Parental Reactions to Their Child's Disclosure of a Gay/Lesbian Identity

Parental Reactions to Their Child's Disclosure of a Gay/Lesbian Identity* Ritch C. Savin-Williams** and Eric M. Dube Popular culture writers have proposed a developmental sequence of stages that parents face upon first learning of their child's homosexuality. Empirical investigations of these purported and loss stages are few and generally cast doubt on the inevitability and normative sequencing of parental reactions. We present this empirical evidence, suggest a research agenda, and discuss the implications of the research findings for mental health caregivers and practitioners. Key Words: adolescence, homosexuality, parent-child relationships, parent development. Personal narratives, popular advice-giving tracts, and self- books composed by and for parents often present the act of disclosure by youths of their gay/lesbian identity as necessarily creating a crisis within the family. This literature promotes the view that as a result of this disclosure, irrevocable damage is done to the child-parent relationship. MacDonald (1983) noted that healthy family relationships under such circumstances are uncommon and that trauma must necessarily beset families with a sexual-minority youth. When youths disclose their sexual orientation a type of parent coming-out process is initiated whereby parents are given the opportunity to restructure expectations and goals for the future life course of their children (Boxer, Cook, see also Coleman Savin-Williams many of these share considerable overlap in structure and content (Anderson, 1987; Bernstein, 1990; Borhek, 1993; Bozett Brown, 1988; DeVine, 1984; Martin, 1982; Myers, 1982; Pearlman, 1992; Robinson, Walters, Strommen, 1989; Tremble, Schneider, Wirth, 1978). These proposed models follow the delineation of stages originally proposed by Kubler-Ross (1969) that characterize individuals facing imminent death. …