"but She's Your Mother!" LGBTQ Adults Navigating Relationships with Non-Affirming Christian Parents

Background: Anti-LGBTQ sentiment is frequently motivated and justified by religion. In the U.S., that religion is Christianity. Only 54% of American Christians believe that LGB people should be accepted in society, and over 70% of American’s identify as Christian. This means that one in three LGB people in the U.S. is born into a Christian family that does not support LGB identity, and one in two trans people in the U.S. is born into a Christian family that believes gender is determined at birth. Exposure to faith-based anti-LGBTQ messaging is associated with negative mental health outcomes for LGBTQ people including internalized homophobia, psychological distress, suicidal ideation, and attempted suicide. LGBTQ adults who experience faith-based rejection from Christian families can continue to experience depression, reduced parent-child relationship quality, and a sense of disconnect from family into late adulthood.

Purpose: LGBTQ people are often pressured to maintain family relationships, and shamed for cutting ties with family members, even when those family members are not affirming of LGBTQ identity. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the familial and relational experiences of LGBTQ adults who were raised in non-affirming Christian families – including the ways in which participants navigated relationships with family members before, during, and after identity disclosure.

Methods: This mixed methods study consists of surveys, genogram maps, and individual interviews with 17 LGBTQ adults and 17 of their siblings (N=24). Participants were Black (n=14), Black/African (n=6), and white (n=14) Americans between the ages of 20 and 37 (m=26) and represent 12 Christian denominations and 14 states from every region of the U.S. Participants were recruited primarily through social media and interviews were completed via Zoom; all participants received $50. Critical feminist methodologies and thematic content analysis were used to analyze qualitative data and surveys were analyzed using mean comparison.

Results: Findings demonstrate that familial non-affirmation is a significant barrier to intimacy between LGBTQ adults and their families. 100% of LGBTQ participants described physically and/or emotionally distancing themselves from family members before coming out in anticipation of rejection. After coming out – most participants spent years reaching out, giving second, third, and fourth chances, and exhausting themselves trying to connect with their families. Persistent lack of affirmation resulted in consistent relational deterioration and a sense of grief and loss for LGBTQ participants.

Conclusions and Implications: Social workers serving the Christian parents of LGBTQ offspring have a responsibility not only to the client they are serving but to the vulnerable child of those parents. They should know that without affirmation, parents cannot have intimacy with their LGBTQ children, and without changing their ideology, they cannot have family connection. Additionally, even when parents respond to disclosure with affirmation, the years of overhearing religious anti-LGBTQ messages have likely taken a toll on that child’s ability to trust and connect with their parent. To help foster stronger, more connected families, social workers should encourage families to embrace change and make new meanings together.