Toward a Reconceptualization of the Coming-Out Process for Adolescent Females

Abstract The modem wave of psychological research on sexual orientation began with Evelyn Hooker’s study comparing a nonclinical sample of gay men with a nonclinical sample of heterosexual men on a variety of psychological characteristics (Hooker, 1957). It provided the impetus for a line of research comparing gay men and lesbians to heterosexual men and women on a variety of psychological characteristics. These studies demonstrated that homosexuality was not a mental illness and, in and of itself, posed no barrier to the ability of an individual to be a productive and healthy member of society (see Gonsiorek, 1982). This resulting line of research eventually formed the basis for removing homosexuality from the DSM-II (Bayer, 1981). It provided the scientific foundation for viewing a gay or lesbian sexual orientation as a normal variant of psychosexual development. While there had been considerable theorizing about the etiology of homosexuality using a disease model, this new perspective invited the question of how a same-sex sexual orientation develops in a social context in which same-sex desire is stigmatized and everyone is assumed to be heterosexual.