay men explore these gifts for themselves. We now offer it in three cities—Provincetown, Orlando, and Seattle—and online.
Celebrating Gay Manhood is the weekend experience. It takes a deep dive into how gay men’s way of expressing manhood serves as a model for all men. This program is well established; the founder has facilitated it three times in its current form, and three times in an earlier iteration. The Art Committee is creating powerful visual images that convey the 14 Distinct Gay Male Gifts, which will result in a 14-month social media campaign. Communications efforts include the founder’s 22-city book tour, talks at universities and events, interviews, and social media.
Where We’re Headed:Gay Men of Wisdom seeks $500,000 in three-year seed funding to scale up, build its infrastructure, and achieve sustainability. We will create a chapter structure around each group, which will include social and community service activities, a mentorship program, and a speaker’s bureau. By the end of 2020 we plan to grow to 12 cities, and 3 social service/mental health sites. Through speaking engagements, we’ll educate gay men as well as allies. Celebrating Gay Manhood, the weekend program, will morph into the annual national meeting. We’ll develop tools to evaluate the programs, and we will grow our administrative and fundraising infrastructure.
Impact: Program participantscome to recognizethe critically important roles they play in their workplaces, families, and communities. Participants gain a greater appreciation for themselves, grow in self-love and confidence, and createcommunity around the sense that being gay has a purpose.Imagine a world in which gay men value themselves for how they contribute to the human family. That is what we aim to create. In the process, we will advance a new argument for LGBT rights and create a model for how all humans can value differences.
Introducing a Sense of Purpose to Gay Identity:
The Case for Gay Men of Wisdom
The Challenge and Opportunity
The LGBT rights movement in the United States has experienced success that even a generation ago seemed unimaginable. From 1950, when Harry Hay formed the Mattachine Society, to today, gays and lesbians have gone from outcasts and pariahs to the mainstream. We can marry our partners, serve in the military, and see positive portrayals of ourselves in the media. Millennials have the most open attitudes toward gay people of any generation in American history. While we undoubtedly have much more work to do, the LGBT rights movement has created an environment of unprecedented openness.
Paradoxically, the movement’s successes have eroded the bonds that brought gays and lesbians together in common purpose: If we no longer have to gather and fight for survival—at least to the same extent—what will keep us together? If we define ourselves by our sexuality, and our sexuality becomes “no big deal,” who and what are we? And more importantly, what are we for? As gay bars and bookstores disappear, and as gays and lesbians leave the safety of gay enclaves for a more welcoming mainstream, gay culture and identity itself are at a crossroads.
The LGBT rights movement has achieved its success in part by emphasizing sameness—the idea that gays and lesbians are just like everyone else except for their sexual orientation.Thishas lulled gays and lesbians into a false belief that conflicts with the essential “queerness” of their culture. While this notion may have helped win legal victories, it has created a subtle new closet. The crossroads that gay culture faces requires a bold new vision—one thathonors and values the essential differences that gay people offer the world,and one that demonstrates how these differences enable them to fulfill critical social functions in the human family.
For the last five years, Raymond Rigoglioso, the founder of Gay Men of Wisdom, has been honing such a vision. He conducted extensive research about gay men’s self-reported differences, created a framework to show how these differences present distinct gifts to humanity, and developed programs to help gay men recognize these gifts in themselves.
Now a 501c3 nonprofit based in Provincetown, Massachusetts,Gay Men of Wisdom has become a movement to advance broad-based understanding of gay men’s distinct giftsto humanity. It uses and will use multiple approaches: community-based groups, weekend programs, media and presentations, visual arts projects, a mentorship program, and speaker’s bureau.Established through the efforts of its founder in virtual volunteer capacity—and capitalized via his life savings—Gay Men of Wisdomnow seeksseed fundingtosustain and grow the organization’s existing programs, create new programs, andhelp develop its infrastructure. Support forGay Men of Wisdomwill helpbuild community and brotherhoodamong gay men around a sense of purpose, revitalize gay culture, advance an entirely new argument for LGBT rights, and create a model for how to value human differences.
