Developmental Issues in Lesbian and Gay Adulthood 3

3

Developmental Issues in Lesbian and Gay Adulthood

Robert M. Kertzner

1 Introduction

The developmental issues of adulthood for lesbians and gay men are poorly characterized compared with descriptions of adolescent devel- opment in sexual minority persons, on the one hand, and adult devel- opment in the U.S. general population, on the other hand. As Harry (1993) noted, “Coming out has little to say to adults and life seems to end at about age twenty-five with the rest of the life span left unana- lyzed and unexplained” (p. 38). Yet examining the rest of the life span is likely to yield important information about how sexual minority status shapes adult experience and the ongoing revision of personal identity in the context of cumulative life history, an increasing aware- ness of less time remaining in life, and social and cultural norms that define what it means to be an adult (Erikson, 1959; Neugarten, 1968;

Levinson, 1980; Colarusso and Nemiroff, 1981).

This chapter, accordingly, explores lesbian and gay development as revealed through revisions in personal identity and life narrative throughout the years of adulthood. The adult modification of identity and narrative is a central concern of life span psychology with inter- esting but relatively unexplored implications for sexual minority persons (Cornett and Hudson, 1987). There are several reasons for the relatively limited though increasing literature on adult development in lesbian and gay lives. Perhaps most importantly, examining how sexual minority status informs the subjective appraisal of life experience requires consideration of a great diversity of factors such as gender and gender role attributes, race and ethnicity, class, historical age cohort effects, the experience of and response to stigmatization of homosexu- ality, and variability in the meaning and expression of nonconventional sexualities (Herdt et al., 1997). Consequently, most reports on sexual minority adulthood focus on specific topics in specific populations, for instance, concerns about aging in gay men (Mennigerode, 1976; Berger, 1982), relationships among midlife lesbians (Adelman, 2000), or social support in the lives of older lesbians and gay men (Grossman et al.,

2000). This selectivity of focus also reflects the paucity of theoretical work integrating theories of homosexual identity maintenance with theories describing the psychological and socialization processes of aging (Kimmel, 2004), methodologic problems when conducting sys- tematic research on lesbian and gay populations (see Section IV), and difficulties inherent in the multidisciplinary study of adulthood where social, cultural, historical, and psychological perspectives all contribute to a greater understanding of lesbian and gay lives.

In focusing on revisions of personal identity and life narrative, this chapter emphasizes a psychological approach and an individual level of analysis, mindful that individual experience cannot be divorced from the sociocultural context. Within the psychological domain, I focus on identity and narrative because of two compelling sets of stories that, despite their overlap, are usually told separately: stories about being lesbian or gay and stories about becoming older. This chapter considers the potential heuristic and clinical significance of an adult developmental approach that attempts to integrates both sets of stories.

2 Developmental Versus Life Course Models

At the outset, it is important to acknowledge that the frame of adult development is one of several approaches to understanding subjective experience during adulthood, each of which is associated with advan- tages and limitations. Developmental approaches emphasize intrinsic and idiosyncratic factors associated with the evolution of individual capacity to understand and be engaged in the world. Thus, the con- tinuing maturation of the brain into the fifth decade of life (Bartzokis et al., 2001), the ability to utilize higher level coping mechanisms and engage in more complex patterns of thought characteristic of adults (Stevens-Long, 1990; Vaillant, 1993), and the increasing tendency during adulthood to interpret present experience through the lens of what has been learned in the past (Neugarten, 1968) influence how identity and life narrative are fashioned and refashioned. In addition, developmental models posit that adult experience is strongly shaped by innate and early life factors (i.e., the interaction of heritable traits, childhood environment, and idiosyncratic life events) that create a psychological template upon which adult identity and narrative are constructed.

