ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the relevant literature on what has been called maintaining ‘sexual silence’, before going on to examine the stories told by participants in the interview setting who have not come out to their families. It explores and problematizes silence and avoids the assumption that silence equates to shame and a lack of agency. The chapter analyzes narratives in ten interviews, a subset of the data including participants who have not verbally disclosed their non-heteronormative identities to their parents. It suggests that, although the overwhelming number of participants are out to their parents and families, for at least part of the queer Mexican/Latinx community in Phoenix, the closet is an equally problematic metaphor that ignores the possibility of a different relationship between individuals and families in Mexican/Latinx communities. The chapter explores the narratives told by participants who have explicitly verbally disclosed their identities to their parents or been outed to their parents.
