The New York Times takes a deep dive into how weight-loss drugs like GLP-1s are impacting the gay bear community and how Provincetown’s Bear Week felt different this year.
The Bears Are on Ozempichttps://t.co/juVVcWM51V
— @DCHomos (@DCHomos) August 3, 2026
From the New York Times (gift link):
Some partygoers were in sequins. Others in polo shirts. Steve August and TJ Howe were in full costume as park rangers, wandering through the crowd of hundreds of men gathered on the deck of the Boatslip in Provincetown, Mass., asking if anyone had encountered problem bears. They were prepared, they said, to stop bears from eating your dinner.
This year though, the real problem was different. This year, the bears were harder to find.
The midsummer festivities are a celebration of bears — a favored term of self-identification for many gay men who are bigger and hairier.
It’s a time when the ordinary archetypes of gay male perfection, with their waxed chests and trim waistlines, take a back seat to those with beards and bellies.
But even at Bear Week, a body-positive carnival of self-love and hard-core flirting that celebrated its 25th anniversary this summer, it’s impossible to escape weight-loss drugs — what they change for the 11 percent of Americans now taking them, according to Gallup, and for everyone else too.
Throughout the article, the Times‘ Jacob Bernstein chats with a variety of bears who have – or haven’t – gone on the drugs.
Bear Week is one of the most profitable weeks of the year for local businesses in Provincetown, according to its tourism office.
Provincetown Bear Week 2026 pic.twitter.com/uWWQC0tfjy
— Drew (@beefygaymer) July 19, 2026
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