“I’m Part of This Family”: How Five Care-Giving Partners of Gay Men Story Their Experiences

Abstract

This study explores how five care-giving partners of gay men with chronic illness “story” their experiences, or how they construct their experiences in narrative form. Participants, all of whom were recruited with the help of local social service agencies, took part in two in-depth semi-structured interviews intended to invoke their stories as care-giving partners of gay men. Narrative analysis was used to conceptualize the respondents’ experiences. Several themes emerged in the study, many of which arguably related to participants’ real or perceived need to negotiate expressions of homophobia and heterosexism in the context of their care-giving narratives.

KEYWORDS:

• gay
• nonheterosexual
• homophobia
• heterosexism
• caregivers
• care-givers
• story
• storying
• narrative research