The 'coming out' process for lesbians: a comparison of lesbian and heterosexual perspectives. Laura Ann Markowe Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD. London School of Economics and Political Science UMI Number: U052287 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Disscrrlation Publishing UMI U052287 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 T h- ^ ^ S F 67 (92. ABSTRACT 'Coming out', defined in terms of identifying self as lesbian, as well as disclosure of this information to others, is seen as an issue only within a heterosexist society. Heterosexism serves to reflect and create social representations, containing inflexible conceptualizations of gender, and social identities, incorporating power inequalities. The study was based on content analysis of individual semi­ structured depth interviews, with forty lesbians on perceptions and experiences of coming out; thirty heterosexual women and men on attitudes to homosexuality; and twenty women on communication with family and friends. Lesbian and heterosexual interviews were supplemented with stereotype tasks, including the Bem Sex-Role Inventory and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire. Coming out to self was shown to be based upon strong emotional feelings directed towards women, together with awareness of lesbianism as an option, and a level of emotional acceptance of homosexuality. Coming out to family, heterosexual friends etc. involved risks and benefits. The study revealed a social context reflecting lesbian 'invisibility', heterosexuals' lack of interest and minimal contact with lesbians; perceptions of threat and abnormality; and a masculine, abnormal, aggressive, lesbian stereotype. Heterosexual subjects defined 'lesbian' in terms of sex only, and perceived lesbians as masculine. Lesbian subjects perceived lesbianism as more than sex, and lesbians as androgynous. Communication issues most similar to coming out concerned identity, relationships, or a different way of life; threat, loss or stigma; or reactions of others. Case studies analysed within Breakwell's threatened identity model suggested extension of the theory to include additional identity principles of authenticity/integrity and affiliation. It is argued that changes, at the level of social representations, relating to gender conceptualization, and the consequent power inequalities, are necessary for aiding the coming out process. CONTENTS ABSTRACT 2 Acknowledgements 9 Chapter One CONTEXT AND ISSUES 10 1.1 Definitions 11 1.2 The coming out process for lesbians: 13 some issues and questions 1.3 Background 16 1.4 Methodological issues 24 1.5 Outline of study 25 Chapter Two LESBIAN IDENTITY AND 28 THE COMING OUT PROCESS 2.1 Lesbian identity 28 2.2 Coming out 44 Chapter Three ATTITUDES TOWARDS HOMOSEXUALS 63 AND STEREOTYPING 3.1 Attitudes towards homosexuals 63 3.2 Stereotyping 98 Chapter Four THE PILOT STUDIES 132 4.1 Introduction 132 4.2 Heterosexuals' attitudes towards 134 homosexuality 4.3 Lesbian supplementary interviews 144 4.4 Stereotype investigation 150 4.5 Self-disclosure pilot 166 4.6 General discussion 172 Chapter Five A RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF COMING OUT' 177 5.1 An imaginary lesbian 177 5.2 Coming out as a process 189 5.3 The theoretical framework 194 5.4 Proposed interpretational framework 199 5.5 The main hypotheses 201 Chapter Six A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 204 FOR 'COMING OUT' 6.1 Lesbians as women: some issues of gender 204 6.2 Social identity 217 6.3 A societal perspective: social representations 229 6.4 Theories of development of homosexuality 234 6.5 Attribution theory 242 6.6 Self-disclosure 253 6.7 Counselling/therapy for lesbians 267 Chapter Seven THE MAIN STUDY 276 7.1 Introduction 276 7.2 Method 281 7.3 Results and discussion 290 Chapter Eight CASE STUDIES WITHIN 367 A THREATENED IDENTITIES FRAMEWORK 8.1 Introduction 367 8.2 The case studies 368 8.3 A comparison of groups 417 Chapter Nine SUMMARY, IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 422 9.1 Coming out to self 422 9.2 Coming out to others 429 9.3 Interplay of influences 437 9.4 Methodological issues 442 9.5 Implications 443 9.6 Conclusions 448 APPENDICES 455 Appendix A: Heterosexual pilot interviews 456 Appendix B: Lesbian supplementary pilot interviews 481 Appendix C: Questionnaire 493 Appendix D: Bem Sex-Role Inventory items 494 Appendix E: Personal Attributes Questionnaire items(long form) 495 Appendix F: Pilot study BSRI and PAQ analysis 497 Appendix G: Short form PAQ pilot study analysis 505 Appendix H: 