ABSTRACT
Most of the existing research in India is focused on gay or lesbian persons themselves and familial responses (through the voices of family members) remain unexplored. The current study employs qualitative methodology to document these familial processes and the factors that influence these complex journeys. Twenty-two family members (parents and siblings) in the city of Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay), India having a gay/lesbian, child/sibling, were interviewed in 2011-2012. Initial responses of family members to ‘coming out’ or ‘finding out’ the same-sex sexual orientation of their children include disappointment, disapproval, shock, rejection, hostility and even violence. Several factors, structural, interpersonal and personal, play a role in the journeys that families undertake in ‘making sense’ of same-sex sexuality of a family member.
