Thesis (BA Communication Arts) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, June 2015

Philippines, as a religio-cultural country, have different and varying degrees in accepting the LGBT community. A UN-sponsored study has said that the country has tolerance but not acceptance of the LGBT community; a recent informal of violence and abuse, mostly committed at home by their parents. This shows that certain aspects of family communication may impact how readily individuals talk about their sexuality. Given that it is possible that perceptions about family communication influence these aspects of difficult family conversation, this study explored the dynamics between family communication patterns and initiating the disclosure or non-disclosure of an individual's sexuality to the family. The family communication pattern theory by Fitzpatrick was used as the guiding framework of this study where it explored the dynamics of self disclosure and non-disclosure to the families of young adults in the LGBT community. There were 30 respondents of this study who came from LGBT students of UP Mindanao. An in-depth interview was conducted to understand the dynamics of their disclosure or non-disclosure to their family. The Family Communication Pattern Instrument was used to assess the family type of each respondent. It was found that family types do not necessarily affect the level of self-disclosure of respondents to their family; however, their conversation and conformity orientation that creates these family types influences their reasons for disclosing or not disclosing their identity to the family. Respondents with high conversation orientation families have disclosed their identity more than those who came from low conversation orientation families. Consequently, respondents with low conformity orientation families received more positive outcomes after disclosing their identity than those with high conformity orientation families.