Abstract:
The main aim of the current study was examining parental experiences and the changes in the family system after young people who define themselves as gay explaining their sexual orientation to their parents in depth. A qualitative study was conducted to achieve this goal. The study sample consists of the mothers of six young people who define their sexual orientation as gay. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the mothers and the obtained data were analyzed with Grounded Theory. As a result of the analyses, the experiences of the mothers were gathered under three main themes. These are (1) pre-coming out experiences, (2) experiences during coming out, and (3) post-coming out experiences, respectively. These themes and the sub-themes they cover were compared with the findings in the literature and discussed from a system perspective.
