Table 1: Definitions Homophobia
Prejudice and/or discrimination toward individuals based on their perceived or actual sexual orientation.
Internalized Homophobia Intersex ("I") Lesbian ("L") Queer ("Q")
An intrapsychic barrier and a task to be surmounted by youth who are coming to terms with their uncertainty or shame over their LGB identity.
Youth who are born with genitalia of both genders and are typically raised as females.
A term some females use to describe their sexual orientation and attraction to other females.
A term some individuals use to identify a nonheterosexual identity. This reclaims a previously homophobic term. Questioning ("Q") A term used by an individual who wonders about her or his sexual orientation but has not come to a conclusion. Sexual Orientation The romantic/emotional and sexual attraction and affiliation that an individual experiences toward another. The Closet The dynamic in which homophobia or internalized homophobia prevents an individual from recognizing her or his nonheterosexual orientation. Transgender ("T") A term used to describe individuals who feel incongruence with the gender with which they were born (assigned gender) and their inner sense of maleness or femaleness. The person innately identifies with the opposite gender. Transphobia Prejudice and/or discrimination directed toward transgender individuals. LGB youth identity development
Adolescence – specifically early adolescence, on which this course will focus – is the developmental period between the ages of 12 and 18 (Newman & Newman, 2015). In this period, youth “[confront] a new psychosocial conflict, in which pressures to ally oneself with specific groups and to learn to be comfortable functioning as a member of a group are major preoccupations. This conflict is called group identity versus alienation ” (Newman & Newman, 2015, p. 365). While this normative task applies to all youth, it is complicated by the reality that LGB youth face an additional developmental task that is unique to their population; this task addresses the need to accept a nonheterosexual sexual orientation in a social context that, although showing signs of easing, is still replete with heterosexism and homophobia. Although a central limitation of any model is that there cannot be a “one size fits all” application, the following model does present some core considerations that can assist practitioners in understanding and empathizing with LGB youth. Models of LGB identity development A classic model of identity development among LGB youth is Troiden’s model (Troiden, 1989). The first stage is sensitization , in which children might have an experience or experiences that provide beginning awareness that they may be different, but they likely lack the understanding to describe or articulate this to themselves or to others. The second stage is identity confusion , in which a youth is increasingly aware that he or she is not heterosexual. During this stage the youth begins to become aware of and directly face pervasive stigma, heterosexism, and his or her own internalized homophobia. Because of this, it can be very difficult for the youth to acknowledge an LGB sexual orientation. It might be safer to avoid, conceal, or even reimagine past same-sex behaviors. The third stage is identity assumption . In this stage, youth begin to feel more comfortable in taking on a nontraditional sexual orientation. Often they have created a space in which to begin safely exploring and questioning whether they could in fact begin to identify as LGB. The final stage is commitment . In this stage, internalized homophobia has decreased as the youth continues to feel more comfortable integrating a lesbian, gay, or bisexual identity with his or her self-concept. Here, the individual is able to come out to self and others to the extent he or she chooses (Troiden, 1989).
Table 2 presents the model of homosexual identity development that can be applied to LGB youth and has possible application to bisexual identity development. Table 2: Stages of Homosexual Identity Development 1. Sensitization.
2. Identity Confusion. 3. Identity Assumption. 4. Commitment.
Note . From Troiden, R. R. (1989). The formation of homosexual identities. Journal of Homosexuality, 17 (1), 43-74. Consistent with more recent thinking on any stage model, identity development among LGB youth does not necessarily always proceed linearly through subsequent stages without returning to an earlier stage. Moreover, a caution regarding stage theory models is that they focus clinicians, families, and even youth themselves on individual factors and de-emphasize the contextual elements that have vital implications for the development of healthy sexual identities for LGB youth. For example, a youth might be approaching the final stage of commitment and yet, after being bullied at school for being out as a gay teen, the youth might believe that, for safety purposes, he might return to the closet of the identity confusion stage. Yet another youth might have such great social support and personal resiliency that she practically skips the identity confusion stage and commits to being lesbian. For others still, a commitment might be to a “queer” identity or no identity at all because some youth question the need and utility of categories of sexual orientation in the first place. Since the introduction of Troiden’s model of homosexual identity development (Troiden, 1989), further scholarship has provided additional insight. After reviewing a number of earlier theoretical models, in 2006 Margaret Rosario and colleagues concluded that: “[I]dentity formation consists of becoming aware of one’s unfolding sexual orientation, beginning to question whether one may be LGB, and exploring that emerging LGB identity by becoming involved in gay-related social and sexual activities” (Rosario, Schrimshaw, Hunter, & Braun, 2006, pp. 46-47).
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