Topics: Explained, Gen Z, Life, Sex and Relationships, Social Media, LGBTQ,
Warning: This article contains discussion of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community which some readers may find distressing.
The term 'DL men' has been floating about on various social media sites recently, but Gen Z’s 'new' obsession has actually been around way longer than you think.
We're seeing people urging others to 'out your DL' all over TikTok at the moment, but the term has been in circulation for decades now, since the 1990s, after first originating in Black American communities.
Now, as you may have guessed, 'DL' is an acronym for 'down low' which comes directly from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and originally meant keeping something discreet.
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In practice, however, a 'DL man' referred to someone living a double life.
"It was originally for men who committed adultery," Black and LGBTQ+ rights organiser, Preston Mitchum, told Them. "Men who had families but were living this second life. And some of the later iterations of it were also applied to Black men who wouldn’t have called themselves gay but who knew they were attracted to and enjoyed intimacy with other men."
The key point in this instance is choice as 'DL' is not the same as being closeted, questioning, or private.
"There’s a distinction between a 'DL man' and just any closeted man," culture analyst Smith Woods told the outlet. "A 'DL man' is choosing a secretive lifestyle, not simply questioning or exploring his queerness."
Homophobia shaped the term, as, often, discourse surrounding 'DL men' is less about infidelity and more about discomfort with queerness.
"It’s used to imply something sinister to queerness," Mitchum said. "Say someone is sleeping with a man while being with a woman — we could just call that 'cheating'. There is a reason we created an entirely new term for that form of infidelity, and the answer is homophobia."
When the term is used to suggest that any man attracted to men is 'secretly gay', it also erases bisexuality - something which both Mitchum and Woods flag as a major problem.
The term became mainstream in the early 2000s with Dr David Malebranche, a prominent Black queer physician with research dedicated to HIV/AIDS and Black queer men, crediting The Oprah Winfrey Show for amplifying the conversation, especially around J.L. King’s book On the Down Low.
"Back in the early 2000s, we were having about 50,000 new HIV cases per year [...] and Black women made up 80 percent of the new infections among women," Malebranche explained. "People began taking these anecdotal cases to try to explain these rising infections."
"[Oprah] had done episodes with white men who were gay before, like Governor Jim McGreevey, and no one talked about him potentially giving HIV to his wife, if he used condoms or not. Instead, it was just so brave of him to come out of the closet," he added.
A 2011 study later found that Black men 'on the down low' were not necessarily more associated with sexual risk behaviour.
"The conclusion we often came to was that, perhaps, there is a certain number of unrecognised HIV cases among heterosexual Black men and we’re not interrogating that as much as we should," Malebranche said.
"They don’t get tested; they aren’t targeted. We don't ask them about condom use. There were countless other theories around HIV transmissions as well that were often left unexplored because they were too busy pathologising Black male bisexuality."
The term has seen a renaissance in 2026 with 'DL spotter' accounts, popular with Gen Z, cropping up on social media apps. Woods links this to how masculinity is policed online.
"Men are called 'sassy' for anything attributed to femininity by other men and women. It’s just another way to say 'that’s gay' - it’s the sanitised version of it," he said. "This hatred of femininity is tied to misogyny and homophobia. The DL conversation has to come up when we keep introducing this kind of rhetoric."
These conversations often centre on straight people’s fears and skip over the risks faced by queer men and trans women.
"Gay boys and trans women are at risk of harm because many men fear the remarks of their community, communities they don’t feel safe in," Woods highlighted. "Having these conversations and creating comfortable spaces for femininity, for bi men, for queer men, etc. is life-saving."
Mitchum is clear that infidelity and dishonesty deserve scrutiny, but questions: "People refuse to ask why. They refuse to wonder, 'Would 'DL men' exist but for homophobia?'"
The outlet concluded: "Rather than prioritise fruitless discussions on social media that demonise 'DL Men,' we can prioritise truly impactful ones around sexual health education, access to testing, and combating homophobia."
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the LGBT Foundation on 0345 3 30 30 30, 10am–6pm Monday to Friday, or email [email protected].
