How LGBTQ Adults Maintain Ties With Rejecting Parents: Theorizing “Conflict Work” as Family Work

Abstract

Objective: The present study examines how LGBTQ-identified adults maintain relationships with parents who reject their LGBTQ identity. Background: Parents often reject their children's LGBTQ identity, sometimes leading to relationship dissolution. But how LGBTQ adults maintain parent–child relationships despite parents' rejection is less known. We answer this question with an empirical study of how LGBTQ adults maintain relationships with parents who reject their child's LGBTQ identity, drawing on conflict management theories and the concept “family work,” or the work done to promote family functioning. Method: Qualitative in-depth interviews with 76 LGBTQ young adults are analyzed, supplemented with data from 44 of their parents. Results: LGBTQ adults do extensive work to maintain their intergenerational bonds through what we theorize as “conflict work.” We define conflict work as the effort done to manage severe conflict in a way that ensures family functioning, often at the expense of personal needs. Conflict work includes conflict education work (e.g., educating parents about LGBTQ identities), conflict avoidance work (e.g., don't ask, don't tell about LGBTQ identities), conflict acceptance work (e.g., ongoing but accepted conflict about LGBTQ identities), and conflict boundary work (e.g., asserting boundaries from parents over LGBTQ-related conflict). Conclusion: LGBTQ adults maintain the parent–child bond by managing parents' rejection of their gender or sexuality identity through “conflict work.” In doing so, LGBTQ adults reveal an important new type of family work aimed at supporting family functioning during intensive conflict, often at the expense of the conflict worker's personal needs.