In contrast, other approaches to understanding adult subjective experience place equal or greater emphasis on social, cultural, and his- torical forces (Neugarten, 1970; Cohler and Galatzer-Levy, 2000). Life course perspectives on adulthood, for instance, highlight socially defined age norms and a social schedule of expectable life transitions as major determinants of the subjective experience of adulthood and aging (Neugarten, 1970). Whether one feels old, from this perspective, is determined more by social convention than by any intrinsic sense of aging. A life course approach also suggests that identity and personal narratives are best understood as constructions of meaning shaped by

culture in a specific historical context (Herdt, 1997). As seen from this approach, the seemingly linear order of adult development is better understood as an artifact of individual efforts to impose a sense of nar- rative coherence on a series of random and disruptive events that occur throughout any individual life course (Cohler and Galatzer-Levy, 1990). These perspectives have implications for how lesbian and gay adulthood is understood and described. Psychologically based models of development do not fully consider sociocultural and historical influ- ences, including those that define what is valued and devalued during adulthood. Such models also overlook the intersectionality of multiple identities and the pluralism of meanings inherent in subjective repre- sentations of self (Simon, 1996). These models, moreover, are greatly influenced by dominant cultural values in the West of personal auton- omy and self-sufficiency and, in earlier conceptualizations, by an over- representation of relatively affluent, White male respondents in study samples (Kimmel, 1978; Gilligan, 1982; Kimmel and Sang, 1995; Cass, 1996).

Life course models based on social determinism, on the other hand, overlook the influence of developmental change that seems at least par- tially rooted in changing physical and psychological capacities of indi- viduals. Nor do they speak to the idiosyncrasies of individual lives that influence how social and cultural cues are incorporated into personal identity and narrative. As already suggested, these idiosyncrasies include individual factors such as temperament and disposition, the microenvironment of early family life, psychiatric vulnerability, and specific life events that shape personal biography.

A more specific dualism of psychological and social perspectives central to this chapter is how lesbian and gay identity is defined and shaped during adulthood. The chapter emphasizes meaning-making by individuals with a focus on what lesbian and gay identity signifies for a key task of adulthood: revising representations of the self and reshaping life narrative as informed by a changing sense of time left remaining in life, on the one hand, and an accumulating dossier of life experience on the other. I am interested in personal identity as a psy- chological construct, recognizing that individuals borrow heavily from shared social and cultural vocabularies of meaning. Herdt (1997), for example, believes that the concept of lesbian and gay identity erro- neously emphasizes conscious choice rather than identification with culturally defined sexual lifeways. Furthermore, Herdt and Boxer (1992) argue that age in lesbian and gay lives is best understood on two levels: (1) within the social experience of individuals and (2) the implicit cultural practices of institutions and organizations in sexual minority cultural communities. In keeping with my comments on the idiosyncrasies of meaning-making, however, this chapter retains a focus on how men and women selectively incorporate social meanings of a minority sexual identity in their personal reckoning with time, age, and the specific lives they have lived.

Bisexuality as realized and expressed during adulthood introduces additional complexity to the discussion of adult development in sexual minority lives; bisexual identity can represent, for example,

transitional, historical, sequential, or concurrent identities (Fox, 1996), all of which suggest different developmental trajectories of life experi- ence. Despite this heterogeneity of experience, research on adult devel- opment, aging, and mental health in older sexual minority persons aggregates bisexuals and homosexuals together and therefore does not address the question of how bisexuals differ from homosexuals in revi- sion of personal identity and life narrative. Nonetheless, recent studies suggest that bisexuals may be at greater risk for adverse life events and psychological distress (Jorm et al., 2002), perhaps because of social iso- lation and additional stigma bisexual men and women experience as adults who self-identify as neither heterosexual nor homosexual (for a review of mental health research on bisexual individuals, see Dodge and Sandfort, 2006). Yet, although adult development has not yet been systematically studied in bisexuals per se, it seems likely that stigma- tization of same-sex desire and nonconventional lifeways would impart important similarities to the adult development of homosexual and bisexual persons.

