Palliative Emotion Work: Preserving Parent-LGB Child Relationships in an Age Of “Incomplete Acceptance”

Abstract Despite the gains achieved by the gay rights movement, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LBG) people still face discrimination. LGB acceptance in this context is incomplete. Although familial rejection upon coming out is less common than it was previously, many LGB individuals experience acceptance that is only partial. Drawing on in-depth interviews, we analyze the emotion work used by parents and their LGB adult children to navigate and maintain familial relationships in the absence of full acceptance. We argue this often requires adaptation to heterosexism achieved through “palliative emotion work”—diminishing or transforming noxious feelings in relationships that are strained. Through three strategies of palliative emotion work (minimizing, accounting, and categorizing and comparing) LGB adults and their parents are able to maintain familial relationships that cause emotional pain; but, not without a cost: bolstering a system of heterosexism that places the feelings of heterosexuals above those of LGB people.