'Self-disclosure' pilot interviews 510 Appendix I: Interview schedules and rationales 518 Appendix J: Some sample details 541 Appendix K: Examples of sections from questionnaire and interview coding frames 544 Appendix L: Examples of life span lines 548 Appendix M: Examples of 'coming out' tables 555 Appendix N: Chi-squared tests on questionnaire data 560 Appendix O: Analysis of BSRI and PAQ data 562 Appendix P: Threatened identities model - operational definitions 590 Appendix Q: Case study within a threatened identities framework of a woman in the early stages of coming out 597 REFERENCES 602 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 4.4.1: 156 Frequency of subjects mentioning love or emotion in their definitions of the terms heterosexual, homosexual and lesbian Table 4.4.2: 156 References to men in defining the term homosexual Table 4.4.3: 157 Percentages of responses falling into the most commonly occurring response categories for the lesbian stereotype Table 4.4.4: 158 Numbers of subjects mentioning abnormality for lesbian stereotype Table 4.4.5: 158 Numbers of subjects mentioning normality for heterosexual stereotype Table 4.4.6: 159 Numbers of subjects mentioning sex role for lesbian stereotype Figure 5.2.1: 190 Coming out to self Figure 5.2.2: 191 Coming out to a heterosexual person Table 7.3.1: 298 Frequency of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories for the lesbian stereotype Table 7.3.2: 298 Frequency of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories for the heterosexual woman stereotype Table 7.3.3: 299 Number of subjects, percentage of sample and percentage of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories on Item III.2, the lesbian stereotype Table 7.3.4: 299 Number of subjects, percentage of sample and percentage of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories on incomplete sentence 'Many people think lesbians are...' (Item 11.2 ) Table 7.3.5: 300 Number of subjects, percentage of sample and percentage of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories on incomplete sentence 'Lesbians are often described as...' (Item 11.3) Table 7.3.6: 300 Number of subjects, percentage of sample and percentage of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories on incomplete sentence 'Compared with heterosexual women, lesbians are...' (Item II.4) Table 7.3.7: 301 Number of subjects, percentage of sample and percentage of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories on incomplete sentence 'The typical lesbian...' (Item II.6) Table 7.3.8: 301 Number of subjects, percentage of sample and percentage of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories on Item III.l, the heterosexual woman stereotype Table 7.3.9: 302 Number of subjects, percentage of sample and percentage of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories on incomplete sentence 'Women are often described as...' (Item II.1) Table 7.3.10: 302 Number of subjects, percentage of sample and percentage of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories on incomplete sentence 'The typical heterosexual woman...' (Item II.5) Table 7.3.11: 303 Number of subjects, percentage of sample and percentage of responses for the most frequently mentioned categories in the interview material describing a lesbian stereotype Table 7.3.12: 318 Some personal understandings of the term 'lesbian' from lesbian subjects' questionnaire responses (Item 1.3) Table 7.3.13: 326 Feelings on coming out to self Table 7.3.14: 348 Number of subjects and percentage of sample mentioning the most frequently occurring negative response categories Table 7.3.15: 362 Most frequently mentioned topics that teenagers might find difficult to discuss with others Table 7.3.16: 362 Most frequently mentioned topics subjects as adults found difficult to discuss with family or friends Table 8.1.1: 368 Subject numbers grouped according to lesbian/heterosexual experiences/feelings and age category Table 8.3.1: 418 Number of subjects' accounts indicating use of repression, suppression or denial (layer one), during coming out to self Figure 9.1.1: 423 'Coming out to self' within the social context Figure 9.1.2: 425 'Coming out to self' within the context of relevant social representations Table 9.3.1: 438 Coming out to self and others: some possible scenarios Figure 9.3.1: 439 Examples of influences affecting the coming out process Appendices Table F.l: 497 Perceptions of lesbian stereotype derived from individual subject t-tests on BSRI data Table F.2: 497 Personal view of lesbians derived from individual subject t-tests