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partners who found it difficult to accept their husband’s need to express
his second self since they felt it conflicted with the traditional gender
norms in society. They were worried that others would find out about
their husband’s cross-dressing and they expressed in different ways
that they missed, for example, explanatory models of their husband’s
need to express a second self or that they themselves were put in a role
which they had never considered (Larsson et al. 1995). Similar results
have been described in the international research literature (Bullough
& Bullough 1993; Docter 1988).
3.4 Young LGBT people
Young transgender individuals have more physical, psychological and
social problems compared to other youngsters (Kreiss & Patterson
1997). These problems are probably also connected with the fact that
it is particularly during one’s youth that one seeks and establishes one’s
identity, something that in itself is a very sensitive process. In this developmental
stage we are especially aware of the reactions of others or
from society.
It is mentioned in the literature that LGBT groups can be subjected to
phobic reactions such as different forms of homophobia, biphobia and
transphobia (Ochs in: Firestein 1994; Hemmings 2002). Homo phobic
reactions can among other things be linked to a lack of knowledge or
insecurity in the homophobic person’s sense of self. The evidence is
that social treatment staffs who were not knowledgeable in this area
displayed more homophobic attitudes towards young LGBT people
(Quinn 2002). Psychological studies reveal that individuals with high
degrees of homophobia can also sometimes unconsciously experience
erotic attraction to people of the same sex as themselves (see Wilson
2002). This homophobic attitude could be interpreted, at least in some
cases, as fear of one’s own unconscious homosexuality or as a lack of
knowledge of the complexity of one’s own identity. People with a welldeveloped
and stable self identity seem to distance themselves less from
homosexuals (Wells 1989).
If it is the case that homophobic attitudes are connected to one’s
own insecure identity and a lack of knowledge about the LGBT area
we should find more homophobic reactions among young people than
among their elders. This is related to the fact that we are more insecure
about our identity in our early developmental stages since we are testing
46 • summary