The key concepts central to the study are defined and their meaning contextualised.
1.15.1 Homosexuality (gay/lesbian)
The terms “homosexual” and “homosexuality” first appeared in medical journals of the 1890s, but were not formally used until 1946. Prior to 1946, homosexuality was termed under the heading of “sexual perversion” (Greenblatt, 2014:214). Hubbard and Griffiths (2019:941) define homosexuality as “having emotional, romantic or sexual attractions to members of one's own sex”. In a framework of sexuality, “heterosexuality” would be described as attraction to the opposite sex and as the heteronormative standard for society in general, whereas “homosexuality” is described as attraction between two people of the same biological gender. This framework places homosexuality as the abject outside of the frame of normative heterosexuality (Meghani & Saeed, 2019:293). Homosexuality is same-sex attraction in terms of men being attracted to men and women being attracted to women; it could be physically, emotionally, or both (Bailey, Vasey, Diamond, Breedlove, Vilain & Epprecht, 2016:45). Therefore, it can be stated that a homosexual person is someone who has emotional, physical and psychological attraction to a person of the same sex and thereby does not conform to heterosexual standards.
1.15.2 Bisexual
Bisexuality has been marginalised due to pressures in favour of monosexuality. Bisexuality means that a person is attracted to both men and women (Gooß, 2008:9). Goob (2008:10) further theorise that bisexuals are mutually drawn to each other. Bowes-Catton and Hayfield (2015:49) explain the term ‘bisexual’ as
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generally used in Western cultures to describe an individual who has sexual attraction to more than one gender, or whose attractions are based on characteristics other than mere gender, such as physical build or eye colour. Vencil and Israel (2018:1) refer to couples where one person is bisexual as “mixed orientation” couples and indicate that bisexuality in one partner could lead to stress factors in the relationship.
To sum up: bisexuality is when a person is sexually or otherwise attracted to persons of both genders and a bisexual person base their choice of partner on more than having to be with the same or opposite sex/gender.
1.15.3 Transsexual/transgender
Hines (2007:181) in her study on transgendered persons starts off by stating that there has been increased interest in transgender persons, with the question “who are they” in mind. Hines (2007) argues that the transgender person, who differs in born gender and felt gender, will also have difficulties in societal citizenship and transition to the inner gender on formal documentation. Fraser (2009:126) postulates that the transgendered person’s identity involves a mismatch between mind-body and a feeling that there is a gender variance between the body and the inner self. It could be concluded that a person identifying as transsexual or transgender identifies with a different gender than the one they were born with, or that a transgender or transsexual person has a different internal gender identity than the body they were born with.
1.15.4Challenges
Challenges or stressful situations in a family can be described as instances that cause change in the family’s consistent state (Price et al., 2008:12). Sheidow et al. (2014:1351) suggest that stress exposure is experienced as a family challenge and can influence family functioning, to the extent that it becomes an internalised problem for family members. In order to understand why and how families experience stress and challenges, the challenging situation must be viewed within
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the context of the different aspects of the challenge, which could be related to societal, health, education, relationships, economic, and other situations (Jones & Smith, 2017:28). Challenging situations are therefore events that trigger responses from the parents within the context of their lived experiences, when they find that their resources are unable to meet the demands of the event, and this causes change in the stability of the family system..
1.15.5 Coping strategies
Coping refers to how one transacts to deal with and adapt to a stressful situations in one’s life (Markova & Nikitskaya, 2014:38; Stern et al., 2010:174) by employing coping strategies, which is described by Sawyer and Burton (2012:27) as ways and means to overcome difficult situations that put strain on one’s physical, social and psychological abilities. In the context of this research, coping strategies would refer to how the parents managed the challenges they experienced in relation to the coming out of their LGBTIQA+ child.
1.15.6 Coming out
When a person realises that he/she prefers to have intimate relationships with persons of the same sex, there comes a time when they “come out” by telling other people about it (McDonald & Steinhorn, 1993:37). According to McCormick (2015:327), coming out is an act that authenticates one’s sexual identity. Heatherington and Lavner (2008:1) describe coming out as the act of disclosing one’s sexual identity to others. In terms of this disclosure, Klein, Holtby, Cook and Travers (2015:297) postulate that coming out should be understood as a social process, rather than just an internal process. A person may choose to disclose his/her homosexual orientation only to some of his/her family members, friends and associates; this is called “selectively coming out”. In the context of the research, coming out would mean for the children of the mixed race and African parents to have openly confessed the fact that they are LGBTIQA+ and want to live a LGBTIQA+ lifestyle.
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1.15.7 African South African
Race and Ethnicity are multidimensional concepts, frequently used in research studies to describe participants. The term “African” originated from the Romans referring to “the land of the Afri”. The African as reference to where a person originates from is used in scientific writing in terms of race, ethnicity and how a person refers to themselves (Agyemang, Bhopal & Bruijnzeels, 2005:1014).
In this study “African” refers to a person whose heritage/ancestry is from the African continent, specifically South Africa and was previously referred to as “black”.
1.15.8 Mixed Race South African
Mixed race describes people whose ancestors are not of a single ethnicity or race (Agyemang, Bhopal & Bruijnzeels, 2005:1018). The current approach to naming people “mixed race” is not always clear, but in the case of this study it is preferred as academic language rather than “coloured person” as was previously the case.
Mixed race therefore refers to a person who identifies themselves as such and grew up in South Africa.
1.16 Outline of the study
The dissertation comprises of fivechapters and the figure below provides a brief exposition of the focus of each chapter.
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FIGURE 1.4: Chapterlayout