Troubling The Teaching and Learning of Gender and Sexuality Diversity in South African Education

TROUBLING THE
TEACHING AND
LEARNING OF
GENDER AND
SEXUALITY
DIVERSITY IN
SOUTH AFRICAN
EDUCATION
Dennis A. Francis
QUEER Series Editors

STUDIES & William F. Pinar
EDUCATION Nelson M. Rodriguez,
& Reta Ugena Whitlock
Queer Studies and Education
Series Editors
William F. Pinar
Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Nelson M. Rodriguez
Women’s & Gender Studies
The College of New Jersey
Ewing, New Jersey, USA
Reta Ugena Whitlock

Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA
LGBTQ social, cultural, and political issues have become a defining fea-
ture of twenty-first century life, transforming on a global scale any number
of institutions, including the institution of education. Situated within the
context of these major transformations, this series is home to the most
compelling, innovative, and timely scholarship emerging at the intersec-
tion of queer studies and education. Across a broad range of educational
topics and locations, books in this series incorporate lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and intersex categories, as well as scholarship in queer theory
arising out of the postmodern turn in sexuality studies. The series is wide-
ranging in terms of disciplinary/theoretical perspectives and methodologi-
cal approaches, and will include and illuminate much needed intersectional
scholarship. Always bold in outlook, the series also welcomes projects that
challenge any number of normalizing tendencies within academic scholar-
ship from works that move beyond established frameworks of knowledge
production within LGBTQ educational research to works that expand the
range of what is institutionally defined within the field of education as
relevant queer studies scholarship.
More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14522
Dennis A. Francis
Troubling the
Teaching and
Learning of Gender
and Sexuality
Diversity in South
African Education
Dennis A. Francis
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology
Stellenbosch University,
South Africa
Queer Studies and Education

ISBN 978-1-137-53026-4 ISBN 978-1-137-53027-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Intellectual work is collective work and, over the last decade or so , many
colleagues and advisers shared in partnering, supporting and encourag-
ing me through the manuscript, especially Jean Baxen, Christa Beyers,
Anthony Brown, Renée DePalma, Jonathan Jansen, Pumla Gobodo-
Madikizela, John McAllister, Sechaba Mahlomaholo, Priscilla Mensah,
Lebo Moletsane, Thabo Msibi, Milton Nkoane, Rob Pattman, Kathleen
Pithouse-Morgan, Finn Reygan, Eric Richardson, Neil Roos, Michael
Samuel, Tammy Shefer, Hellene Strauss and Frans Swanepoel. Thank you
for your role in getting me to this current place.
We often forget to thank those we learn with and I would be remiss
if I did not thank my graduate students for the many conversations that
helped shape this book. My thanks to Sianne Abrahams, Melissa Barnes,
Paul Chappell, Carmen Chetty, Tamsyn Eccles, Stacy Johnson, Anock
Kapira, Gabriel Hoosain Khan, Busisiwe Madikizela, Lineo Mapethla,
Lungile Masinga, Percy Mdunge, Jabu Myeza, Marguerite Müller, Henry
Nichols, Fisani Shabalala, Eben Swanepoel, Glodean Thani, Philippa
Tumubweinee and Lesley Wright. You all rock!
The teachers and LGBT youth who generously gave of their time and
stories must remain anonymous and yet I am most thankful to them.
I must also thank the Fulbright for granting me a visiting scholar award
to New York University to complete the book.
I appreciate the hospitality extended to me at New York University
by Ann Pellegrini, Robert Campbell, Mike Funk and Monroe France.
Friends and family in the US who helped along the way include Paulette
Dalpes, Rajendra Chetty, Cris Beam, Neville Hoad, Gerardo Lopez, Rani
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Varghese, Zoë Francis, Tanya Williams, Jamie Washington, Samuel offer

and Kevin Kumashiro.
My greatest thanks and love are due to my partner, Emma, for her
insightful and supportive engagement.
This book was supported by a National Research Foundation Grant
(Competitive Program for Rated Researchers: CPRR13082330440)
and a National Research Foundation Grant (Education Research Grant
ERSA13110857621). The findings and opinions expressed in the book
do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of the NRF.
In the end, this book is dedicated to Kathy Obear, who introduced me
to the scholarship of gender and sexuality diversity. Kathy’s mentorship,
commitment, and endless support will always be remembered.
CONTENTS
Part I Introduction and Background 1
1 Introduction 3
2 Troubling Anti-Oppressive Education 19
3 Troubling the Research 33
Part II Troubling Compulsory Hetersosexuality 55
4 Troubling the Visibility and Invisibility of Non-Normative

