Becoming Seen, Becoming Known: Lesbian Women's Self-Disclosures of Sexual Orientation to Mental Health Service Providers

Abstract

Self-disclosure of sexual orientation has been reported to be important to quality health care interactions for lesbians. Existing research literature is limited in that it does not address self-disclosure of sexual orientation within psychiatric and mental health settings generally and self-disclosure strategies specifically. This article describes how lesbians respond to the imperative to make decisions about, and negotiate, self-disclosure of sexual orientation over a period of extensive interactions with mental health service providers by describing three strategies for self-disclosure: (a) unprompted, explicit self-disclosure; (b) prompted, explicit self-disclosure; and (c) subtle, tentative self-disclosure.

KEYWORDS:

• sexual identity
• mental health services
• lesbian

Notes

1. Cisgender or cissexual was first coined on the internet in the mid-1990′s, and later picked up academically (in particular queer studies) to refer to individuals who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their gender identity and physical sex as being aligned (Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health, 2011).

2. Pseudonyms are used to protect the confidentiality of participants.