Impact of identity development upon career trajectory: Listening to the voices of lesbian women

Ten lesbian women ranging in age from 30-45 were interviewed about their recollections of forming a lesbian identity and its effects on their career trajectory. Interview questions focused on four major areas: the timing and quality of their coming-out process, whether their lesbian identity development helped or hindered their career development process, the effects of external and internalized homophobia on their careers, and finally whether their associations with a lesbian community helped or hindered their career development. Qualitative analyses of the interview data resulted in multiple themes being identified for each of the above set of questions. Results suggest that lesbian women do recycle through a ''second adolescence'' in the process of coming out and coming to terms with a lesbian identity. The results also suggest that this time period in which lesbian women consolidate a lesbian identity is personally demanding and does delay, disrupt, and in some cases seriously derail the career development process. Participants reported some job or career benefits gained from their association with other lesbian women. Finally, recommendations for future research and practice are offered that focus on reconceptualizing this second, adolescent-type developmental phase as a normative and positive phase of personal and professional identity development for lesbian women. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.