Pride Month and the Case for Men’s Spaces

Pride Month is not a season for lecturing people about identity. It is a season for listening carefully to what people tell us about who they are, what they have survived, and what they need in order to live with dignity.

That listening has changed many communities for the better. We are more aware of the lives of transgender people, nonbinary people, gender-fluid people, queer people, and others whose identities do not fit neatly into categories. Any Jewish community that takes human dignity seriously should welcome that growth. B’tzelem Elohim, the belief that every human being is created in the image of God, should make us humble before the complexity of another person’s life.

Pride Month gives us a chance to think more carefully about gender, dignity, and belonging — and that includes asking what kinds of support all men need today. And seeing that June also shares urgency with Men’s mental health awareness as well as Father’s Day, this is a poignant space to examine what resources for all men really look like. For understandable reasons, “men’s programming” can raise suspicion. Is this just a softer name for protecting old power? Is it a way to avoid accountability? Is it a retreat from a world becoming more inclusive? It can be. But it does not have to be.

The better version of men’s programming begins with a different premise: many men are isolated, under-supported, and poorly practiced in the habits of emotional connection. That is not a moral excuse. It is a communal concern.

The CDC reports that males account for nearly 80 percent of suicides in the United States, and that the male suicide rate is about four times the female rate (CDC, 2025). The US Surgeon General has warned that loneliness and social isolation are serious health concerns, linked to increased risk for depression, anxiety, heart disease, stroke, dementia, and premature death (US Surgeon General, 2023). The Survey Center on American Life found that the share of men with at least six close friends fell from 55 percent in 1990 to 27 percent in 2021, while the share of men with no close friends rose from 3 percent to 15 percent (American Survey Center, 2021). Pew adds an important nuance: men may not report feeling lonelier than women, but they are less likely to turn to their networks for emotional support (Pew, 2025).

That is the reason for men’s spaces. Not because men are more important. Not because masculinity is fragile and needs protection. Because too many men are living without enough real friendship, honest conversation, or trusted places to say what is happening in their lives. And this must naturally include LGBTQIA+ men.

The suicide and loneliness statistics about men are not only about cis-hetero men. LGBTQIA+ men are part of the male population in those numbers, even when data sets do not name them clearly. Separate research also shows elevated risks. The CDC notes that suicide risk is higher among people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, while also acknowledging that data on sexual-minority suicide deaths remains limited (CDC, 2024). The Trevor Project’s 2025 survey found that 36 percent of LGBTQIA+ young people considered suicide in the past year, including 24 percent of cisgender boys and men and 43 percent of transgender boys and men (Trevor Project, 2025).

So when we talk about men’s mental health, we should not picture only one kind of man. Gay men, bisexual men, trans men, queer men, and questioning men may need places where their experience as men is taken seriously without asking them to hide the rest of who they are.

A good men’s space can offer that. It can help a gay man talk about masculinity without performing straightness. It can help a trans man be received as a man without being treated as a debate. It can help a bisexual man speak honestly without being erased. It can help a straight man learn brotherhood without dominance or defensiveness. Not every LGBTQIA+ man will want a men’s group, and that is fine. The point is not to prescribe belonging. The point is to make belonging possible.

The standard should be simple: men’s spaces should be clear about who they serve, careful about how they welcome, and honest about what they are trying to repair. They should respect pronouns, reject homophobia and transphobia, and avoid turning “men” into a narrow cultural stereotype. They should be spaces for friendship, mentorship, grief, fatherhood, aging, sexuality, health, and accountability.

During June, we do not need to choose between celebrating gender diversity and supporting men. We can do both. A gender-fluid world does not make men’s work irrelevant. It makes the work more careful, more inclusive, and more necessary.