Constructed identities: lived experience and the struggle to integrate the sexual and religious identities among lesbians, gays, and bisexuals

Abstract

"Most, if not all, Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals struggle at one point of their lives to reconcile their sexual and religious identities. This struggle can be either helped or hindered within the interpersonal communicative acts that lesbians, gays, and bisexuals encounter on a daily basis throughout their lives. This study uses narrative interviews to examine the impact and affect that various interpersonal communicative acts have had on five people, some of whom identified as lesbian, gay, and bisexual. Though there is much research available regarding the struggle of this population to integrate these two identities, none was available to this researcher from a communication perspective. This study is grounded in social construction, assumed an interpretivist perspective, utilized a phenomenological lens, and analyzed the data via a thematic method. The major themes that emerged from this analysis demonstrated that interpersonal communicative events with family members, friends, religious leaders, church members, partners and acquaintances do indeed impact and affect the religious and sexual identity formation and maintenance as well as the potential of identity integration for lesbians, gays, and bisexuals"--Leaf iii.