Sexualities in Schools 57
5 Shifting Positions of Inclusion 71
6 Troubling the Agency-Victimhood Trope 89
7 Compulsory Heterosexuality 109
vii
viii CONTENTS
Part III Conclusion 135
8 Conclusion 137
Index 151
SERIES EDITORS
LGBTQ social, cultural, and political issues have become a defining fea-
ture of twenty-first century life, transforming on a global scale any number
of institutions, including the institution of education. Situated within the
context of these major transformations, this series is home to the most
compelling, innovative, and timely scholarship emerging at the intersec-
tion of queer studies and education. Across a broad range of educational
topics and locations, books in this series incorporate lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and intersex categories, as well as scholarship in queer the-
ory arising out of the postmodern turn in sexuality studies. The series is
wide-ranging in terms of disciplinary/theoretical perspectives and meth-
odological approaches, and will include and illuminate much needed inter-
sectional scholarship. Always bold in outlook, the series also welcomes
projects that challenge any number of normalizing tendencies within aca-
demic scholarship—from works that move beyond established frameworks
of knowledge production within LGBTQ educational research to works
that expand the range of what is institutionally defined within the field of
education as relevant queer studies scholarship.
William F. Pinar holds a Canada Research Chair at The University of
British Columbia (UBC). Before moving to UBC in 2005, Pinar taught
queer theory at Louisiana State University, where he served as the St.
Bernard Parish Alumni Endowed Professor. He has also served as the
Frank Talbott Professor at the University of Virginia and the A. Lindsay
O’Connor Professor of American Institutions at Colgate University. He
has lectured widely, including Harvard University, McGill University, and
the Universities of Chicago, Oslo, Tokyo, and Wisconsin-Madison.
ix
x SERIES EDITORS
The editor of Queer Theory in Education (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998),

with Nelson Rodriguez, Queering Straight Teachers (Peter Lang, 2007),
and, most recently, of Curriculum Studies in India (Palgrave, 2015),
Pinar received in 2000 the LSU Distinguished Faculty Award and a
Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Educational Research
Association; in 2004 he received an American Educational Association
Outstanding Book Award for What is Curriculum Theory?
Pinar lives with his husband Jeff Turner in the woods of Northwest
Washington.
Nelson M. Rodriguez teaches sexuality and queer studies in the
Women’s and Gender Studies Department at The College of New Jersey.
His current research areas span queer studies and education, critical mas-
culinity studies, and Foucault studies. His most recent publications are
Queer Masculinities: A Critical Reader in Education and Queering Straight
Teachers: Discourse and Identity in Education (with William F. Pinar).
His forthcoming books include Critical Concepts in Queer Studies and
Education: An International Guide for the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave
Macmillan); Queer Pedagogies: Theory, Praxis, Politics; Educators Queering
Academia: Critical Memoirs; and Friendship as Ascesis: Michel Foucault,
Queer Theory and Education.
Rodriguez lives with his husband Joseph Damian Kellogg and their
cats, Miss Lucy Lou and Willie, in Princeton, New Jersey.
Ugena Whitlock is Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction
and Gender & Women’s Studies at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.
She is also currently Associate Chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies
Department. She is the author of This Corner of Canaan: Curriculum
Studies of Place and the Reconstruction of the South and editor of the forth-
coming collection, Queer South Rising: Voices of a Contested Place. Her
research focuses on reconstructing self and society within contexts of
place, drawing from her experiences growing up in a working-class, fun-
damentalist Christian family in the South.
The series editors can be contacted at: lgbtqbookprojects@gmail.com.
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 Teachers 44

Table 3.2 Learners 45
xi
PART I
Introduction and Background

CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Given Seoketsi got expelled from Kwena Molapo Comprehensive Farm

School for wearing a dress on casual day. It all started on the last day of
term when the principal, Michael Madikane, called Given into his office
and asked him to “declare his gender.” Given replied that he was “a gay”
(Masego, 2009, p. 2). Following this incident, Neisi Seoketsi was sum-
moned to discuss her child’s sexual orientation. She explained how Given
had always wanted to wear dresses despite her efforts to force him into
pants. She said that she had eventually learned to accept her son the way
he is (Mthethwa & Mashigo, 2009, p. 5). The principal pointed out that
the school only catered for boys or girls, and, therefore, Given would
have to leave. The story of Given’s expulsion made its way into the South
African media where it caused ripples of concern on the smooth surface
of the country’s liberal constitution (Martin, 2009). It sparked discus-
sions on social norms, gender identity, sexual orientation, the masculine/
feminine binary, and the gender binary (Martin, 2009). Ultimately the
Gauteng Department of Education reminded the principal that accord-
ing to the constitution he could not exclude a pupil from school based
on his or her sexuality (Mthethwa & Mashigo, 2009, p. 5). For this rea-
son, Given Seoketsi was allowed back into Kwena Molapo Comprehensive
Farm School.
“My son is gay.” Some of the boys in Billy Moon’s school came to
know this, and it was downhill for him from there (Newman, 2009). A
© The Author(s) 2017 3

