Coming-Out to Family Members and Internalized Sexual Stigma in Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay People

Abstract

Coming out has been described as an essential component in the lesbian, gay, and bisexual identity development process and in the mental health of sexual minority people. This study investigated the coming out to family members in lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and analyzed the potential predictors associated to the choice to come out. For this purpose, disclosure of sexual orientation to family members, internalized sexual stigma (evaluated through an adapted short version of the internalized sexual stigma for lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people, measure of the internalized sexual stigma for lesbians, gay, and bisexual), gender, age, sexual orientation, background information, current romantic relationship and the wealth of social network with sexual minority people were assessed on an Italian sample of 291 adolescents and young adults (206 lesbian/gay men and 85 bisexual people). Hierarchical multiple regression showed that higher scores of coming out to family were associated with gay/lesbian identity, liberal political orientation, higher education level, presence of a stable romantic relationship, higher number of lesbian, gay, and bisexual contacts, and lower levels of internalized sexual stigma. Results suggest that bisexual people encounter major difficulties regarding the coming out to family members, respect to lesbian/gay people and indicate that internalized sexual stigma is strongly associated with\ud * Roberto Baiocco roberto.baiocco@uniroma1.it\ud concealing one’s sexual orientation. Clinical implications for the present findings are discussed

Minority Stressors, Rumination, and Psychological Distress in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals

“…Indeed, if outness is positively associated with both distress and prejudice events at some level, a more coherent hypothesis would be that outness causes more prejudice events, which cause higher levels of distress. At the same time, outness does appear to have ameliorative effects on self-stigma (Pistella, Salvati, Ioverno, Laghi, & Baiocco, 2016) and positive indirect effects of desire to keep sexual orientation undisclosed have been found on both depression and anxiety via internalized homophobia (Schrimshaw, Siegel, Downing, & Parsons, 2013). At first glance, this might seem contradictory, but these two paths are compatible with each other and the previous literature.…”

Coming out Through an Intersectional Perspective: Narratives of Bisexuality and Polyamory in Italy

“…Welfare is central in discussions about citizenship, especially in Mediterranean countries where State expectations that care will be provided within families persist (Naldini & Jurado, 2013;Pavolini & Raitano, 2015). Regarding stigma management within families of origin (Baiocco et al, 2015;Pistella, Salvati, Ioverno, Laghi, & Baiocco, 2016), I discussed how bisexual and polyamorous people decide to manage their visibility with their families of origins, revealing how the intersection of their identities leads to different options over stigma, depending on the level of economic independence from parents. In a context where family and kinship are central, networks of friends are also deemed a great source of wellbeing for subjects allocated outside the safety net of familialistic welfare, as identified by Nadia's polyfamily.…”

Deciding to Come Out to Parents: Toward a Model of Sexual Orientation Disclosure Decisions

“…gay vs. bisexual) is inconclusive (e.g. Martos et al, 2015;Pistella et al, 2016). Exclusion criteria included the ability to speak and understand English.…”

“…While some studies have indicated that bisexual youth disclose later than gay or lesbian (e.g. Martos, Nezhad, & Meyer, ; Pistella, Salvati, Ioverno, Laghi, & Baiocco, ), when looking longitudinally and among younger bisexuals, these differences become insignificant (Maguen, Floyd, Bakeman, & Armistead, ; Rosario, Schrimshaw, Hunter, & Levy‐Warren, ).…”