Knowledge of adult development in sexual minority persons is also limited by the underrepresentation of ethnic minority adults in related research. Little is known about the reciprocal influences on self- representation of aging and ethnic minority identity. Is the importance of family ties and minority community identity as identified by Greene (1990), for example, modified for African American, Latino, and Asian American lesbians and gay men during the second half of life? If so, in what ways? How do persons with multiple minority identities take on another stigmatized identity (i.e., that of being old) in terms of identity management and mental health? These questions reflect a broader need to understand better how multiple minority identities intersect to shape self-representation, response to stigmatization, and mental health (Stewart and McDermott, 2004).

With these caveats in mind, I focus my comments on the large pop- ulation of adults self-identified as lesbian or gay since adolescence or early adulthood to gauge the impact of a sustained sexual minority identity on the developmental issues of adulthood. Adults who develop or enact a lesbian or identity for the first time in midlife are characterized by different life trajectories that often include prior heterosexual marriage and parenthood, belated entry into gay social worlds, and specific challenges to integrate a new or a more public sexual minority identity with established family or community identi- ties (Galatzer-Levy and Cohler, 2002).

3 Themes of Adult Development

To consider possible differences in adult development by sexual ori- entation, I first highlight several themes of the adult development literature pertinent to the constructs of identity and narrative. This literature encompasses a multitude of theoretical models and a wide range of interests including subjective and objective well-being (Ryff, 1989), intrapsychic change (Colarusso and Nemiroff, 1981),

psychosocial identity (Erikson, 1959), the maintenance of meaning and morale (Cohler and Galatzer-Levy, 1990), processes of emotional regu- lation (Carstensen et al., 2000), and structural properties of thought (Neugarten, 1968).

A brief synthesis of this literature suggests that adulthood, particu- larly midlife, is a time of greater introspection, “interiority,” and reap- praisal of what is possible and desirable in life given the greater salience of personal mortality (Neugarten, 1968; Chiraboga, 1981). This reappraisal is, in turn, linked to a reprioritization of commitments and interests and, on a more abstract level, a rethinking of one’s place in the world and a more nuanced understanding of how individuals are shaped by the worlds in which they live (Levinson, 1980; Vaillant, 1993). Middle-aged adults, for example, reshape identity and personal narratives to incorporate a greater awareness of ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty about their lives (McAdams, 1993; Stevens-Long, 1990;

Helson, 1997). They develop a deeper empathy for and identification with other persons previously regarded as too different to permit these considerations (Levinson, 1978). In addition, they are increasingly likely to universalize certain aspects of the life experience and believe that their existence transcends the particulars of individual biography (Erikson, 1959).

By middle age, adults begin to lessen their psychological iden- tification with the world of the young while maintaining an active portfolio of social roles that involve interactions with the young as exemplified by parenting, coaching, mentoring, or leadership respon- sibilities at work (Neugarten, 1968). Despite their numerous social and public roles, midlife adults become more inclined to resist conventional social norms to create more authentic, personally meaningfully lives (Kernberg, 1989). In the conduct of sexual lives, there may be an especially pronounced disjunction between social mores and private conduct. As adults age, for instance, they contend with social norms that stigmatize sexuality in older persons and devalue their desirabil- ity (Schiavi, 1999). Older adults also cultivate alternate expressions of sexual intimacy. Many psychologically based discussions of older adults’ sexuality stress the importance of ongoing intimacy as it shifts away from genitally based sex toward greater flexibility in gender roles as they are expressed in intimate relationships and the vital importance of maintaining attachments despite loss and disappointment in self and in others (Colarusso and Nimeroff, 1981; Schiavi, 1999).

