Sexual Orientation and Communication Satisfaction with Parents

Sexual Orientation and Communication Satisfaction with Parents

Joshua Swan

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Lewis-Clark State College

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH PARENTS

Introduction

In the last 47 years, the United States of America has been evolving on its stance with the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community. Starting with a revolution of angry drag queens and queers at the Stonewall Riots on June 28th, 1969 (Lisker, 1969), the attitude towards the LGBT community has slowly begun to change. Fast-forward to 2016, and the social climate for LGBT people is drastically different with the ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges by the U.S. Supreme Court (2015), and the passing of marriage equality for same-sex couples. The ongoing battle faced by advocates and opponents seems to be that of nature vs. nurture. Are people “born” gay? Is it decided through the birth order and the sex of older siblings (Bogaert, 2005)? Or, are people made gay through their environment and other influences? Is an overbearing mother or absent father the reason a boy “goes gay?” This debate has been ongoing for years, and, to this date, there have been no conclusive findings, but there are many myths and hypotheses. One of the more interesting ideas of the nurture argument is the idea that gay/bi men are just “momma’s boys,” and lesbians/bi women just grew up as complete tomboys. While these generalizations may have been more sweeping and easier to make in the past, the acceptance of the LGBT community in recent years has helped contribute to a social climate where gender roles are less rigid than they used to be. Hopefully, this will lead to more ‘honest’ research about communication between children and their parent of the opposite gender. This study seeks to examine that correlation within the current the social climate. While the influence and inclusion of the transgender participants is important as they are also a strong part of the LGBT community, this research will be specific to the LGB population, as gender identity is another dynamic which would add a greater level of complexity than the present study could support.

The results of this research will be valuable to social advocates, and possibly add more weight to the argument of nature vs. nurture. An eventual discovery of the cause of homosexuality will likely demystify the issue, and make it easier for parents of LGBT youth to accept and understand their children. While this study will not be able to ultimately answer the question, it will add weight to the scales.

Literature Review

Increase in LGB Research

Understanding how relatively recent the change in social climate and culture is, there have been an increased number of articles concerning the LGB community. A particular area of focus are journal articles within the field of Couple and Family Therapy (CFT) which explore a variety of topics. Morin (1977) did a meta-analysis in the years between the years 1967 to 1974 that analyzed the content of the major CFT journals searching for articles pertaining to homosexuality (Morin, 1977). These studies were followed up by an analysis done from the years 1975 to 1995 (Clark & Serovich, 1997). A significant change was made regarding the topics that were written about within these timeframes. While the original studies were able to categorize the topics into 5 categories: assessment, causes, adjustment to, attitudes towards, and special topics, the most recent study done updated this research from 1996 to 2010 and found there were significant changes in the both the number and types of articles. The articles in this arena had moved from etiological and treatment-based questioning, to more practical and varied studies that discussed families or other mental health issues that may be related to or caused by familial acceptance (or lack thereof) of someone being LGB (Hartwell, Serovich, Grafsky, & Kerr, 2012).

Hypothesized Causes of Homosexuality

Addressing the reasons for variations in orientation other than heterosexuality has led researchers to pose various hypotheses. Jenkins (2010) discusses some of the studies that have been done.. Although these studies are promising in their initial findings, there has not been a clear determinant of the cause. Jenkins believes the cause is some combination of both biological and environmental factors, and states that there is more need to research the role that familial/sociocultural environments have in this connection. Jenkins states that the majority of the research has been heavily concentrated on male homosexuality and focused less on bisexuality or female sexuality, in general. These are areas of research that need further exploration (Jenkins, 2010).

Hypotheses have started leaning increasingly towards the biological argument in recent years. The popular media has been shown to have an effect on this change. While part of the process has been a slow coming out of those who are in the closet, being LGBT has become more acceptable over the past decade. Pop music has helped influence attitudes regarding the LGBT community, one song in particular that was researched was “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga (Jang & Lee, 2014). An increase in songs about non-heteronormative orientations in pop music has helped promote acceptance of the LGBT community. Another example of a popular song that might be influencing this change in attitudes is Macklemore’s “Same Love.” These songs lead the public to believe that there is no choice in being LGBT, and it is biological in nature. The biological argument has been shown in a smaller research study to have an impact on the acceptance of people who are LGBT, as they are believed to have no choice (Kasser, 1999).

Another hypothesis presented on the biological side of the argument is the birth order hypothesis. This hypothesis is based on the idea that a woman’s body will start to reject the testosterone of male children over the course of time, and with each subsequent male child, she will have a built-up immunity to male fetuses. This will then lead to a higher likelihood that a male child will be GBT. This hypothesis does not, however, account for a biological basis in women (Jenkins, 2010). A study done by Bogaert in 2005, however, utilized a larger sample of 237 homosexual men, and did not support this hypothesis (Bogaert, 2005.)

Children and Communication Satisfaction

In regard to communication satisfaction, there was a study done that looked at ease of communication between boys and girls and their fathers and mothers (Levin & Currie, 2010) the children were not identified as being LGBT or otherwise. This study showed significant differences between the ease and ability of communication children had with each parent. For both genders, communication was reported as easy with their mother for 79% of the children. Communication with their fathers, however, was reported as easy for about 62% of the boys and only 44% of the girls. Ease of communication with the mother was by far a normal occurrence for most of the participants in this study. Those who had the highest life satisfaction, though, were those who reported having easy communication with their father. Considering that, both boys and girls from single father families reported lower life satisfaction than those in a household with both of their parents (Levin & Currie, 2010). In other words, ease of communication with mothers was a far more consistent staple in the lives of children. When paired with easy communication with fathers, children had a much higher life satisfaction.

