These milestones have been identified as: (1) initial awareness of same-sex attraction, (2) self-acceptance or self-identification as gay or bisexual, (3) first same-sex sexual experience, and (4) disclosure of sexual orientation to others or “coming out” ( Floyd & Stein, 2002).
Building from a model from Cass (1979) and Troiden (1989) that progresses in stages, current research has constructed a framework of sexual identity “milestones”-event markers that are meaningful for the development of one’s sexual identity ( Calzo, Antonucci, Mays, & Cochran, 2011 Floyd & Stein, 2002 Grov et al., 2006 Rosario, Schrimshaw, & Hunter, 2011 Savin-Williams, 2011). Sexual identity development among gay and bisexual men, known colloquially as the process of “coming out,” progresses as a sequence of realizations, acceptance, and disclosures of same-sex sexual attraction ( Floyd & Stein, 2002 Grov, Bimbi, Nanín, & Parsons, 2006 Vaughan & Waehler, 2009).
