2. Sexual Identity
I was recently rewriting a chapter for a revised edition of a book on Christian ethics in counseling and related mental health disciplines. The title of the original chapter was “The Homosexual Client.” The title of the revised chapter is “The Sexual Minority Client.” I recommended that change and recognize that it reflects a shift that has occurred in our culture in only a few years: we are talking more about identity than ever before. Sexual identity refers to the labeling that occurs when a person designates themselves as gay, straight or bi. Other labels include curious, queer, bi-curious, and questioning. This fascination with labeling is an interesting development and should be understood in the context of an emerging movement of persons designated as sexual minorities; they are numerically in the minority by virtue of a formed identity associated with their experiences of same-sex attraction.
Most people report attraction to the opposite sex.30 They designate themselves as heterosexual, and they form an identity that reflects that experience. Their identity is both public (others know them as heterosexual) and private (they think of themselves as heterosexual). This experience of identity development is so common it is rarely studied.31 However, a smaller percentage of people reports attraction to the same sex, and a smaller percentage of people experience such a consistent or persistent attraction to the same sex that they would say that they are oriented toward the same sex (i.e., that same sex sexuality is their orientation). Edward Laumann and his colleagues reported that 6.0% of adult males and 4.4% of adult females report same-sex attraction and that 2.0% of adult males and 0.9% of adult females report a homosexual orientation.32
This brings us to the definition of sexual minorities and why I thought it was helpful to make the switch in the revised chapter mentioned above. Numerically, persons who experience same-sex attraction are in the minority. The designation of sexual minority itself can be made regardless of identity label, and so I will define sexual minorities as “individuals with same-sex attractions or behavior, regardless of self-identifications.”33 This seems especially relevant to Christians, some of whom do not adopt a gay identity label although they would admit to ongoing attraction to the same sex. What they reject is the label, not the reality of their attractions. But how do people come to adopt a sexual minority label? How does that label or designation come to reflect who that person experiences themselves to be? This line of research is referred to as sexual identity development, and we want to look at that research for key benchmarks in the development and synthesis of sexual identity over time.
2.1. Sexual Identity Development and Synthesis
At the outset it is important to understand that the research on sexual identity development is based on the recollections of adults who are looking back on their lives and identifying key milestone events in identity formation. A better way to study identity development would be to study children longitudinally so that we see the process unfold in their lives through adolescence and into young and middle adulthood. However, the research we have so far is based on questions answered by adults who are looking back on their lives. The questions themselves are based upon researchers’ understandings of sexual identity and key events that may be a part of a person’s decision to label later in life.
The way this information used to be understood was through models of identity development. There were originally models of homosexual identity development that presumed that male and female experience would be identical. If you are familiar with early racial identity development models, you will understand the basic approach of a sexual identity development model, at least some of the early ones. The models tended to begin with the understanding of feeling different than others in one’s peer group and that the difference was due to gender nonconformity or attractions that might have been confusing.34 The next stage was toward recognizing the possibility that one might be gay. This was followed by a growing certainty of a gay identity, which eventually led to pride in being gay that over time led to a more balanced view in which the person recognized the good and bad that was part of both the gay community and part of the heterosexual community.
These early models of sexual identity development were soon challenged by separate models of male homosexual identity development and lesbian sexual identity development.35 Then, as sexual minorities continued to grow and nuance their experiences, models of bisexual identity development emerged,36 followed by models of ethnic minority sexual identity development models.37 Bisexuals within the gay community indicated that they had different developmental experiences in light of their attractions to both the same and opposite sexes, while ethnic minorities who were attracted to the same sex indicated that they too had different experiences and that the existing models were based primarily on White samples.
Another group was also underrepresented in the existing models of identify development. That is, the existing models did not adequately address the experiences of those persons who did not attain a gay (or lesbian or bisexual) identity synthesis. That is, there is a group of people who do not identify themselves as gay—they appear to dis-identify with a gay identity and the people and organizations that support a gay identity—and they do not appear to be accounted for sufficiently in the various models of identity development.38
What I proposed at the time was that perhaps personal and religious beliefs and values held by sexual minorities influence the decision to integration same-sex attractions into a gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity synthesis and that the key stage might include the cognitive process of attribution or meaning-making.39 I acknowledged that a young person might very well go through a time of identity confusion because of experiences of same-sex attraction and that they then make attributions about what their attraction to the same sex means to them. For example, in a small study of Christian sexual minorities, one male we interviewed shared his experience feeling like an outsider: “You don’t belong to anywhere. . . . You don’t belong to guys. I had a lot of ‘girl’ friends. Just felt like an outsider. And it was, when I was a child it wasn’t really bad because I didn’t really care. When I got in my teens it meant a lot to me as I grew up.”40
The most common attribution for most adults who talk about this time in their life is that their attractions signaled a gay identity. What I mean by this is that they attribute their attractions to being a categorically different kind of person, a person whose identity is formed vis-à-vis his or her attraction to the same sex. Other attributions might be that their attractions reflect the human fallen condition, much like how atypical levels of neurotransmitters in the brain (e.g., serotonin, dopamine) might signal the fall and lead to depression or anxiety in a person.
