Restoring Lives: Developmental Research on Sexual Orientation

Abstract

When I first started reading the psychological literature on homosexuality nearly 25 years ago, several omissions were painfully evident. On the positive side, studies were no longer focusing on whether or not lesbian, gay, and bisexual people were mentally disordered; their minds had been rescued from psychopathology with the 1973 removal of homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders. However, the literature I read about ‘homosexuals’ described people who seemed to spring from nowhere, that is, they were never children or adolescents, and did not seem to have siblings, parents, or grandparents. Nothing in the literature at the time alluded to long-term relationships, or even important friendships. The implicit portrait was of an adult homosexual person, almost always a male, living in a metropolitan area on his own (although having sex on a regular basis – this was not left out!). Although they now had their mental health restored, they still did not have lives. In essence, what was missing was any focus on their development – over their lifetimes in relationship to others, in distinct social circumstances, and at particular historical moments. For example, in the early 1980s, there were no lesbian or gay adolescents in the professional literature. The gerontological literature did not contain older adults who were lesbian or gay. Research on families did not include samesex couples or lesbian, gay, or bisexual parents. Helping to finish this fractured portrait was the problematic methodology used in early studies. Although samples were no longer drawn from clinical settings, researchers used small samples found in a limited set of urban gay venues, and were conducted with a model of sexual orientation that had two boxes, gay or heterosexual. (The bisexual box was added later, and the transgendered person – a new gender – would not appear in the psychological literature until the 21st century.) The psychological findings were decontextualized. Research never included such profoundly important factors as the widespread discrimination based on sexual orientation that sealed many in their ‘closets,’ the harassment and violence that made fear a normative aspect of daily existence, nor even the fact that their private sexual behavior was illegal in most parts of the country. It was remarkable to me that researchers could make generalizations.