Relationships With Parents, Youth

This entry focuses on the relationships that lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth have with their parents. Specific topics addressed include how gender nonconformity and sexual orientation can influence Parent-Child relationships before their parents are aware of their sexual orientation, how and why LGB youth reveal their sexual orientation to parents, how parents react to their child’s sexual orientation, how parents contribute to child health, and interventions to support parents.

Although popular culture in the United States frequently depicts LGB youth as scorned by and cast off from their family of origin, parents react to discovering their child is LGB in a variety of ways. Research has begun to illuminate how parental reactions to their LGB child shape the health and well-being of these youth, and ...