Contextual factors impacting families in enabling resilience of gender and sexually diverse youth

Family affirmation is an important factor in the psychological adjustment and resilience of LGBTQ+ youth. However, owing to hetero-cisnormative discourses in most rural communities, Gender and sexually diverse youth thrive through the most devastating adversities while negotiating for their LGBTQ+ identity in families. To understand systemic factors within and beyond family that influence the capacity of families to affirm LGBTQ+ youth, this article draws on data from a PhD study. This article presents qualitative interpretive phenomenological results from research involving 12 participants identifying as LGBTQ+ youth from a rural community in the Free State province. Participants were selected using nonprobability purposive and snowball sampling methods. The article explores factors that influence families to affirm their children with gender and sexual diversities, thereby highlighting the utility of ecological interventions that extend beyond working with a nuclear family to champion its resilience. The article also explores tensions that shape affirmation and marginalisation within a family context. It also demonstrates how risk exposure in families is perpetuated by multiple intersecting variables, such as family religious beliefs and cultural ideals that encourage heterosexuality and cisgender expression. Moreover, it shows the family’s openness and adaptive role in fostering the resilience of LGBTQ+ youth despite the prevalent hetero-cisnormative discourses. Despite the influence of the identified systemic factors, some families still navigate the affirmation of gender and sexual diversity. To this end, the article gives useful insights for practice and future research.