Lesbian Women’s Experience of Coming Out in an Irish Hospital Setting: A Heremeutic Phenomenological Approach

There is a dearth of knowledge about lesbian women’s lives and social experiences in Irish society. In their day to day living,
lesbian women know how to act, react and behave to exist within society, having developed what Draucker (Journal of Advanced
Nursing, 30(2), p. 361; 1999) calls ‘everyday skilful coping’. However, these taken-for-granted ways of understanding of being in the world are thrown
or brought to the forefront when lesbian women seek health care. The overall aim of the research is to investigate lesbian
women’s experiences of Irish health care as service users. Within this article, I will explore how four lesbian women understand
and give meaning to ‘coming out’ to a health care provider. Coming out is a precarious affair whereby lesbian women choose
when, where and to whom to relate their sexuality. The experiences of these women are explored by utilising Sartre’s (1969) concepts of being objectified by the Other, shame, freedom, illustrating how the self can be disrupted.