Abstract
For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth, identity development is one of the most critical developmental task. LGBTQ youth are shown to be at risk for a variety of risk factors including depression and suicidal ideation and attempts due to how their identities are appraised in heteronormative societies. However, most LGBTQ educational psychology research have highlighted protective factors that are primarily relevant to support LGBTQ white-youth. One of the major developmental theories, Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, has identified adolescence as the period where identity development occurs. However, through an intersectional lens, identity development appears to encompass more than adolescence but also emerging adulthood, a developmental stage not accounted for by Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. The primary goal of this study is to seek to understand and question Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development through an intersectional lens of an autoethnography of my LGBTQ experiences. An autoethnographic approach [diary entries (N = 9), conversations (N = 12), interview (N = 1), social media websites and blogs (N = 2), and drawing (N = 1)] is used to understand my LGBTQ-person of color (POC) experiences of “coming out” or self-disclosure during my adolescence through emerging adulthood. Data was collected on April 2020 and spanned from 2006 through 2020 to account for the developmental period of adolescence and emerging adulthood (ages 13 through 27). Thematic analysis revealed four themes across the two developmental periods: (1) confusion and conflict between my gay and ethnic identity as a closeted adolescent, (2) my first “coming out” as a gay adolescent and “it got better,” (3) frustration arising from the internal conflict between my gay and POC identity as an emerging adult, and (4) frustration arising from external experiences with the flaws of LGBTQ community inclusivity. Results reflected a continuous theme of identity exploration and struggle through both adolescence and emerging adulthood, highlighting the need for future research to replicate similar experiences from other intersectional individuals during emerging adulthood stage, a developmental stage that is considered in between Erikson’s adolescent and young adulthood developmental stage.
Highlights
Though LGBTQ communities have achieved recognition as a protected minority group, LGBTQ individuals, and LGBTQ students (Ream, 2018), remain vulnerable to a variety of risk factors
Though self-disclosure of LGBTQ identities in schools can result in positive psychological wellbeing through an open and safe school space for identity exploration, LGBTQ-person of color (POC) youth later grow up and realize that, in the larger society where dating and relationships occur, they are more likely to be discriminated against, fetishized, and made not to feel welcomed in the LGBTQ community unless they fit into certain social categories, placing them at a risk for anxiety and depression (Balsam et al, 2011)
The question remains whether schools can be a space to support LGBTQ-POC adolescents in consolidating their intersectional identities toward self-acceptance and prepare them to understand the external struggles in the LGBTQ community, such as the stereotypes and scripts, that can affect further identity exploration during Arnett’s (2000, 2004) emerging adulthood stage
Summary
Though LGBTQ communities have achieved recognition as a protected minority group, LGBTQ individuals, and LGBTQ students (Ream, 2018), remain vulnerable to a variety of risk factors. Though Erikson attempted to create a universalistic theory to outline the developmental trajectory across the lifespan, postmodern and critical psychologists have rejected a universal trajectory of development Rather, they speak to the possibility for classic developmental theories such as adolescent identity versus conflict stage, a component of Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, to have more than a singular path to achieve identity depending on the different identities and cultural context of development (Schachter, 2005). The review revealed majority of the intersectional studies on identity development were comparative studies, with LGB White youths more likely to have accepted and integrated their identity compared to LGB-YOCs (Hunter, 1996; Toomey et al, 2017) Cultural constructs such as machismo (i.e., strong sense of masculinity) and familism (i.e., focus on family over individual needs) were prevalent in Latinx communities and found to influence their LGB identity development (Yon-Leau and Munoz-Laboy, 2010; Toomey et al, 2017). Given that most of the intersectional studies were with Black and Latinx LGB youth (Toomey et al, 2017), the autoethnography of my LGBTQChinese experiences serves to provide insight into the lack of research surrounding the identity development of a LGBTQYOC through young adulthood
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