Resilience Within the Family Networks of Lesbians and Gay Men: Intentionality and Redefinition

Abstract

ࡗ Resilience Within the Family Networks of Lesbians and Gay Men: Intentionality and RedefinitionThis article reviews the literature on gay and lesbian family networks as a way to identify the resilience processes that enable members to create and strengthen their family networks. Two processes, intentionality and redefinition, were identified. Intentionality refers to behavioral strategies that legitimize and support relationships. Redefinition refers to meaning making strategies that create linguistic and symbolic structures to affirm one's network. Brief comparisons are made to the literature on resilience in ethnic minority families, and careful study of the similarities and differences between gay and lesbian family networks, and other marginalized families, is urged.Family resilience research focuses on the relational processes that facilitate family survival, and even growth, under adverse conditions (McCubbin, Thompson, Thompson, & Futrell, 1999). Though family resilience includes attention to how family processes shape individual outcomes, the unit of analysis is more focused on family relationships than individuals (McCubbin, Futrell, Thompson, & Thompson, 1995). The resilience approach attends to both behavioral strategies and the ongoing construction of meaning within families (Thompson, 1999). Further, this approach locates families as actively engaged within their cul-

Hearing the Voices of Lesbian Women Having Children

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L’homoparentalité et la transparentalité au prisme des sciences sociales : révolution ou pluralisation des formes de parenté ?

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Attitudes Toward Motherhood Among Sexual Minority Women in the United States

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