4 Circumstances of Gay and Lesbian Lives

When applying the above descriptions of adult development to les- bians and gay men, three factors require consideration. First, many children and adolescents who go on to develop homosexual identities contend with stigmatization of atypical gender role attributes and same-gender romantic and sexual longings; this stigmatization has implications for early psychosocial development and for later psycho- logical health and life narrative. Second, lesbians and gay men create

nonconventional family structures and adult lifeways that receive little social, legal, or cultural recognition. Social institutions and cultural rites lend psychosocial support to adults undergoing life transitions, serve as reference points for the revision of identity throughout adult- hood, define age norms, and enhance a sense of meaning in life. Third, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic shattered expec- tations of a normal life span for several generations of gay men and, for much of the past 25 years, obscured the possibility that adult devel- opment might extend into later decades of life. These three factors are here explored in greater depth.

4.1 Stigmatization

Stigmatization and discrimination related to sexual orientation remain salient forces in the lives of many lesbian and gay adults and affect expectations of what is desirable and possible to achieve. For instance, legally and socially defined structures such as civil marriage or second- parent adoption enhance, or when denied undermine, an assumption of adult roles and responsibilities and their psychological dividend:

discovering new capacities within oneself, experiencing new sources of meaning in life, and being regarded as a full person (Meyer, 1995).

Furthermore, the harmful effects of sexual orientation discrimination on self-esteem and health behaviors cast long shadows on adult trajectories of psychological and social well-being. Drescher (1998), for instance, describes the lifelong hazards of psychological dissociation when sexual identity is repressed and individuals are burdened with feelings of shame, secrecy, and inauthenticity.

Overt discrimination and stigmatization of homosexuality may be waning in certain quarters of the United States, but the lack of social recognition of life experience continues to affect the adult development of many lesbian and gay persons. Writing from the perspectives of self psychology and social theory, Cohler and Galatzer-Levy (1990) argue that adults need psychological valuation of life experience by others to maintain a sense of meaning and morale throughout adulthood. Many of the fundamental expressions of lesbian and gay lives evident over the life span, such as long-term partnerships, families composed of nonbiologic kin, and nontraditional configurations of sexual and emo- tional intimacy, receive little if any social valuation and are unsup- ported by law or public policy, cultural rites marking life transitions, or social roles that allow individuals to integrate their homosexuality with identities based in community or civic life.

The stigmatization of homosexuality also creates an altered timing of life transitions for lesbians and gay men. Limited opportunities for dating and role playing during adolescence, little if any access to pos- itive lesbian and gay adult role models, and delays in consolidation of sexual identity because of time needed to overcome stigma and find appropriate partners result in later ages at which lesbians and gay men initiate relationships or undertake parenthood compared with hetero- sexual peers (Maylon, 1982; Coleman, 1985). Consequently, lesbians and gay men may begin to feel “off schedule” in their twenties or

thirties as they make social comparisons to heterosexual peers who have married, started traditional families, or established community identities (Cohler and Galatzer-Levy, 2000). This nontraditional sched- ule has implications for how some lesbians and gay men experience a sense of aging.

4.2 The Structure of Lesbian and Gay Adult Lives

Lesbian and gay adulthood is characterized by greater proportions of single and childless adults, different configurations of family life, and different relationship dynamics compared to heterosexual couples (Blumstein and Schwartz, 1983; Weston, 1993). Until the recent legal- ization of marriage in Massachusetts, same-sex couple co-parenting always occurred outside the institution of marriage in the United States. Excluding parenting that arose in earlier heterosexual mar- riages, most lesbian and gay parenting is achieved through means of adoption, foster parenting, surrogacy, assisted reproduction, or co-parenting agreements between men and women who may be heterosexual or homosexual. Many of these arrangements are socially unheralded and unprotected by law and public policy.

The coupling of two same-gender persons creates unique dynamics and narratives compared with heterosexual relationships; for instance, the convergence of gender roles described in long-term heterosexual marriages is not found in homosexual relationships (Chiraboga, 1981).

Compared with heterosexual couples, lesbian and gay male couples are more likely to include ex-lovers as friends or family members and place a greater premium on an equitable division of responsibilities throughout the course of relationships (Blumstein and Schwartz, 1983).

