Attachment Patterns for Lesbian/Gay Individuals with Unaccepting Parents

While much research has considered how lesbian/gay parents affect straight children, less attention has been paid to how heterosexual parents affect their lesbian/gay children. At the same time, attachment theorists are trying to determine how contiguous individuals’ differential attachments are to each other, especially in predictive utility. A secure base is best for exploratory processes such as sexual-identity development. Given that lovers share the role of primary attachment with parents in adulthood, lovers for lesbian/gay individuals, compared to heterosexuals, may be a unique source of social support against rejection sensitivity and victimization by unaccepting parents. The results of this study suggest that rejection sensitivity moderates the effect of parents’ acceptance/rejection on parental attachment patterns. Moreover, parental attachment patterns differentially predict romantic attachment dimensions across orientation, and exert limited influence on lesbian/gay romantic attachment and satisfaction relative to heterosexuals. This suggests that lesbians/gays use their romantic attachment as primary to a greater degree than heterosexuals, and dissociate their romantic attachment from their parental attachment in a manner not observed for heterosexuals. This likely reflects protective adaptations given adversarial parental relationships.