Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
BRIEF REPORT
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Longwood University
This study examined young adults attitudes toward an LGBT parents coming out. Participants read a
hypothetical situation and answered Likert-type questions regarding their acceptance of their mother and father
if the parent disclosed a gay, lesbian, or transgender identity. Overall, participants imagined they would have
positive attitudes toward the parents coming out, although attitudes were significantly more positive toward
mothers than fathers, and toward a gay or lesbian parent than a transgender parent. Participant sex and beliefs
in the biological versus environmental determinism of sexual identity predicted their attitudes.
Keywords: adult children, attitudes, coming out, LGBT
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
which could not be shared freely with the children (Bozett, 1980).
Benefits to early disclosure also accrue to the children. Children
reared by gay or lesbian parents report learning from an early age
tolerance, open mindedness, and acceptance of all types of diversity (Bozett, 1980; Goldberg, 2007; Joos & Broad, 2007; Tasker,
Barrett, & DeSimone, 2010).
Though it appears that the research available supports gay and
lesbian parents coming out as soon as possible to children conceived
or adopted within the context of a different-sex marriage, there are
several reasons parents may be reluctant to do so. The most oft cited
reason is the fear of losing contact with the child either by jeopardizing custody of a minor child (Lynch & Murray, 2000) or by adversely
affecting the parent child relationship such that the adolescent or
young adult child terminates the relationship (Bozett, 1980; Dunne,
1987; Miller, 1979; Tygart, 2000). Some feared that disclosing their
LGBT identity to their child would expose the child to harsh social
sanctions (Joos & Broad, 2007; Lynch & Murray, 2000) or that the
child would be exposed to ridicule from nonsupportive family members or an ex-spouse (Breshears, 2010; Lynch & Murray, 2000).
Children whose parents concealed their LGBT identity from them,
then revealed it at a later date, reported having difficulty trusting the
parent on other issues (Breshears & Lubbe-De Beer, 2014; Goldberg,
2007). Once trust is eroded, it is difficult to earn back. Faced with
these concerns, a parent could benefit greatly from an understanding
of factors that predict an adult childs reaction to an LGBT disclosure.
493
Method
Participants
All undergraduate students enrolled at a mid-Atlantic comprehensive university (approximately 4,000) received an e-mail from
the Dean of Students with a Survey Monkey link. The survey was
accessed 640 times. We screened the data to remove empty responses (e.g., no consent given, no items completed), incomplete
responses (i.e., any survey with missing data on the attitude measures), and duplicate responses (as determined by multiple hits
from the same IP address). Ultimately, we analyzed data from 510
respondents (96 males, 410 females, 4 unspecified). Participant
age ranged from 18 to 28 years (M 20.12, SD 2.01) with
91.40% of participants aged 18 to 22. Participants self-reported
their sexuality: heterosexual (N 440), gay or lesbian (N 29),
bisexual (N 36), asexual (N 1), and unspecified (N 4).
Information on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status was not
gathered; however, the larger university is 86.50% Caucasian and
14.8% first generation college students. Participants volunteered
and received no incentives.
494
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Results
Data Preparation
Six scores on the Mother Lesbian attitude composite and five
scores on the Mother Transgender attitude composite (which together account for .02% of the data points) were more than three
standard deviations below the mean for those variables. We replaced these scores with the score at three standard deviations from
the mean (1.41 and 1.10, respectively). Means and standard deviations for the attitude variables (four general attitude composites,
two transgender surgery items, two trust items, two determinism
items) are reported in Table 1.
