LGBQ Parents, Coming Out to Children

Coming out, or disclosing one’s sexual identity, to family members is a key aspect of living as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer (LGBQ) adult because family is at the heart of both psychological and social life. There are two distinct contexts in which LGBQ parents come out to their children. The first is within a de novo LGBQ-parenting family (i.e., a planned LGBQ-parent family, in which children are born or adopted into a same-sex relationship). The second context is when an LGBQ parent had his or her children within a different-sex relationship (post–heterosexual parenting). Depending on the timing of the parent’s coming out, and the children’s age and other factors, children will understand the meaning and implications of the parent’s sexual identity in different ...