Same-Sex Love and Gendered Scripts: Internalizing and Renegotiating Scripts within Family-Centered Collectivist Contexts in Suriname and the Netherlands

This study utilizes gendered social script theory to explore how same-sex love (SSL) women and men navigate cultural expectations, familial dynamics, and emotional processes after coming out. While prior research has addressed gendered heteronormative scripts, mainly in Western individualist cultures, less is known about their internalization and renegotiation within collectivist, family-centered contexts. We apply a tripartite framework, cultural, interpersonal, and intrapsychic scripts, to guide a directed content analysis of 49 in-depth interviews with Surinamese Hindustani SSL individuals living in the Netherlands and Suriname within a diasporic and collectivist context. Cultural scripts surrounding marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, <i>palvár ke íjjat</i> (family honor), and <i>manai ka bole</i> (what will people say?) shaped early socialization. After coming out, familial surveillance often decreased for SSL women, yet they faced internal struggles involving shame, guilt, and loyalty. SSL men, by contrast, continued to face strong interpersonal control, reinforcing intrapsychic tensions around masculinity and filial duty. Findings reveal gendered patterns in emotional processing: SSL women internalized responsibility for maintaining harmony, whereas SSL men viewed their same-sex love as a source of familial shame. Gendered scripts thus shape emotional navigation within collectivist family systems.