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Coming Out: The Complex Process of Disclosure and Self-Identity

This article explores the act of "coming out" as a process of self-identification and disclosure, focusing on the challenges faced by the LGBT community in a predominantly heterosexual society. It examines the societal privilege of heterosexuality and the discrimination experienced by those who do not conform to this norm, as well as the impact of coming out on personal identity.

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Coming Out: The Complex Process of Disclosure and Self-Identity

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  1. The Act of ‘Coming Out’Talk-in-Interaction Live Matthew Barbee SLS 660: Sociolinguistics DAD & SON

  2. “Like whiteness in a white supremist society, hetero-sexuality is not only socially produced as dominant but is also taken-for-granted and universalizing.” Ingraham (2003). Handbook of Lesbian and Gay Studies Heterosexism Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  3. Heterosexism—the privileging of heterosexuality as the only “normal,” “natural,” and taken-for-granted sexuality—underpins social policy across the world. (Kitzinger, 2005) Nowhere in the data sets on which CA is founded does anyone announce that they (or anyone else they know) is heterosexual or preface a turn with, “Speaking as a heterosexual ... ,” yet the heterosexuality of the interactants is continually made apparent. (Kitzinger, 2005) Sacks’ data collected at a suicide prevention center as an example. Heterosexism Macro vs. Micro When heterosexuals reveal their sexuality, it is “nothing special.” Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  4. The act of ‘Coming out’ “Those who must strategize whether and how to disclose potentially discrediting information will have to be alive to aspects of the social situation that others treat as uncalculated. What are unthinking routines for ‘normals’ can become management problems for others.” Goffman (1963). Stigma Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  5. If we lived in a society in which same sex relationships were as acceptable, and positively valued and as 'normal' as opposite sex relationships, 'coming out' . . .would not be an issue. Coming out - in the sense of coming to identify oneself and the disclosure of this information to others - must be seen in the context of the discrimination that lesbians and gay men [LGBT community] experience within a predominantly heterosexual society. (Marlowe, 2002)  In coming out to others, categorization as LGBT may obscure other identities and become a dominant identity status that overshadows all other identity possibilities in the eyes of others. (Marlowe, 2002) The act of ‘Coming out’ It’s a choice! FEAR Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  6. Telling my dad that I am gay-LIVE.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVAgz6iyK6A Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  7. Transcript Lines 1 - 6 1-6: Summons and opening sequence. Orientation to the roles of father and son. 6: Dad refers to son as “bud,” shows recognition, familiarity, and perhaps fondness for the son. Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  8. Transcript Lines 7 - 21 7-12: Q&A sequence 1. Inquiry about the dad’s current situation with a request for clarification and eventual response from the dad. While this type of adjacency pair has been shown to be a pre-sequence to an invitation (Levinson, 1983), here it seems to act as a check as to whether this is a good time for the dad to take the call. 14-16: Q&A sequence 1 (recast). The son reposes the original question with more details, including “now.” 17-20: Q&A sequence 2. 7-21: Son establishes the dad’s situation, if it’s ok to talk to his dad at this time, if he’s alone. While the dad isn’t alone, the son must think the setting is appropriate for the purpose of this call. Son continues. Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  9. Transcript Lines 21 - 29 21-29: Son establishes the reason for calling, an announcement, signified here by a pre-announcement (Levinson, 1983). This sequence includes dad asking for clarification, son repeating original question, and dad confirming that the son can tell him something. Tell being stressed and slightly raised in pitch implies that what the son has to tell his dad is perceived by the son to possibly be shocking or surprising. (Celce-Murcia 2010) Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  10. Transcript Lines 30 - 36 30-36: Q&A sequence 3. The son hedges by posing and reposing a further question instead of fulfilling the purpose for calling, WHAT he wants to tell his dad. The question “will you love me period?” seeks absolute affirmation from the dad. The son then recasts the question to add the detail, “always.” In both cases the dad, responds with affirmation > “yes” and “always.” Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  11. Transcript Lines 37 - 53 37: After two deep breaths and two substantial pauses, the son finally announces what he wanted to tell his dad. The son must give a lot of weight to the revealing of this information. Perhaps he doesn’t know how his father will respond, if it will be received well or not. 39-40: After the longest pause thus far, the dad responds with the shortest response thus far, “ok,” the most common discourse marker (Beach, 1995). Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  12. Turn Constructional Units TCUs are whole sentences, phrases or sometimes just words, constituting a complete turn. Each speaker is initially entitled to just one of these at a time. Schegloff (1982) • Designed to minimize turn size • Long TCUs should be seen as achievements Kitzinger (2000) lists some of the techniques people use when they want to keep speaking for a long time: • ‘If/then’ sentence structures • Taking a big in-breath • Making a bid to tell a story (‘did you hear about the time when . . .) • Using a list launcher (‘four things . . .’) • Rushing (not pausing to take a breath between thought units)

