Lesbian Coming Out Experiences: Community and Society Study
Today we’re launching our Lesbian Coming Out Experiences: Community and Society study, a piece of qualitative research which we hope will contribute information that will be useful in understanding lesbian experiences of coming out. This study is independent, unfunded, and is being conducted by lesbians with the focus squarely on lesbian wellbeing.
Since we started Scottish Lesbians a couple of months ago, we’ve been lucky enough to have some really informative discussions with women who have contacted us. We are aware that coming out as a lesbian has presented different challenges at different points in time, as well as different factors that may have helped us to feel confident and supported in coming out.
We now want to put out an invitation to lesbians aged 18 and over to tell us about their coming out experiences, both in terms of what helped and what was a challenge. We already have some thoughts from our own experiences and from our chats with other lesbians, but this research gives us an opportunity to invite a wide range of contributions and explore the themes thoroughly and carefully.
We’re focusing on coming out because we believe that the coming out process is a time for lots of us when our attention is clearly focused on our needs as lesbians, and it is a time when we may feel the need for connections, support, relationships and so on more keenly than at other times. We’re also focusing on things like our communities, resources, the prevailing culture and other social factors that could either help us or make the experience of coming out more difficult.
We’re aware that some ‘lesbian’ research uses terms that are either poorly defined or not stated at all, meaning that the research is either weakened or open to uses other than benefitting lesbians. Our study is only inviting participants who are exclusively same sex attracted, adult females.
If you are interested in taking part in our research, then please click below and start by reading our information sheet, which lets you know more about the study and what is involved. We can’t stress enough that the outcomes of this study will be based on an analysis of your own words, so please assume nothing and tell us everything you’d like us to consider..
We’re really looking forward to hearing from you, and our focus as always is on getting the best outcomes for our community.