Interpersonal Experiences of Lesbians with Their Parent's: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

INTRODUCTIONIndia can be considered predominantly heterocentric society. Despite the feminist and gay movement, gays and lesbians are still marginalized and invisible part of the society. However, the numbers of homosexuals in India are increasing as they are coming out from their closet due to the efforts of various NGO's and gay pride movements (Parasar, 2007) The International Classification of Diseases 10 still includes ego dystonic homosexuality in its list of disorder's reflecting the homophobic attitude of the society leading to medicalization of the sexual variation and use of inappropriate interventions to cure it (Kalra et al. 2010).It has been argued by many that homosexuality is not new in India and has definitely not been imported from the West. In the ancient text like Rig Veda, Manusmriti and Arthshastra which dates back to 1500 BC refer to same sex attraction and behaviour. Even today in a small village of Gujarat called Angaar, Kutchi community has a ritual in which during the Holi festival, a transgender wedding is performed between two men, showing the traces of homosexuality in Indian culture (Parasar, 2007) In our country the existence of lesbians are altogether denied and their presence is not acknowledged as a result women are forced to remain silent about their sexual orientation (Chakrapani et al. 2002) Lesbian organization started increasing in India only after the release of Deepa Mehta's movie "Fire" which was based on the affair between two sisters in law of a middle class Hindu family and their struggle in the society (Dave, 2011).Khan (1994) stated that most of the homosexuals in India are married to members of opposite sex regardless of their sexual orientation reflecting the influence of Indian culture on homosexuals in India, which depicts the influence of societal and parental pressure on the individual (as cited in Agoramoorthy and Hsu, 2007) In general lesbians report more of family based stressors than gays (Iwasaki and Ristock, 2007) Majority of lesbians in India don't have economic independence or social support to live independently and come out to their parents (Chakrapani et al. 2002) Lesbians who disclosed their sexual orientation to family members report less anxiety, high self esteem, more positive emotions and more satisfaction in romantic relationship (Beals and Peplau, 2001).Most of the empirical studies on lesbian relationship are done on young, educated, middle class white women. Very little attention has been given to the other influencing factor in the research like the age, education, social class, ethnicity and religion (Peplau et al. 1982) Research on homosexuality, especially studies on lesbian is an under researched area in India. The present study helps in throwing light on the interpersonal problems faced by lesbians in Indian context. It will help in revising the already existing theories in the western literature related to lesbian's studies by understanding the influence of ethnicity, religion, culture on the relationship of the lesbian community.METHODOLOGYA qualitative framework was used in the study as lesbians are hidden population of the society. The research paradigm of the study was phenomenology and symbolic interactionism since the focus was on exploring the interpersonal experiences of lesbian's with their parents. Participants were identified from the various NGOs in Bangalore. Given the nature of the participant in the study, purposive sampling was used to select participants for the study. The sample size of the study is 8 self identified lesbians. The inclusion criterion for the sample was that the participants should be in the age group of 20 35 years and they should have self identified themselves as being lesbian. The participants with clinically significant past psychiatric and medical history were excluded from the present study.After indentifying and obtaining informed consent, each participant was interviewed by using in depth interview process.