Coming out to the Family

Introduction

As the title indicates this paper is going to deal with coming out and the family. Specifically, the paper will concentrate on gay and lesbian children and how their coming out affects the family, mainly the parents.

According to estimates the percentage of gay, lesbian or other non-heterosexual identified persons range anywhere from 4-17% of the general population. At first glance this fact would make any look at non-heterosexual issues a study of a minority. However, "it has been estimated that approximately one in two to three families have a member or members who on some level is or are dealing with his or her own homosexuality." This makes the issue of the coming-out and how it affects the family a major issue and therefore a valid topic of scholarly research.

Initially the paper is going to deal with the coming out process itself. Afterwards it will broach the subject of the family life cycle and how coming out has different impacts on the family depending on the phase of the family life cycle that the family is at that time ensconced in.

Finally the paper will discuss the coming out process in relation to the extended family and which role the parents play in relating to the extended family.

Coming Out to the Family

This part of the paper will taker a closer look at the coming-out process itself and why adolescents chose to or chose to not disclose their sexuality to their parents.

Coming-out is defined as "the developmental process through which gays and lesbians recognize their sexual orientation and chose to integrate this knowledge into their personal and social lives" . "An essential turning point in the coming-out process is the moment when disclosure is undertaken with at least one parent."

An integral part of Monteflores' and Schultz' definition is the word "chose" - adolescents have the choice whether or not to disclose their sexuality to parents or other family members. Some chose to do so, some chose not to do so.

Reasons for adolescents not to disclose their sexuality to parents that have been identified in research are as follows: fear of parental rejection , abuse and, a desire to avoid hurting or disappointing parents .

There has been limited research on what contributes to adolescents coming out, however, in a study conducted by Waldner and Magruder it was hypothesized that coming-out is "predicted by perceptions of family relations, lesbian/gay identity expression, and perceived resources" . This makes it more likely for adolescents to come out if they perceive more resources on gay or lesbian identity, if they actively express themselves as gay or lesbian and if family relations are not as close as in other families.

They applied exchange theory to the coming-out process, viewing the decision to disclose one's identity as negotiated with costs and rewards in mind. Thus the decision to come out would only occur if the perceived rewards surpass the costs.

Their point was that since most families are heterosexual, parents tend to automatically assume that their children are heterosexual as well. Thus, families often fail to provide accurate or at least positive information on homosexuality and the lesbian/gay community. "Family members are often inadvertently a source of negative attitudes and stereotypes long before a child has realized he/she might be gay or lesbian".

Waldner and Magruder proposed that persons who have particularly close relationships with their family members value the information handed down by the family more; for gay youths this would mean that if negative information is provided they would not be as likely to seek out additional information. They also proposed that gay youth who are particularly close to their family are not as likely to express their sexual identity by seeking out the gay community or participate in same-sex dating, because the perceived costs are higher. The resources that adolescents perceive and the expression of their lesbian and gay identity were found to have a large impact on whether or not they chose to disclose their sexual identity.

In this article Waldner and Magruder posed another hypothesis, they proposed that gay and lesbian youths weigh the costs and benefits of disclosing their sexuality to their families. According to their hypothesis, gay and lesbian youths who are really close to their family would be less likely to come out since the perceived costs of that disclosure would be too high. They wrote that though it can be expected that a family that has strong family ties can in fact foster the environment for disclosure; there is no way an adolescent can know if the family will continue to be as supportive as before a disclosure. Thus on one hand, strong familial bonds would theoretically make it easier for youth to disclose their sexuality, while on the other hand they would not be as likely to do so because of the higher perceived cost of such a disclosure. This assumption was not proven by their empirical research. Though strong family relations had a negative impact if youth chose to express their lesbian or gay identity, there was no indication that they had any effect on the disclosure of their sexual identity.

Families and how warm and supportive they are therefore affect what kind of information an adolescent will receive on homosexuality and also if the adolescent will express themselves as gay or lesbian. However, the family itself does not seem to impact the decision to disclose or not disclose their sexual identity.

When children chose to come out they have to deal with their parents' reactions. Research has likened parental reactions to the coming-out of their children to stages proposed by Kubler-Ross that characterize individuals facing imminent death. Savin-Williams and Dubй maintain that empirical research has rarely tested the validity of those "grieving-models". They quote three studies that assessed initial reactions to disclosure. Common responses to disclosure of their child's sexuality were disbelief, denial, negative comments (e.g. "It's only a phase"), shock, shame, guilt and acknowledgement. However, research indicates that most parents eventually arrive at a tolerance or acceptance of their child's sexual identity. This is supported by findings from D'Augelli and Hershberger in which youth reported that over 50% of their mothers were accepting, 25% were tolerant and only the last quarter was intolerant or rejecting, the numbers for fathers were 37%, 36% and 28% respectively.

Thus when children take the risk to disclose their sexual identity, and there is still a risk involved as the numbers above indicate,