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‘Coming Out Tales’: Adult Sons and Daughters' Feelings About Their Gay Father's Sexual Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2012

Fiona Tasker ,
Helen Barrett  and
Federica De Simone
Fiona Tasker*
Affiliation:
Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom.f.tasker@bbk.ac.uk
Helen Barrett
Affiliation:
Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom.
Federica De Simone
Affiliation:
Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom.
*
*Address for correspondence: Fiona Tasker, PhD, School of Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London, WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom.
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Abstract

Coming out to their children is a dilemma that concerns many gay, bisexual, and lesbian parents with children from previous heterosexual relationships. How children found out about having a father who identified himself as gay, and their feelings about their father's sexual identity, were explored through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 36 sons and daughters (aged 19 to 36 years) whose gay fathers participated in the Gay & Bisexual Parenting Survey (Barrett and Tasker, 2001). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis revealed that awareness of their father's sexual identity was often left unspoken for various reasons, and that acceptance came about through gradual understanding as well as direct discussion. Interview data indicated the complexity of the relationship between the young adult's personal acceptance of their father's gay identity and their consideration of social context when deciding how open to be to others about their father's sexual identity. This research has varied implications for therapeutic work with gay and bisexual fathers coming out to their children from previous heterosexual relationships.

Keywords

gay fathersyoung adulthoodcoming outqualitative
Type
Articles
Information
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy , Volume 31 , Issue 4: Special Issue: Gay and lesbian parented families: Translating research into practice , 01 December 2010 , pp. 326 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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