Children's Television and its Effects on LGBTQ Youths’ Identity Milestones, Acceptance, and Comfort in Identity

Abstract

Television has the power to influence and change a viewer's beliefs through the content and characters of a show. This study investigates to what extent the television LGBTQ young adults watched as a child affects their sexuality and gender identity development later on in life. My hypotheses were that watching representative television as a child would increase self-acceptance, lower the age of identity milestones, create positive views on the content of children's television, and increase comfort in identity. This study utilizes a mixed-methods survey for LGBTQ individuals ages 18-21 residing in the US. Using comparisons of means, Spearmans correlational analysis, and analyzing themes, I found no evidence to solidly confirm or deny my hypotheses. Quantitative data does not point towards a relationship between LGBTQ identity development and childhood television, while qualitative results do show that those who watched directly representative television as a child felt more positively about their identity development.