Lesbians and gay male couples are also more likely than heterosexual couples to change concordantly in their expectations of how much time partners should spend with each other as they grow old together (Blumstein and Schwartz, 1983).

Hostetler and Cohler (1997) have called for greater study of single lesbian and gay lives across adulthood, citing the lack of research that describes ways in which relational status influences lived experience, identity, and development. Single status in homosexual lives is likely to have different meanings and mental health significance than that observed in single heterosexual lives, reflecting different norms about being partnered, opportunities for friendship and sexual intimacy that are structured differently in gay social worlds, and the historical absence of legal recognition of same-sex unions (Blumstein and Schwartz, 1983; Fowlkes, 1994).

4.3 HIV

As a final consideration of life circumstances that shape identity and narrative in sexual minority adults, the experience of multiple acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) bereavements, occurrence of new infections among gay men, and improved but not insignificant course of HIV infection have all contributed to a personalization of mortality that occurs at earlier ages for some lesbians and gay men than for their

heterosexual peers (Hopcke, 1992; Cohler and Galatzer-Levy, 2000).

Cumulative mortality from AIDS has resulted in an inestimable loss of past, present, and future partners, friends, co-parents, protégés, and mentors. Opportunities for maintaining long-term friendships, sus- taining intergenerational ties, and creating new families have been lost.

Although the galvanizing effects of HIV on many gay men’s lives may be receding, it is important to remember the critical impact of AIDS on the adult development of currently middle-aged and old gay men (Kertzner, 1997). In particular, the voices of a significant number of men who would have otherwise contributed to the anthology of growing older as openly gay adults have been silenced by AIDS.

5 Developmental Themes of Lesbian and Gay Adulthood

Beyond issues of stigma, family life, and HIV, lesbians and gay men face more universal issues related to the meaning of becoming older.

These issues include the recontexualization of sexual identity in the larger frame of cumulative biography; the reassessment of social, community, and intergenerational identity; and change in relationships with families of origin. In this section, I highlight several prominent themes of adult development that, although not limited to lesbians and gay men, assume nuances that reflect differences in the social configu- ration and regard of sexual minority lives.

5.1 Age and Aging

Although earlier studies based on convenience samples describe a pre- mature sense of aging among gay men (Mennigerode, 1976) and more negative attitudes toward aging among older gay men compared to older lesbians (Herdt et al., 1997), there is no evidence from systematic study to suggest that lesbian and gay persons are more likely than heterosexuals to endorse a sense of accelerating aging or experience a crisis of aging. Lesbians and gay men, for instance, do not differ from heterosexuals in their perception of chronological age at which midlife begins and ends (Kertzner, 2001). As is true of adults in general, dis- ruptive life transitions are more likely to occur during the early decades of life. In heterosexual lives, young adulthood is associated with a peak incidence of emotionally difficult life transitions (Wethington et al., 2004); three-fourths of lifetime psychiatric disorders in the United States have their onset by age 24 (Kessler et al., 2005). In lesbian and gay lives, the process of coming out during adolescence or young adulthood is associated with more than psychological difficulty than adjustments later in life (Kimmel, 1978; Weinberg and Williams, 1974).

This observation is supported by recent data suggesting that older gay men have fewer depressive symptoms than younger gay men (Mills et al., 2004).

Although aging per se does not appear to be associated with increased psychological distress, lesbians and gay men may experience

a sense of “agelessness” reflecting the diminished applicability of con- ventional age markers, such as entry into marriage or becoming a parent (Kertzner, 1999). Coupled with late starts in consolidating sexual identity, exploring sexuality, or initiating partnerships, while some- times living with illness or caring for those who with illnesses such as AIDS, lesbians and gay men may experience a disjunction in their chronological, sexual, social, and existential sense of how old they are (Kooden & Flowers, 2000). Moreover, heteronormative culture confers full adult status to men and women only when they marry and become parents (Herdt, 1997). Correspondingly, the nonrecognition of lesbian and gay unions, family structures, and friendship networks contributes to a sense of developmental limbo or incomplete adulthood that may be experienced by sexual minority persons.

