Bear Movement

Bear culture has its origins in informal "chubby and chubby-chaser" networks among gay men in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Big men and their admirers played a role in the increasing diversification and specialization of identity-based gay organizations in the mid-1970s. The first chapter of Girth and Mirth, now an organization with chapters in cities worldwide, was founded in 1976. The Bear phenomenon may rightly be seen as an outgrowth of this organization as well as the informal friendship and sex networks that inspired it.