The Gay Men of Wisdom Approach
Gay Men of Wisdom provides a community-based model for how to value gay men’s differences. The founder employed a unique, iterative methodology: Drawing from the literature that explores gay men’s nature and purpose, he field-tested ideas from these thinkers with gay men in community-based settings. He did so through discussion groups in New York City (2012-2013), Norwalk, Connecticut (2013), online (2013-2014), weekend programs at Easton Mountain (2013-2014), and presentations, workshops, and other retreats for gay men.
In 2015, he published Gay Men and The New Way Forward, which synthesizes ideas from the literature and these community-based groups into a framework that identifies gay men’s 14 distinct gifts to humanity. The founder has since given dozens of book readings, talks, and workshops throughout the United States. Using the 14 Distinct Gay Male Gifts framework, he created new, refined programs that invite gay men explore these gifts for themselves.
The Gay Men of Wisdom message resonates with gay men everywhere because it reflects what they say about their lived experience. It gives voice to what gay men intuitively know about themselves but have not clearly articulated. The work produces transformation because it helps gay men recognize how their differences, which society judges, are actually gifts.
Why Not LGBT People of Wisdom? Are We Stereotyping Gay Men?
Gay Men of Wisdom derives its strength because it speaks to a specific lived experience, and it uses a robust, self-reported literatureto support claims about that experience. An honest read of this literature, however, shows that gay men have written most of it, and that most of the examples pertain to gay men.Apart from Judy Grahn, through her bookAnother Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds, lesbians have not contributed books to this genre. As far as we know, bisexuals and transgender people have not yet engaged in this kind of inquiry.
Capturing the range of traits that distinguish one group from another is no easy feat. In order for the inquiry to ring true and feel respectful, it must be self-reported by that group. Currently, there is simply not enough data to construct a narrative of social purpose for others in the LGBT umbrella, and it would be inappropriate for gay men to attempt to do so. The Gay Men of Wisdom approach, however, holds fertile promise for future endeavors and partnerships. With resources and collaborations, the model can easily be adapted to lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenderpeople—and to all minority groups.
The framework also rings true because it acknowledges variation—that while these gifts characterize gay men as a group, not all of them apply to every gay man. In fact, the entire endeavor invites gay men to explore these gifts for themselves. While newcomers to the work often perceive it as stereotyping gay men, a closer look reveals the nuance and respect for differences inherent to this exploration.
Mission
Gay Men of Wisdom promotes awareness and understanding of the value of gay men’s differences – and all human differences by extension; harnesses the power of gay men’s gifts for personal and social good; fostersnurturingrelationships among gay men; and seeks to leave a legacy of intergenerational connections and transfer of wisdom among men-who-love-men.
PROGRAMS
Founded in 2012, Raymond Rigoglioso ran Gay Men of Wisdom as a project for four years, then obtained fiscal sponsorship through Easton Mountain, the LGBT retreat center north of Albany, New York, in 2016. Gay Men of Wisdom incorporated as a nonprofit in December 2016 and received its 501c3 in January 2017. For five years, the founder has been honing the message and has presented it in cities around the country. The core programs we present here have an established track record. In short, the programs work and the message resonates.
Gay Men of Wisdom currently relies on volunteers, including the nearly full-time efforts of its founder and executive director. Without having access to substantive funding, wemade a strategic decision to establish the nonprofit infrastructure, launch national programs, and build community support so we could make a strong, demonstrable case for major funding.
With only very modest resources, the founder has been able leverage the efforts of volunteers, who have helped with everything from hosting book readings and events around the country, to serving on the board, to facilitating the signature Living Out Your Gifts groups (see below for details). We have established an infrastructure that can—with funding—enable us to scale up.
Gay Men of Wisdom sets out to achieve a bold impact—nothing short of transformation in gay male identity that incorporates a sense of social purpose.
Building Community through a Sense of Purpose: Living Out Your Gifts Groups
From the beginning, groups have been central to the Gay Men of Wisdom experience. After publishing Gay Men and The New Way Forward, the founder created a three-month program, Powerful U, which helped participants recognize how they express the Distinct Gay Male Gifts. With the decision to become a nonprofit, we transformed Powerful U into a drop-in group, where each session provides an exploration of a single Distinct Gay Male Gift.
