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I fell in love with this course, from an American university, and wanted to enroll in it.

But, when I went to the professor's page, to request him to let me in,
I saw this - I am a gay man and use he/him pronouns.

I do not have any problem, I just want to ask what does being a 'gay' imply here.

A 'gay' man doesn't need to use she/her ?
OR
Is the author telling that he is cheerful ?

PS - I am a student, and I have nothing against straight/LGBTQ/Other living beings.

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    It means he is homosexual. Within the LGBTQ community (and without) there is a disagreement as to which personal pronouns to use when referring to someone of unknown gender. He apparently uses he/him (which used to be the "default" for heterosexual people, before it became an issue).
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Dec 24, 2018 at 17:11
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    Gender and sexual orientation are separate things. He's giving you two effectively unrelated pieces of information. He's a man attracted to men, and the pronouns he prefers you use for him are "he" and "him".
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Dec 24, 2018 at 17:57
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    @HotLicks One al­ways uses he/his/him for hu­man males in English; their af­fec­tional ori­en­ta­tion has no bear­ing on this even in our post­modern world.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Dec 31, 2018 at 20:46
  • @tchrist - I said "to use when referring to someone of unknown gender".
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Dec 31, 2018 at 22:03

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I think I found the page you are referring to and took a look. I believe that this also could have be written as "I am a gay man. I use he/him pronouns." I think he is just providing two pieces of information that might be helpful in communicating with him, and that they are not necessarily related. I do not think he is referring to his general mood or that he is cheerful.

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  • Thank you. I must admit that I wouldn't have understood what the author really wanted to convey, on my own. Thanks for the websites like stackexchange. Happy new year!
    – lmao
    Commented Dec 31, 2018 at 11:03

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