5.2 Salience of Homosexual Identity in Life Narratives

Change in the centrality, salience, and regard of homosexual identity by lesbians and gay men throughout adulthood is highly variable reflecting different life circumstances, context, and concurrent identi- ties. Reflecting this complexity and related methodological issues, there are few extant data describing change in the signification of homosex- ual identity across adulthood (Troiden, 1984; Adelman, 1991). Cohler and Galatzer-Levy (2000) speculated that with increasing age, lesbians and gay men may be less concerned with the opinions of others, includ- ing conventional attitudes about homosexuality. In a small qualitative study of midlife gay men, Kertzner (1999) found that most respondents regarded their homosexual identity as becoming less central to their sense of self as they became older; it was still regarded as essential but no longer as central. These observations, of course, could reflect idiosyncratic elements of individual experience, psychological change characteristic of midlife such as an increased sense of personal auton- omy and environmental mastery (Ryff, 1989), change intrinsic to the process of homosexual identity formation that culminates in greater integration of lesbian and gay identity with other aspects of the self (Cass, 1996), historical change in the social tolerance of homosexuality, or some combination of all these elements. It seems likely, however, that the meaning and significance of homosexual identity is dynamic across individual lives and inseparable from other elements of indi- vidual biography.

As described above, adults continually reshape individual biography reflecting cumulative life experience, changing psychological attributes associated with aging, and change in social and historical context, although this process has been less studied in lesbians and gay men.

McAdams (1993) notes that the ongoing revision of personal narrative is a key developmental task of adulthood as individuals seek to inte- grate self-representations that have become increasingly diverse, elaborate, and contradictory with age. For lesbians and gay men, life narratives can illuminate the extent to which themes of homosexual minority identity are interwoven with other strands of biography and the dynamic process whereby this occurs.

Several studies of lesbian and gay adult adjustment, for instance, emphasize a lifelong task of overcoming stigmatization of homosexu- ality and other social prejudices. In work that examined adult narra- tives of gay identity, Berger (1982) described the emblematic story of midlife and older gay men who took a “long and tortuous road”

toward self-acceptance. In a study of lesbians 55 years of age and older, Jones and Nystrom (2002) noted themes of personal and professional success despite numerous obstacles, including discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, and age. Many respondents in this study conveyed their belief that these hardships and adversity made them stronger. Galatzer-Levy and Cohler (2002) summarized other studies of life narrative including descriptions of contemporary young lesbian and gay adults who were more likely than preceding generations to accept contradiction and inconsistencies in their story of unfolding sexual identity.

Two recent studies of narratives examined attitudes toward sexual minority identity, future orientation, and psychological well-being.

King and Smith (2004) found that acceptance of one’s gay or lesbian identity and pursuit of goals centered in this identity were associated with subjective well-being, but that the capacity to elaborate a possible but unrealized heterosexual life was associated with personality devel- opment over time as defined by Loevinger’s measure of ego develop- ment (Loevinger & Wessler, 1970). They concluded that there is value in being able to acknowledge what is regrettable in life without being consumed by regret and to be able to see the multitude of best possi- ble lives that may be sources of fulfillment. Although this study included young as well as older adults, it suggests that the complex cognitive appraisal of identity that is a hallmark of adult maturity is important to the ongoing psychological growth of lesbians and gay men beyond that which is provided by coming out and self-acceptance of homosexual identity.

