Abstract
M.Ed. (Educational Psychology)
Although South Africa has a progressive constitution, homosexuality is still seen as taboo in most societies. For this reason, parents and extended family members feel uncomfortable, uncertain, and do not know how to react to the news that their son or daughter is homosexual. It is important to note that a home is more than the physical space of shelter; a home provides a place where identity is shaped and characters are moulded. Ideally, in the event of any difficult experience by young people, parents are the first source of support for children.
The global north has produced enumerate studies on same-sex sexualities that unfortunately focus largely on the negative responses by parents when their children disclose their same-sex sexualities to them. This study aims to explore the narratives of parental figures who have accepted and embraced the same-sex sexualities of their children. Departing with this study, it first explores how parents who embraced their children’s same-sex sexuality initially responded to the disclosure thereof. The study then continues beyond the understanding of disclosure by examining how parental figures who accepted the same-sex sexuality of their children, navigated from disclosure to acceptance. Lastly, this study intends to extrapolate from narratives of parental figures who accepted their children with same-sex sexualities what their needs were during the journey from disclosure to acceptance. A qualitative approach was used with a narrative design and this study assumed the interpretivist paradigm. Themes were then selected from the data and the discourse analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings from this research provide evidence that it is possible for parents to be accepting and embrace their children’s non-heterosexual identity, however, these parents/caregivers need support from extended family members, society, and the school system. The main conclusion from this study is that, although these parental figures are accepting of their children’s non-gender conforming sexuality, they still are concerned about their children’s safety when their children are not present at home with them.