Galoome Shopane
A two-day colloquium on sexuality, society and pedagogy organised by the University of the Free State’s faculty of education revealed a lot of discrimination and bullying experienced by homosexual learners from their fellow learners and teachers alike. The faculty’s dean, Dennis Frances, hosted researchers from various universities from across the country to discuss sexual education, pairing it with sexual orientation and how heterosexual and homosexual learners deal and experience sexuality.
South African learners face adverse bullying and bigotry at schools and many Lesbians Gays Bisexual Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) learners are on the receiving end of this prejudice because of their sexuality. Deevia Bhana from the University of KZN conducted a research on schools across South Africa and says she realised that learners who were subjects in her research said that their “religion and culture do not condone homosexuality” and thought that homosexuals were possessed by evil spirits.
There’s an unconscious privilege that straight children enjoy, for instance LGBTI pupils are not allowed to have open relationships with whomever they chose to be a girlfriend or boyfriend. Bhana says that there’s a tolerance and not an acceptance of LGBTI learners. Some of the learners would say “I don’t have a problem with gays or lesbians as long as they don’t parade or show it off”, or “it’s a sin for a man to be with another man, but the constitution allows it, so what can I say,” Bhana explained. Verbal abuse is the most common form of violence used to ridicule and mock heterosexual learners, for instance words like moffies, isitabane are common phrases used when addressing homosexual students or homosexuals in general. The word queer was used to offend homosexuals, but now they have taken the word’s offensive powers and made it their own. Thabo Msibi, who’s also from UKZN, wonders if this paradigm shift would be possible for moffies and isitabane references.
Bhana says that young people shape sexualities that outline and inform cultures. She states that she had heard a new word used to refer to LGBT learners or people. “The learners will use the term e-mail in reference to homosexuals, mocking them that they are neither male nor female,” explained Bhana. Bhana says “it is important for our leaders to advance homosexual messages and speak up about gender inequalities”. Bhana added that the construction of society in South Africa has left those who don’t fit in the heterosexual or straight sexual orientation out in the cold.
The group of researchers rose in agreement that religion and culture are used to castigate homosexuality and that people use these two phenomena to justify their homophobia. Frances says that during his research, when learners were in a group they would be
anti-gay, but individually they would say they are not really opposed to their homosexual fellow learners.
The diverse school of thoughts at the colloquium stated that there is no evidence of activeness from the department of education to put such matters on the discussion table and wished that communities could put homophobia on the same scale as racism and gender inequality.
galoome@centralmediagroup.co.za
