Journeys of Parents with LGBTQ+ Children: How Trauma and Healing Reshape Identity and (Mis)Informating Practices

2026-05-19

AI Summary

This study investigates how Korean parents of LGBTQ+ children navigate emotional trauma and reconstruct their identities and information practices upon learning their child’s queer identity, particularly within environments saturated with misinformation. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observation, and thematic analysis, the research illuminates a transformative journey from emotional rupture to healing, during which parents critically evaluate, resist, and actively challenge misinformation, cultivating care-oriented information behaviors. Positioning parents within the Queer HCI framework for the first time, this work argues that identity reconstruction drives the transformation of information practices. It underscores the necessity of addressing relational, cultural, and affective dimensions in misinformation mitigation and offers CSCW with design insights and a theoretical foundation for supporting family-centered care systems.

Abstract

This study examines how parents of LGBTQ+ individuals in South Korea navigate the emotional rupture fueled by fear, isolation, and disorientation after learning their children's queer identity, encounter queer-related (mis)information as a way of coping with this emotional toll, and come to listen to queer realities relationally. Through this process, we highlight how parents reconstruct their identities as supportive parents, which reshapes their informating practices, making them more critical in assessing queer-related (mis)information, developing strategies to protect themselves from harmful narratives, and actively challenging misinformation to support others navigating similar experiences. This work contributes to CSCW by (1) foregrounding parents of LGBTQ+ individuals, an underrepresented yet critical stakeholder group in Queer HCI; (2) demonstrating how identity reconfiguration following a trauma-healing process could transform information practices; and (3) arguing that addressing misinformation requires attention beyond individual fact-based discerning to account for its relational, cultural, and emotional dimensions. Further, we invite CSCW scholars to reconsider the balance between abstracting and humanizing information, explore future design possibilities for parents of LGBTQ+ children, and reflect on the role of researchers as participants in collective research communities fueled by care.

Problem

• LGBTQ+ parents
• misinformation
• identity reconstruction
• emotional trauma
• Queer HCI

Innovation

• Queer HCI
• misinformation
• identity reconfiguration
• relational information practices
• trauma and healing