Abstract
Abstract : Homosexuality is a concept that has been given a significant amount of attention in recent years. In South Africa LGBT individuals are protected by the constitution and thus allowed the freedom to publicly exhibit their sexualities. Despite these strides’ lesbians are discriminated, violently attacked and even raped in the name of curing them. Society seems to sides with the compulsory heteronormative ideals and thus creates an unfavourable platform for young lesbians to disclose. This has even taken up roots in the school context where patriarch policing is done regularly to perpetuate these ideals. Existing literature has investigated to the experience of lesbians during various phases of the process of disclosure, mainly in the familial context. The present study will explore and describe the narratives of disclosure with specific reference to the school context with hopes to provide lessons for educational psychologists. Discourse analysis will be used to explore the narratives of young lesbians who had disclosed their sexual identities wile at school. Five lesbians were sourced and invited to be interviewed. Open-ended interviews were conducted requesting the participants to discuss their narratives of disclosure. The interviews were then transcribed verbatim including relevant nonverbal behaviours and analysis of the interviews followed using relevant discourse analysis criteria. The findings of the present study suggested that in the participants disclosures were often perceived as a joke and loved ones disregarded the seriousness and often attributed it to a passing phase. Furthermore, there is a notion of pathology that is seen as the antecedent to becoming lesbian. Responses from loved one to the new sexual identity, often took the form of maladaptive coping mechanisms. It was found that there was a lack of awareness surrounding sexual identities and confusion about how to navigate the new identity. In addition, some of the participants experiences psychological symptoms as a result which could have been remedied by a mental health profession. The school context can be seen as one of the primary sites involved in the process of disclosure. In this space heteronormative ideals are latently enforced, iv when one does not subscribe to such norms they are seen as defiant, for this reason the participants experienced discrimination and even violence. The participants articulated that they would have appreciated the support of a psychologist during their disclosures. As this was not available to them, those who were fortunate enough acquired lackadaisical support from loved ones. For this reason, it is important that psychological service (individual and family therapy as well as psychoeducation) is available to such populations. The present study contributes towards a South African description of the narratives of disclosure of young lesbians. Recommendations based on the conclusions of the study’s findings have been presented as well as suggestions for future research.
M.Ed. (Educational Psychology)