GRSJ224/Family formation and environments in LGBT communities

Coming Out

The attitudes towards homosexuality has progressively been softened for the past few years, reducing tensions of coming out for LGBT people. Via coming out or declaring oneself as a LGBT person, the salience of kinship can be disturbed by rejection, negative reactions or experienced distance. The ties from biological families for LGBT communities may not last as promising as for the majority populations. LGBT individuals frequently experience isolation from biological relationships.

The absence of families can significantly limit convenience such as providing social support. Furthermore, the status of being without biological family or legal relatives often accompany with difficulty accessing to mainstream institutions and legal barriers. Considering the roles, representations and features of family, definition of family is not concisely simplified into one concrete meaning. Thus, defining family can become very complex and regarded as a controversial issue in LGBT communities.