Sadly Gay Male Nurse Stereotype is Not Just Trolls

Sadly, our society still tends to discriminate against those who are "different". I'd like to see a day when everyone can marry the partner of their choice regardless of gender and when one's sexual preference is just one more charactoristic that makes them who they are. And I'm looking forward to the day when a "male nurse" is just a nurse.

One of my sons chose to go to nursing school after he graduated from high school. Shortly after his first year, he got sick at work one nite. So sick that his boss took him to the ER. I got there, and decided he was having a panic attack. They couldn't find anything else wrong. There was a male nurse on duty who asked me if I minded if he talked to him. He spent 30 min with him, and the symptoms disappeared. The nurse told me that students at school were making fun of my son for being in nursing school, calling him every name you can think of. And it was a parochial school....just seems like that should make a difference, but guess not. He'd been trying to ignore them, until finally he just got sick. It made him feel so much better to see and talk to a male nurse who was not homosexual. He continued on for another semester, but then just had enough of it. He has since joined the air force. It is unfortunate. He is exceptionally bright, very compassionate and caring. He would have made a great nurse. He wanted to work in pediatrics.

But for the record, I have had 2 male nurses work for me in the past who were homosexual. They were so good, and we were fortunate to have them here. I had a male aide who was murdered recently because he was homosexual. We were devastated. None of us cared that he was homosexual. The person who killed him has no idea what he took from us, or just doesn't care.

I am going to be a male nurse and I have heard people say "all male nurses are gay" I usually just look at it, as someone being ignorant. I live in the south and there are a lot of people who are ignorant and have their opinions but DONT keep them to themselves.

I am not "gay" but yet when people (even people I have known my whole life) hear I am going to school for nursing I hear that remark. And sometime its worse than you can think, I've heard some stuff I can't even repeat on here.

Everytime I hear it I try to ignore it, but sometimes it does get to me. I don't think i will return to the south (especially my state) to practice, because of that. I believe that in northern states it is atleast less common to hear those type of remarks.

I do have a question, while I was in school for CNA training, they didn't place males with females. I understand how this could be an issue, (males having elderly female patients) but do they do this in typical try to place male nurses with male patients?

The gay male nurse stereotype exists, like most stereotypes, because there is some basis in truth. Thirty some years ago, the only male nurses I had ever met were either gay or pretending not to be gay. There were the former monks and priests who went to nursing school when they left the religious life, and there were the gay men who introduced me to their "roommates" and when they invited me over, gave tours of their one bedroom apartments with only one bed. There was the male nurse who pretended to date me so people wouldn't know he was gay, and there was the gay male nurse who married a former nun to cover up HIS preferences. Things started to change in the early 80s. More and more straight men went into nursing and now, I think, if straight men don't outnumber they gay men by a majority, it doesn't matter. After all -- someone's sexual preference is their own affair (so to speak) and no one needs to know or care about it other than the partner of their choice or someone who wishes to become the partner of their choice. But I have no difficulty at all understanding why someone near my age or older would continue to carry that stereotype. It may be ignorant NOW, but it was at one time true.