Poster Session 4: Sexual Identity

Presenters: Anthony Walker, Kayli Worthey, Kacey Titzer

Summary
Most LGBT emerging adults are raised in religious families and identify with religion to some degree, yet often conflict can exist between religious identities and sexual identities. Describing how these identities are negotiated is the purpose of this work. Media representations of LGBT individuals specifically on television is an important component of sexual identity development, while conversations with parents are important for religious identity development. Informed by Minority Stress Theory and Hammack's framework of GLB identity development, qualitative analyses are applied to transcribed semi-structured interviews of 7 LGBT emerging adults with diverse sexual identities. Themes include impact of media and lack of conversations around sexual identity and parental conversations surrounding religion. Importance of open parent-child conversations related to sexual identity development is discussed.

Objectives
-- To demonstrate the impact of media on sexual identity.
-- To emphasize the relevance of context on identity development
-- To review the importance of open frequent parent-child communication

Subject Codes: sexuality, spirituality, media
Population Codes: religious/religiosity, emerging/young adulthood, all gender inclusive
Method and Approach Codes: grounded theory, diversity, intersectionality