Living Out Your Gifts builds community around a sense that being gay has a purpose. Participants awaken to the subtle yet profound way that they influence the people around them by being their full selves. The power of the process derives from the fact that it taps into what gay men already do, but for which they generally have little language to articulate.
Living Out Your Gifts follows a specific curriculum—it includes a facilitator’s manual and participant materials. We designed it so it could be replicatedanywhere. As with all Gay Men of Wisdom endeavors, we seek to understand what works, and how it can be improved.
In 2017 we launched Living Out Your Gifts in three cities—Provincetown, Massachusetts (led by the founder), online (also led by the founder), Seattle (led by two psychotherapists, one of whom is also a minister), and Orlando (led by a pastor/former psychotherapist). We chose facilitators based on their demonstrated group skills and experience with the Gay Men of Wisdom work. All facilitators attend the online group so they can experience the module before they facilitate the session. We hold a monthly facilitators meeting, where we discuss what works, what can be improved, and how we can effectively build community.
We aim to harness the enthusiasm and commitment generated in each location toward action that will help achieve the mission. Already, a core group of men has formed in each city, and activities outside the formal sessions have begun taking place, including social get-togethers and planned service activities. Attendance ranges from 4-15 men, with an average of 8-9 each session. This allows for intimacy and shared learning.For video testimonials from participants of Powerful U, visit
Celebrating Gay Manhood
Celebrating Gay Manhood is the weekend, in-person experience. It takes a deep dive into how gay men’s way of expressing manhood serves as a model for all men. Sessions include an exploration of the authentic masculine—those archetypal traits of good men—a ritual to help release the messages, fears, and threats participants have taken on from men throughout their lives, a guided visualization, and a meditation on all 14 Distinct Gay Male Gifts, among others.
This program is well established; the founder has facilitated it three times in its current form, and three times in an earlier iteration. We scheduled the next session for October 2017 at Easton Mountain to provide an opportunity for men from the local and online Living Out Your Gifts groups to meet each other. To read testimonials from pastparticipants, visit
Art Project
Not everyone who is inspired by Gay Men of Wisdom will choose to participate in itsgroups. Thus, we wanted to create other ways to engage people.Toward this end, the Art Committee is creating visual images that convey the 14 Distinct Gay Male Gifts. We aim to convey the essence of each gift while capturing diversity that includes historical and current-day figures, well-known and everyday people, age, and race and ethnic origin.
For each gift, we will create a GIF (5-10 second videos) layered with 5 images that represent that gift, along with a brief affirmation. We will create a website witha grid of all 14 GIFs, and we will release one GIF per month over 14 months, inviting people to share it on social media. This approach has the potential to go viral, win broad-based buy-in for these ideas, and generate interest in the programs. We envision the campaign as the first step in a longer endeavor, which caninclude exhibitions at museums, LGBT centers, and universities.
Here are twostudies—initial concepts the committee considered. The first is a sample of what a section of the grid could look like, and the second an animated GIF (double-click on the second image to activate the animation.)Because of the time and resources that this GIF format would require, we have decided to reduce the number of images for the final version.
Communications
The founder and executive director spends considerable time communicating the Gay Men of Wisdom message through the Gay Men of Wisdom newsletter, Facebook, his occasional blog, Words to the Wise, talks and presentations, and media appearances. He has given book readings in 22 cities around the country. He presented his talk, “Gay Marriage and the Evolution of Human Consciousness” at a TEDx Upper West Side (New York) event in April 2016, and at Texas A&M University in April 2017 as an invited guest for LGBT Awareness Week. As the spokesperson and visionary for the movement, the founder brings passion, clarity of message, and the ability to diplomatically address challenges to the concepts.
VISION AND PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
Gay Men of Wisdom has carefully laid the foundation that now poises us for significant growth and expansion: We have honed the vision and message, launched the programs, recruited a board, established our administrative and accounting structure, and obtained our 501c3 status.The founder and executive director has an international reputation for his message and a track record of recruiting people to support his vision.We have accomplished all of this with just under $12,000 in donations since Easton Mountain became our fiscal sponsor in May 2016.