INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA IN EACH ONE OF US - Page 4

Saturday, 12 June 2004 12:54

Coming out and internalized homophobia

Realizing coming out as a long-term process, lasting on the average from 10 to 14 years helps in assessing one’s own tempo within the process and how big an impact the internalized homophobia has on your tempo. However, it is also important to discern whether one is “stuck” into one of the phases as well as to know that some women and girls will never achieve integration, i.e. the synthesis of identities as an outcome of this process.

Vivienne Cass suggests a coming out model that is comprised out of six phases:

The first phase: Identity Confusion. General feeling of one’s ingl feeling thaat one is different. e up ocess.tegration, e.e. ne'ionship with my father) never  being different.

The second phase: Comparing Identities. Having awareness of the homosexual feelings. Still, the person believes that this can be a phase or this is about the feelings for one particular person.

The third phase: Tolerating identity. Stronger homosexual identity and starting one’s search for other homosexuals.

The fourth phase: Accepting the identity. Intensified contact and connecting with other homosexuals.

The fifth phase: Pride of one’s identity. The phase “These are my folks (this is me)” during which the person starts to come out to increasing number of people and often feels angry with heterosexuals with little appreciation of their institutions/categories.

The sixth phase: Synthesis of the identity. The intense anger from the fifth phase is gone and the person starts to see less of the dichotomy between heterosexual and homosexual world while keeping the pride of lesbians and gays.

Eli Coleman suggests coming out model, which is comprised of five phases and is focused on romantic relationships.

The first phase: Pre-coming out. General feeling of one’s being different.

The second phase: Coming out. The person becomes aware of homosexual thoughts and phantasms and begins to establish contact with other homosexuals but at the same time keeps her/his sexual identity secret from her friends.

The third phase: Exploration. The person «experiments» through new social interactions at the same time improving the notion of oneself.

The fourth phase: The first romance. After a period of sexual experimenting, the person may wish for a more stable relationship that requires commitment.

The fifth phase: Integration. The person's «public and private identities become a unified and integrated notion of oneself... the emotional attachments are often characterized by a lesser degree of possessiveness, truthfulness, and mutual trust, and can be more successful than the first ones”.