Gender Nonconformity and Relationships

A study that analyzed sexual orientation and gender nonconformity (Rieger, Linsenmeier, Gygax, & Bailey, 2008) found that children who identify as homosexual both recall and were observed through the use of home videos to have exhibited more gender-nonconforming behaviors than their heterosexual counterparts. This partially helps confirm that self-reports of being gender-nonconforming are consistent with observable data, a limitation of recalling past data was a concern for many studies. It also found that there was increased rejection from both parents and especially peers. Another study (Landolt, Bartholomew, Saffrey, Oram, & Perlman, 2004) verified that gender-nonconforming behavior was associated with parental and peer rejection specifically for gay and bisexual men. It found that paternal rejection would lead into adult attachment anxiety while maternal rejection did not. In the discussion, it also suggests that the same gender parents may influence expectations and dynamics within same-sex relationships. Consequently, a poor paternal relationship for a gay/bisexual man, or a poor maternal relationship for a lesbian/bisexual woman may impact the attachment security in their romantic relationships (Landolt, Bartholomew, Saffrey, Oram, & Perlman, 2004). Paired with the previous study mentioned by Levin & Currie, this data might suggest that, because of increased rejection by parents for being gender-nonconforming as a “prehomosexual,” or someone whose sexual orientation had yet to be established but later became homosexual, people who identify as LGBT are likely to experience a more difficult communication with their parents, and therefore, a decrease in life satisfaction.

Beard & Blakeman did a study in 2000 rooted in psychoanalytic theory that attempted to correlate being a gay or bisexual man with higher rates of narcissism. While they were unable to support this hypothesis, they did find some weak correlations with their hypothesis that instead linked childhood gender-nonconformity to narcissistic symptoms due to parental rejection or a lack of support. Higher self-esteem and more authenticity in life for gay or bisexual men were predicted when there was a stronger relationship and more accepting communications with their fathers (Beard & Bakeman, 2000).

A general study was done (not LGBT specific) overall on relationships between fathers and mothers independently (Amato, 1994). While the gender of the child did not matter, it was found that fathers contributed to better well-being of children in the measures of happiness, life satisfaction, and psychological distress. These associations were found to make a difference independent of the relationship and closeness with their mother. Although this study is perhaps more general in regards to communication satisfaction, it offers an in-depth control measure for the general community with a national random sample of 471 fully completed set of 5 interviews taken over a 12-year time frame (Amato, 1994). Levin, Dallago, & Currie found that ease of communication between children and parents actually is a higher indicator for high life satisfaction than the structure of the family (Levin, Dallago, & Currie, 2011).

In 1973, a study looked further into the relationships of homosexual men and women (It did not account for either bisexual or transgender persons), as well as their heterosexual counterparts and examined their relationships with each of their parents (Thompson, Schwartz, McCandless, & Edwards, 1973). While gender-nonconformity has been shown to present itself in “prehomosexual” boys, there are, however, several points that are outdated with this particular study. This was performed at a time when being LGBT was considered a psychological dysfunction until it was removed completely from the American Psycological Associations DSM III’s revision in 1986 (Herek, 1997). The majority of what America had considered “gay” was very stereotypical. In the current socio-cultural climate, there is more diversity that is visible within the LGBT community and society overall. This study draws many of its findings from attempting to research gender identity, which is a different variable altogether. The researchers ask questions that have the participants describe if they were athletic, coordinated, or clumsy, or if the participants played baseball as kids. It is now understood that gender identity and sexual orientation are two different concepts that need to be analyzed separately. The study claimed to have found the cause for people being LGBT as being the presence of a weak or hostile father and presence of a stronger mother in homosexual sons, but it more accurately verified some stereotypes and found possible correlations (Thompson, Schwartz, McCandless, & Edwards, 1973).

In 1986, a study was done by Milic and Crowne that explored a psychoanalytic-based hypothesis about the variations in non-heterosexual orientations. This study involved 40 Canadian males and worked to find a less hidden sample of homosexual men (Milic & Crowne, 1986 p. 240). This study confirmed that many homosexual men felt like their father was less loving, and they had a more difficult relationship with their fathers than the relationships that the heterosexual men had with their fathers. This study also found that the homosexual sample was generally more “approval-dependent and defensive”(p. 240) than the heterosexual group, which might have heightened the negative responses that the homosexual group had reported about the negative reactions from their fathers (Milic & Crowne, 1986). Ten years later, Phelan (Phelan, 1996) recreated the study with a slightly larger sample totaling sixty people. While this study supported Milic & Crowne’s findings, the sample was still relatively small. It was mentioned that both studies ignored bisexuality and were unable to account for it. Another limitation that was brought up was that socioeconomic variables might have had an effect, as well (Phelan, 1996).

A study by Savin-Williams suggests that, at least for gay males, the acceptance or rejection from both parents only affects the self-esteem of the child if the child deems their parent is an important figure in their life. For young girls, while their acceptance or rejection by their father only affected their self-esteem if they deemed their father important, their mother’s acceptance or rejection affected their self-esteem regardless of the level of importance the girl credits their mother in their life. This hints that there are differences in how gay/bisexual men and lesbian/bisexual women deal with acceptance and rejection from their parents. The results of the current study could potentially result in similar findings.