Principios orientadores y principios operadores

I used semi-structured, in-depth interviews to collect the data. I created an interview guide that focused on the research questions of this study. The guide consisted of two sections: 1) a short demographic survey and 2) a semi-structured interview. As designed, the qualitative portion of the interview consisted of five parts: 1) Background, 2) Social Network Before Coming Out, 3) Coming Out, 4) Social Network Today, and 5) Reflections. A complete copy of the interview guide is included in Appendix A.

The beginning of each interview focused on the participant’s background: growing up, parents, siblings, schooling, religion, and so on, as well as, the participant’s social life as a young adult. Part 2 focused on the participant’s social relations before beginning the coming out

process. Here the social network hierarchical mapping diagram (Antonucci, 1986) was introduced as a prompt to help respondents visualize their social networks and rank the importance of the people comprising their social networks. The diagram consists of three concentric circles with “YOU” printed in the innermost circle. The inner circle is for those closest in relationship to the respondent. One might describe the people within the inner circle as persons that one could not live without or could not imagine life without. The middle ring is for those that are close, but not as important in one’s life. The outer circle I described to participants as “in your personal network, but not necessarily very important or very close to you.” Persons in ring 3 might include co-workers, co-members of clubs or other organizations, fellow church members and so on. In addition to the questions regarding each of the three rings, I asked participants if they identified with a larger community, for example: ethnic, religious, or the “gay” community.

Part 3 of the interview was concerned with the coming out process. The questions here included, among others: Why did you come out when you did? Who did you come out to first? What sort of reactions did you experience? and How did you feel when you first began the coming out process?

Part 4 was concerned with the participant’s current social network. This section was similar to Part 2 including a question about larger community. The social network hierarchical mapping diagram was again employed here as an aid. This section also included a question regarding how given their network today participants envisioned their future social network.

Part 5, the reflections portion of the interview, borrowed heavily from a study for a dissertation by Breshears (2011). The first question in Part 5, was “How do you think the timing of your coming out made your life different from gays or lesbians who came out at an earlier age?” The second question, “What do you want other people to know about your life, your family, your friendships?” fell flat. In general, participants did not want to respond or could not think of how to respond to the question. I asked the third question in Part 5, “What advice would you give to others when they come out at mid- or later life?” verbatim in the first interview. Showing the strength and flexibility of the qualitative approach employed for this study, I was able to immediately revise the question to include “…or what lessons have you learned…” when the first interviewee was reluctant to answer the question. Finding that asking about “lessons learned” gained more positive results, I included this revised wording for the remainder of the interviews. The final interview question, asked if the participant had anything they wanted to add or say.

After initial introductions, I went over the nature and the purpose of the study with each participant, and reviewed the informed consent. I obtained the informed consent of each

participant before beginning the interview with them. Each interview began with the

demographic survey. I thought it would be better to gather this information before a lengthy and likely emotionally exhausting interview. This strategy worked well; the survey turned out to be an opportunity to build rapport. Most, if not all, participants responded to one or more of the questions in the demographic survey with lengthy answers, rich in detail, that addressed

questions outlined in the qualitative portion of the interview. The response rate to the questions in the demographic survey was near 100%. Only two participants refused to answer a question and it was the same question for both: annual income. No other participants refused to answer or objected to any of the questions in the demographic survey.

With the first few interviews, I tried to carefully follow the interview guide, proceeding with each question in order. With experience, I found the first question, “Please tell me about your background…” often led to a flowing conversation that covered many of the topics in the interview guide, with little or no prompting from me. Additionally, though I did not necessarily announce that I too came out later in life, this position made me more empathetic to the

participants and I am sure factored into the rapport enjoyed in the interviews.

All of the interviews were conducted in person. Each interview was digitally recorded and later transcribed. The interviews were held at times convenient to the participants and at places where they felt comfortable. Nine interviews were conducted in the residences of the participants. Three interviews were conducted in a private room at the offices of a local non- profit agency that serves gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities, and two of the interviews were conducted in my home. The average interview lasted about an hour and a half (86 minutes to be exact). The shortest interview was completed in 38 minutes and the longest lasted 121 minutes. Despite its seeming brevity in comparison to the average length of the

interviews, the shortest interview was rich in detail and high in quality, largely due to the respondent’s focused answers, as well as the easy rapport we shared.