  13. Transcript Lines 37 - 53 40-51: The speech does several things: a) provides a history of his knowledge of his sexuality, b) gives a reason for why he is “coming out” at this time and over the phone, c) demonstrates a high level of hesitation, hedging evidenced by several pauses, deep breaths, and tone quality of his voice. The hedging may show that the son expects a negative response, or in the least, is uncertain of his dad’s reaction. 52-53: Again the dad, after an equally long pause as before, only responds with “ok.” Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  14. “OK” as a Free-Standing Receipt Marker Beach, W. A. (1995) Recipients may rely on “okay" to show: • Confirmation of receipt • Affiliation, alignment, or agreement In these ways ‘ok’ can and often does stand alone, adjacently placed and specifically designed to demonstrate recipients' orientations to the topic and activities at hand” (Beach, 1995, p. 130). In this case. . . “okay” does not show agreement.

  15. Transcript Lines 54 - 67 54-58: Still uncertain of how the dad has received his “coming out,” the son seeks direct affirmation, repeating the same question as before the reveal, modified slightly. 57: The dad, after a short pause, provides strong positive confirmation using stress and repetition. The pause (4.1) would have been a natural place for the son to take a turn, but doesn’t for some reason. (shown again in line 63). 60: The son seeks repeated confirmation that the dad has received the announcement well. 62-66: End of affirmation sequence. Dad explicitly states that the reveal has changed nothing, using stress and repetition as shown before. Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  16. Lesbian and gay psychology has produced an enormous literature on ‘coming out’ to others as lesbian, gay, bisexual or as having (had) same-sex sexual experiences. (Kitzinger, 2000, p. 181) History of Qualitative work = Narratives and story telling “Coming out” as a live event wasn’t studied until Katzinger’s work in the 1990s: As an aside. As a news announcement in a safe environment or as a part of a larger purpose. As repair and error correction. Significance of this data . . . as an act in itself. Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  17. ConclusionIronically, when isolated, the act of “coming out” looks like nothing more than a heavily weighted announcement. And yet, so much more negotiation and management goes into it’s construction within the context of heterosexism. Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  18. Because I like happy endings. . . Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  19. Atkinson, J. M., & Heritage, J. (Eds.). (1984). Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Beach, W. A. (1995). Conversation analysis: "Okay" as a clue for understanding consequentiality. In SJ Sigman (ed.). The consequentiality of communication. (pp.121-162). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc, Inc. Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M., & Goodwin, J. M. (2010). Prominence and intonation in discourse. In M. Celce-Murcia, D. M. Brinton, & J. M. Goodwin (Eds.), Teaching Pronunciation: A course book and reference guide (pp. 221-272). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma. London: Penguin.  Ingraham, C. (2001). Heterosexuality: It’s just not natural. In D. Richardson & S. Seidman (Eds.), Handbook of lesbian and gay studies (pp. 73–82). London: Sage. Kitzinger, C. (2000). Doing feminist conversation analysis. Feminism & Psychology, 10, 163–193. Kitzinger, C. (2005) Speaking as a heterosexual: (How) does sexuality matter for talk-in-interaction. Research on language and social interaction, 38 (3). pp. 221-265. Land, V., & Kitzinger, C. (2005). Speaking as a lesbian: Correcting the heterosexist presumption. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 38, 371–416. Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Marlowe, L. A. (2002).  Coming out as lesbian. In A. Coyle & C. Kitzinger (Eds.), Lesbian and gay psychology: New perspectives (pp. 63-80). Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd. Schegloff, E. A. (1982). Discourse as an interactional achievement: Some uses of ‘uh huh’ and other things that come between sentences. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Telling my dad that I am gay-LIVE. [ONLINE VIDEO]. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVAgz6iyK6A References Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  20. (0.8) Time gap in tenths of a second (.) Brief time gap = Latching of utterance segments [ ] Overlapping talk .hhIn-breath hh Out-breath (( )) Transcriber comment - Cut-off :Elongated sound ! Emphatic tone . Falling intonation , Continuing intonation ? Rising intonation  Marked rise of immediately following segment  Marked fall of immediately following segment UnderEmphasis CAPITAL Increased volume  Decreased volume > < Increased speed Line discussed in text £ Smile voice (h) Bubbling with laughter Transcription conventions Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

  21. QUESTIONS Thank you. Matthew Barbee [ SLS 660 ]

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