Once initial attributions are made, a person might then form an identity as gay, a process that really usually does not require much reflection but is a kind of foreclosing on a gay identity by virtue of having no alternative attributions available to a young person. Again, a smaller number of young people might expand their identity beyond attraction to the same sex and begin thinking of themselves in other ways. This happens, for example, when a Christian forms their identity “in Christ” rather than around their attraction to the same sex. A person might revisit this decision about identity over time, evaluate how successful it has been for them, and possibly explore other identity options. But in the end a person synthesizes their identity as gay, or they decide not to identify as gay, having formed their identity around other aspects of who they are as a person. This experience of identity synthesis is also characterized by congruence. The person is able to live and identify themselves in ways that are consistent with his or her beliefs and values. (I will return to this model and this idea of congruence because it is important for Christians who are sorting out sexual identity conflicts in their own lives.)
The emphasis on models of sexual identity development has shifted in recent years toward discussions of key milestone events in the lives of sexual minorities. Theorists and researchers have been dissatisfied with the various stage models of identity development, have challenged whether synthesis is really sustained, and have raised a number of other questions about that line of research. Milestone events, then, refer to benchmarks in identity development among sexual minorities. They are the experiences that many sexual minorities report as part of their history.
The movement away from identity development models to theories and research on milestone events reflects some of the challenges and weaknesses in some of the early models of identity development. The focus on milestone events also raises the question of the role of attributions and meaning-making as important cognitive processes that can be lost if not specifically asked about in surveys. We will return to the importance found in making meaning out of attractions in the context of one’s life and identity.
2.2. Milestone Events
Milestones refer to actual stone markers that would be set up alongside a road to indicate distance from various points of interest. They often indicate how far a traveler has come or how much further a traveler has to go on their journey. You can see why we often refer to milestone events in a person’s life as key moments that are particularly salient to that individual. Milestone events can occur professionally, such as hiring and promotion, and they can also occur developmentally, as psychologists will talk about language development, motor development, and so on, in the life of a child.
Sexual minorities have also begun to identify milestone events in their own experience. These are essentially benchmarks in the formation of a gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity. The primary milestone events that have been identified include first experience of same-sex attraction, first experience of same-sex behavior to orgasm, labeling oneself as gay, lesbian, or bisexual,41 disclosure of identity to others, and first same-sex relationship. Many in the gay community claim that the average age of first labeling oneself as gay is about age fifteen,42 with awareness of attractions as young as about age ten, initial same-sex behavior to orgasm occurring at about age twelve or thirteen. So labeling appears to occur after initial behavior. Disclosure of one’s gay identity occurs after this, at an average age of about eighteen, and usually involves telling friends first and then perhaps family members, with one’s mother being told before one’s father is told. The remaining milestone event that is typically discussed in this context is first same-sex relationship, which reportedly occurs at about age nineteen.
In a series of studies conducted through the Institute for the Study of Sexual Identity, we have identified some of the experiences and some of the challenges Christians who are also sexual minorities face in navigating sexual identity development. For example, we reported somewhat similar milestone events in identity development, that is, awareness of attraction to the same sex occurred at an average age of thirteen, followed by same-sex behavior to orgasm at an average age of sixteen to seventeen, labeling at about age eighteen, and first same-sex relationship at an average age of between eighteen and nineteen.43 It is important to note, however, that we asked additional questions based on our experience and theory of sexual identity. For instance, we distinguished between an initial attribution that a person is gay and taking on the label of gay. Also, most Christians in our study did not engage in same-sex behavior (fewer than 30%), and even fewer Christian sexual minorities adopted a gay identity label (14.4%) or had an ongoing same-sex relationship (20.2%).
This suggest that identity development is a different experience for Christian sexual minorities, particularly as so few report the experiences that are widely recognized as normative among sexual minorities who go through a process of identity development and synthesis.
In another study we conducted with a community sample (in contrast to a sample of undergraduates), we reported that identity synthesis or coming to terms with one’s identity label and having confidence in it as an accurate reflection of who a person is did not occur until much later in life than we expected. Recall that in mainstream gay studies identity synthesis is thought to occur at around age fifteen with later disclosure of identity further consolidating that designation. This may be the result of how these studies are conducted because they often rely on undergraduate samples or community samples of older gay adolescents who may be reporting a final gay identity in their late teens. However, when we studied Christian sexual minorities in the community, we found that those who identified as both gay and Christian stated that they reached this point of synthesis at an average age of twenty-six, which is much later than we expected. Similarly, those who dis-identified with a gay identity indicated that they reached this point of identity synthesis, this confidence in their identity label, at an average age of thirty-four, which reflects an even later date of synthesis. Why so much later? As I indicated, this may have a lot to do with the way the samples are obtained: if you study only undergraduates, you should not be surprised to see the “whole story” told with an ending that is reached by the early twenties. Community samples of adults provide us with an opportunity to see how the experience of identity development may extend much further beyond the college years. The fact that our samples were also Christian suggests that perhaps people who take their faith identity seriously face more challenges in navigating sexual identity labels, as a gay identity is often understood to conflict with a Christian identity. It may be that the ability to navigate that difficult terrain keeps identity synthesis from occurring at an earlier age.