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Coming Out in Family and Sports-related Contexts among Young Italian Gay and Lesbian Athletes: The Mediation Effect of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Attitude

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Abstract

Objectives

This research aims to investigate the relationship between coming out to family and coming out in sports for lesbian and gay athletes and to examine the internalization of sexual prejudice as a potential mediator of this relationship.

Methods

For this purpose, disclosure of sexual orientation to family, coming out in sports and internalized sexual prejudice in sports-related contexts, age, gender, socioeconomic status, education level, political orientation, type of sport (individual vs. team sport), years of sports participation were assessed on an Italian sample of 113 lesbian athletes and 63 gay athletes between 18 and 35 years of age.

Results

Findings indicated that coming out to family was significantly associated with coming out in sports. In addition, the internalization of negative attitudes toward the visibility of lesbian and gay athletes in sport settings partially mediated the relationship between coming out to family and coming out in sports.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that prior experiences of coming out in family contexts may provide additional resources to prevent the internalization of sexual prejudice, and this may promote the coming out in other life contexts. Moreover, we recommend that more efforts should be made to support sexual minority athletes who are not able to disclose their identity in sports environments. Research implications and directions for future research are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their sincere gratitude to the study’s participants. All authors who contributed significantly to the work have been identified.

Author Contributions

J.P. designed and executed the study, assisted with the data analyses, and wrote the paper. F.R. and S.I. collaborated with the design and writing of the study. L.G. wrote part of the discussion. F.L. and F.L. collaborated with the design, analyzed the data and writing of the study. R.B. collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Jessica Pistella, Fausta Rosati, Fiorenzo Laghi, Fabio Lucidi & Roberto Baiocco

  2. Population Research Center, Human Development and Family Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Salvatore Ioverno

  3. Department of Humanities, Philosophy and Education, University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy

    Laura Girelli

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  1. Jessica Pistella
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  2. Fausta Rosati
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  3. Salvatore Ioverno
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  7. Roberto Baiocco
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Correspondence to Roberto Baiocco.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The Department of Developmental and Social Psychology of the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome provided IRB approval for the study. This article does not refer to any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Pistella, J., Rosati, F., Ioverno, S. et al. Coming Out in Family and Sports-related Contexts among Young Italian Gay and Lesbian Athletes: The Mediation Effect of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Attitude. J Child Fam Stud 29, 208–216 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01551-0

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