What is it about?

Why do some parents disapprove of, and even reject, their homosexual children once they are ‘out of the closet’, while other parents find it less difficult to accept them? Many studies have established a solid relationship between the ways people perceive the causes of homosexuality and attitudes towards homosexual individuals: When the cause of homosexuality is viewed as being related to biological, inherent factors, attitudes towards homosexuals are more positive and vice versa – when the cause of homosexuality is perceived as being related to environmental, external factors, attitudes tend to be more negative. This study examines whether this relationship holds true among parents of homosexual children who, naturally, are emotionally invested in this issue. We recruited accepting and non-accepting parents of male homosexuals via the Web and divided them into three groups – accepting, partially-accepting and non-accepting parents, according to self-report. We then examined their perceptions of the causes of homosexuality in order to determine whether there were any significant differences between groups. The more accepting the group was, the more their perceived causes of homosexuality leaned towards a biological-essentialist explanation.

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Why is it important?

The findings in this study could be most helpful in treating a family in crisis dealing with the ‘coming out’ of an offspring. It seems that embracing a biological-- essentialist explanation of homosexuality could perhaps encourage parents to abandon their feelings of blame surrounding their child’s homosexuality and help them be more accepting of him (even though they might still be struggling with accepting his sexual orientation).

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This page is a summary of: Causal Attributions and Parents’ Acceptance of Their Homosexual Sons, Journal of Homosexuality, July 2015, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2015.1061364.
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