I think that gay men take things personally because they are more sensitive. The sensitivity comes from the negative experiences of meeting and interacting with other gay men socially and inside romantic relationships.
Breakups, rejections, criticisms during interactions can deregulate any gay man emotionally, even the strongest one. Most gay men are “on guard”. We are more imbalanced emotionally than straight people. Whenever someone offers feedback, we often leash out on them, we get personal, we attack them or we shut down and internalize the comments. It all starts with connecting the criticism to our identity. This is called internalization. When someone makes negative comments, we assume that they are true and we “swallow” those comments like food even though they are not true.
Then, after a few days or weeks we become angry at ourselves for accepting those negative comments (as opposed to fighting back) and we transfer our anger onto the gay men around us. This is why many gay men are angry all the time. It is a toxic cycle.