Self-Reported Attitudes
For all four general attitude composites, the mean was above the
scale midpoint, indicating acceptance. An exploratory MixedModel ANOVA, with participant biological sex as a betweensubjects variable, compared means on the four attitude composites;
no specific predictions were made. The main effect of parental
identity (mother-lesbian, father-gay, mother-transgender, fathertransgender) was significant, F(3, 1512) 28.02, p .001, p2
.053. With a Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons,
attitudes toward mothers were more positive than attitudes toward
fathers for both the gay/lesbian composites, p .001 and the
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics for Attitude Variables
Female
Male
Variable
SD
SD
4.29
4.12
4.11
4.04
3.56
3.47
3.65
3.64
3.27
2.99
0.89
0.97
1.06
1.05
1.46
1.47
1.18
1.19
1.26
1.15
4.09
3.91
3.83
3.74
3.16
2.96
3.73
3.70
3.02
2.87
1.08
1.07
1.26
1.21
1.48
1.50
1.17
1.23
1.37
1.20
Note. N 506 (410 females, 96 males). All of the items, with the
exception of Biodeterminism and Envirodeterminism, were rated on a 1
(definitely not) to 5 (yes, absolutely) scale. Bio and envirodeterminism
were rated on a 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely determined) scale. The means
of the attituded composites are adjusted for the mean replacement of
outliers.
transgender composites, p .001. Attitudes toward the gay/lesbian identity were more positive than those toward the transgender
identity for both the mother, p .001, and the father composites,
p .024. The main effect for participant biological sex was also
significant, F(1, 504) 5.05, p .025, p2 .010. Females
reported more positive attitudes than males across the four composites. The interaction between participant biological sex and
parental identity was not significant, F(3, 1512) 1.13, p .34.
Means and standard deviations for these composites, broken down
by participant biological sex, are reported in Table 1.
For the transgender surgery items, participant ratings were still
above the midpoint of the scale (see Table 1), suggesting neutral to
positive attitudes. An exploratory analysis revealed significantly
less desire to be a part of the fathers transition process compared
to the mothers, t(508) 4.49, p .001, r .20.
We predicted that results for the trust items would be consistent
with previous research. In support of this hypothesis, participants
reported that they would have some difficulty trusting their parents
if the parental sexual identity was accidentally revealed (see Table
1). As an exploratory analysis, we compared distrust for the
gay/lesbian identity item with the transgender item; the difference
in distrust was not significant, t(509) .23, p .82.
5.833
4.036
.009
0.233 (0.084)
0.255 (0.302)
4.023
.098
0.090
28.511
0.296 (0.107)
0.209 (0.074)
0.288 (0.334)
4.097
.117
0.111
34.599
3.245
4.115
.004
3.627
4.289
.005
Note. Standardized regression coefficients appear in parentheses for the biological sex and biodeterminism variables. N 510.
5.036
0.146 (0.058)
0.225 (0.293)
4.104
.088
0.085
25.364
0.202 (0.080)
0.142 (0.060)
0.236 (0.327)
4.277
.110
0.106
32.085
0.201 (0.085)
Biological sex
Biodeterminism
Constant
Adjusted R2
R2
F
4.112
.008
0.281 (0.099)
Model 1
Model 2
Model 1
Model 2
Model 1
Model 2
Model 1
Variable
Mother homosexual
Discussion
Mother transgender
Father homosexual
Father transgender
Model 2
495
Table 2
Predictors of Self-Reported Attitudes Toward Parental LGBT Disclosure
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
496
References
Bozett, F. W. (1980). Gay fathers: How and why they disclose their
homosexuality to their children. Family Relations, 29, 173197. http://
dx.doi.org/10.2307/584068
Breshears, D. (2010). Coming out with our children: Turning points facilitating lesbian parent disclosure with their children about family identity.
Communication Reports, 23, 79 90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
08934215.2010.511398
Breshears, D., & Lubbe-De Beer, C. (2014). A qualitative analysis of adult
childrens advice for parents coming out to their children. Professional
Psychology: Research and Practice, 45, 231238. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1037/a0035520
Davies, K. (2008). Adult daughters whose mothers come out later in life:
What is the psychosocial impact? Journal of Lesbian Studies, 12, 255
263. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10894160802161422
Dunn, K. (2010). Biological determinism and LGBT tolerance: A quantitative exploration of biopolitical beliefs. The Western Journal of Black
Studies, 34, 367379.
Dunne, E. J. (1987). Helping gay fathers come out to their children.
Journal of Homosexuality, 14, 213222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/
J082v14n01_16
Goldberg, A. E. (2007). (How) does it make a difference? Perspectives of
adults with lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents. American Journal of
Orthopsychiatry, 77, 550 562. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0002-9432.77
.4.550