In a second study of identity and life story, Kertzner (2001) described several themes among midlife gay men that expressed varying inter- pretations of sexual minority identity in personal narrative. These themes were recovery from stigmatization of same sex desire, pride in identity consolidation, a sense that being different was an inextricable and valued source of opportunity in life, an accommodation of homo- sexuality as something neither desired nor rejected, and a problematic view of lesbian and gay identity as an encumbrance causing a series of hardships in life history. None of these themes was uniquely associated with psychological well-being, except the theme of encumbrance that was associated with depression and substance use.

Though potentially rich in implications, this line of research is subject to cohort bias in terms of respondents most inclined and able to tell life stories; life history study, for instance, is time-consuming and depend- ent on participants’ abilities to articulate their experiences (Ryff, 1984).

In addition, historical age cohort effects render narratives generation- specific and favor certain “stories” about the process and meaning of becoming gay (Plummer, 1995), which in turn influence the content of individual narratives.

5.3 Commitments and Community

Several reports describe change in orientation toward work, friendship, and relationships as lesbians and gay men enter middle age. Many les- bians and gay men value vocational identity as a means of ensuring self-sufficiency and enhancing self-esteem in a variably tolerant world;

by midlife, this prioritization may begin to shift as other needs ascend in importance. Sang (1991), for instance, found that middle-aged les- bians sought to strike a new balance between work and family life with friends and partners. Weinstock (2000) reported that the search for a long-term partner and plans for parenting become more important for midlife lesbians.

Clinical and research reports describe a reexamination of sexuality and sexual culture by gay men as they approach midlife. Isensee (1999) describes the changing meaning of sex for many gay men as they age:

Whereas earlier in life, sexuality consolidates personal identity and defines social identity, these functions become less relevant in middle age. Gagnon and Simon (1973) and Weinberg and Williams (1974) found that men nearing their forties began to withdraw from gay social worlds that emphasize youthful desirability in sex partners and shun older men. Although lesbians are also influenced by prevailing cultural values that emphasize the desirability of youthfulness in partners and exalt an idealized body, lesbians may perceive themselves as less influ- enced by these norms (Barker, 2004). Lesbians may be more likely to maintain intergenerational ties throughout the life span and partake of long-standing traditions within the lesbian culture of political advo- cacy, community, and friendship that are less generationally bound (Weinstock, 2000). It is important to note, however, that new institu- tions in sexual minority communities and a greater acceptance of openly gay and lesbian adults in certain spheres of public life have increased opportunities for intergenerational involvement (Boxer, 1997).

5.4 Family Relations and Social Support

Many traditional models of adult development suggest that adults widen their radius of social concern and commitment to include members of younger generations as expressed in such activities as parenting, teaching, mentoring, and advocacy (McAdams et al., 1998).

Although systematic data describing the prevalence of these commit- ments in sexual minority populations is lacking, many lesbians and gay men undertake these roles (Cohler et al., 1998). Lesbian and gay par- enting, for instance, has increased over recent years with an estimated 34% and 22% of female and male same-sex-coupled households, respectively, raising children under the age of 18 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). The boom in parenting has two important implications for pur- poses of the present discussion. First, parenting is likely to shape the psychological and social experience of adulthood, as has been well described in heterosexual populations (Marks et al., 2004). As parent- ing becomes a more common experience and one that is undertaken at earlier ages, it may decrease the sense among lesbian and gay men of

being “off schedule,” as described earlier. Second, the possibility of par- enting influences the life expectations of younger lesbians and gay men. Contemporary generations of gay adolescents and young adults, for instance, may be increasingly apt to envision their adulthood as parents or grandparents and to imagine a greater blending of families of origin with families of choice (Boxer, 1997).

In perspective, however, it seems likely that many lesbians and gay men will continue to traverse midlife and old age without children and feel, as they grow older, increasingly free of conventional expectations of parenting (Weinstock, 2000). The extent to which norms favoring parenthood will become established in gay and lesbian social worlds remains to be seen.

