How parents respond to their child’s sexual orientation is associated with a number of psychosocial outcomes. They fear their parents’ negative reactions, such as feelings of shame, guilt, sadness, disappointment, or anger, and, at the behavioral level, parents’ ignorance or denial of their child’s sexual orientation, or even parents’ rejection of their child as a person ( LaSala, 2000 Heatherington and Lavner, 2008). On the one hand, outness is conducive to social integration ( Beals et al., 2009 Weisz et al., 2016) on the other, it bears the risk of discrimination ( Legate et al., 2012 Riggle et al., 2017).įor most LG adolescents, coming out to their parents, their earliest and closest relationship, is a highly stressful experience. Despite this, many LG people face, over and again, a disclosure dilemma ( Griffith and Hebl, 2002). In this sense, “being known” is both a condition and consequence of the development of intimate relationships ( Collins and Miller, 1994 Greene et al., 2006). In general, self-disclosure is the “process by which individuals permit themselves to be known by others” ( Taylor, 1979, p. There is no comparable need for self-disclosure for heterosexual adolescents, as their majority sexual orientation conforms to the predominant heteronormative ideology.
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They must decide on whether and when to come out, and, most precariously, with whom to share their LG identity. Coming Out as an LG Childįor LG adolescents, disclosing their sexual orientation is a big biographical step ( Savin-Williams and Cohen, 2015 Alonzo and Buttitta, 2019). Before specifying our hypotheses, we briefly review the concepts and findings that are central to our study. Such personality–behavior association should be mediated by two factors: anti-LG attitudes, as consequence of masculinity orientation, and the affective reaction toward the child’s coming out, as antecedence of the behavioral reaction. We suggest that fathers with a traditional masculinity orientation tend to reject rather than accept an LG child. How would fathers react if their child came out as a lesbian or gay (LG) person? Given that less than 5% of the overall population feels sexually attracted to persons of the same sex ( Bailey et al., 2016 Haversath et al., 2017), this scenario is not likely to happen but within the realm of possibility. The discussion centers on the problematic role of traditional masculinity when it comes to fathers’ acceptance of their non-heterosexual child. The result pattern was independent of the child’s gender or age.
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This association was serially mediated by two factors: fathers’ general anti-LG attitudes (i.e., level of homophobia) and their emotional distress due to their child’s coming out (e.g., feelings of anger, shame, or sadness). As hypothesized, fathers with a stronger masculinity orientation (i.e., adherence to traditional male gender norms, such as independence, assertiveness, and physical strength) reported that they would be more likely to reject their LG child.
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They were asked how they would personally react if, one day, their child disclosed their LG identity to them.
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Participants were 134 German fathers (28 to 60years) of a minor child. The present study examined associations between fathers’ masculinity orientation and their anticipated reaction toward their child’s coming out as lesbian or gay (LG).