Little is known about lesbians’ and gay men’s changing identity as adult children of aging parents or as adult siblings. Greater social tol- erance of homosexuality and a greater sense of personal independence may permit disclosure of sexual identity to parents that was previously unthinkable; conversely, some lesbians and gay men find that their parents’ increasing infirmity or inflexibility precludes this disclosure.

The death of parents, particularly in the lives of childless adults, may be a milestone in one’s own sense of aging and increase a sense of inter- generational and family isolation. Of note, Adelman et al. (2006) reported that only 15% of gay men and 2% of lesbians over 65 years of age recruited in a community survey said that they would turn to sib- lings during a time of crisis; this could reflect the absence, death, or unavailability of siblings or a greater inclination to turn to friends and partners for help.

Maintaining social support is a vital task for lesbians and gay men throughout adulthood, given the greater likelihood during middle age and late life they will be unpartnered and without children to pro- vide care compared to heterosexual peers (Adelman et al., 2006). In a landmark study of lesbians and gay men 60 years of age and older, Grossman et al. (2000) found that the size of support networks was associated with satisfaction with social support, and that this satisfac- tion was associated with less loneliness and more positive appraisals of mental health. Those living with partners were less lonely and reported being in better physical and mental health.

6 Discussion

This chapter explores how sexual minority identity shapes and is shaped by the developmental tasks of revising personal identity and narrative throughout the adult years. This exploration does not yield easy answers given the great heterogeneity of sexual minority lives, the multiplicity of identities that characterize any individual, and the dynamic interaction of historical change, social context, and idiosyncrasies of personal history and psychology that shape life stories. For these reasons, life course approaches that emphasize social, cultural, and historical vectors may seem more appealing in the study of homosexual adulthood, a phenomenon that is in large part socially constructed.

A focus on idiosyncratic meaning-making over the course of life tra- jectories, however, has much to yield. By studying lives over time, we can understand the significance of lesbian and gay identity for the task of creating a sense of coherence, reconciliation, and transcendence in life review. For instance, is the increasing tendency of adults to view the world with a sense of paradox and complexity particularly relevant to sexual minority men and women as they consider and reconsider the meaning of being homosexual in the larger context of life experi- ence? This is suggested by King and Smith’s (2004) observation that some aspects of a lesbian or gay man’s journey toward maturity may entail the sacrifice of wholly positive feelings and the ability to accom- modate a measure of regret.

A perspective that considers the modifying effect of adulthood on lesbian and gay experience also addresses a shortcoming of the clini- cal literature on sexual minority mental health. Although making vital contributions to an understanding of how stigma shapes mental health (Cohen and Stein, 1986; Isay, 1989; Drescher, 1998), this literature is less explicitly concerned with how psychological and social processes asso- ciated with adult development modify issues arising from childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood. Given reports of increased risks of depression and anxiety disorders in sexual minority populations and the effects of minority stress on these disorders (Mays and Cochran, 2001; Sandfort et al., 200l; Meyer, 2003), it would be helpful to know how lesbians and gay men apply cumulative life experience and the resources of adulthood to decrease distress and maximize psychologi- cal well-being. An adult developmental perspective illuminates path- ways of such resilience.

7 Conclusions

This chapter focuses on revisions in personal identity and life narrative, two key tasks of adult development that have relatively unexplored salience in sexual minority lives. Whereas there are other aspects of adult development and models of life course change that can be considered, a psychological inquiry into the stories of lesbians and gay men as they are modified across the life span is compelling. The longitudinal perspective of adult development has heuristic value for an understanding of how homosexual identity is maintained and modified during adulthood. Moreover, this perspective helps clarify the extent to which sexual minority lives are characterized by unique values and norms regarding sexuality, intimacy, and, more generally, human existence and purpose as revealed over the individual life span (Meyer, 1995). Just as importantly, understanding the trajectories of lesbian and gay lives broadens and enriches an understanding of how adults come to terms with the human predicament of living full and meaningful lives while incorporating the idiosyncracies of identity and history that shape any individual life.

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