D.A. Francis, Troubling the Teaching and Learning of
Gender and Sexuality Diversity in South African Education,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1_1
4 D.A. FRANCIS
group of boys physically beat him on several occasions. “In one incident
they held him by his ankles over a second-floor balcony. He went through
a very bad phase because of this and tried to commit suicide” (Newman,
2009, p. 2). Billy Moon’s mother approached the school several times
to intervene. Her requests for help were met with the further labeling of
her son. According to her, the school told her “that her son was different
and should be taken to church” (Newman, 2009). The school’s solution
was not to end the discrimination and the bullying. They wanted my son
to be changed so that he wouldn’t “need” to be bullied. When nothing
changed, Billy Moon attempted suicide and was eventually taken out of
school by his grandfather. His mother is still concerned about the emo-
tional well-being of her son and angry that the school failed to recognize
that her son was an equal human being regardless of his sexual orientation.
Several other complaints of a similar nature have recently been reported
against the school.
Agatha Lee, a pupil from a top girl’s school in Johannesburg, experi-
enced mixed messages about bringing her girlfriend, Kayla to the Matric
dance. In previous years, same-sex partners had been allowed to attend,
so Agatha was surprised to learn from one of her teachers that this year,
same-sex partners would be escorted off the property. The reason given
was that “girls had acted inappropriately by holding hands the previous
year”. The threat of being escorted out of the dance and the labeling of
two girls holding hands as being inappropriate created anxiety for Agatha
and other lesbians in her school. Agatha told her mother what the teacher
had said, and the mother wrote an email requesting permission from the
school for Agatha to attend the dance with Kayla. Even though the princi-
pal confirmed that same-sex partners were allowed at the dance, no action
was taken against the teacher for her disparaging comments. These were
simply dismissed as “misunderstandings” (Govender, 2013). “The teacher
who organized the dance, has done so for many years and has never insin-
uated anything like that. The comment may have been misinterpreted”
(Govender, 2013). These “misunderstandings” however caused such lev-
els of anxiety that some of the lesbian pupils went to the dance with male
partners fearing discrimination. The principal also stated, “We will allow
anybody and their partner, as long as their partner behaves. Should any
partner behave in an unruly way, they will be escorted out” (Govender,
2013). When questioned about the allegations against the teachers com-
ments on same-sex partners being disallowed, the principal dismissed the
question with “I certainly don’t hold the teachers hand. I can’t comment”.
INTRODUCTION 5
Interestingly the holding of hands was the reason given by the offending
teacher for being disallowed from the dance.
I have opened this book with three narratives drawn from articles
appearing in various South African newspapers between 2009 and 2013
and while they may seem random, offer an entry point for providing valu-
able insights into the schooling experiences of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual
(LGB) youth. I have reported these narratives somewhat unconvention-
ally as stories rather than as newspaper sources as they reflect young les-
bian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth’s lives and experiences
and, in many ways, schools’ heterosexist positions. The newspaper reports
have treated the experiences impersonally and, in parts, with tones of fri-
volity and ridicule. None of the articles pay sufficient attention to the hurt,
emotional harm, and humiliation of the youth described. In the stories,
we see schools as models of power that regulate and shape understand-
ings gender and sexuality. In all three stories, there is a fixation with and
conflation of gender identity and expression and its mistaken correlation
with sexual attraction. The erroneous conflation of gender and sexuality
tell us that these constructs are not easily understood aspects of identity
in South African schools. Bryan (2012, p. 5) simplifies the distinction
between gender and sexuality and I adopt her understanding of gender
and sexuality throughout my book. Gender is a socially constructed sys-
tem of classification that ascribes qualities of masculinity and femininity to
people, it can change over time and is different between cultures and is
not the same as biological sex. Sexuality is a broad construct that refers to
the totality of sexual identity, orientation, and behavior. Sex, sexuality, and
gender are different tracks. Furthermore, the reports do not mention how
LGB youth feel let down by school leaders and teachers who do not have
a sufficient awareness of non-heteronormative sexualities and a curriculum
that does not engage meaningfully with LGBT identities. These stories
are not isolated incidents but a snapshot of a myriad of similar reports that
have appeared in the South African press (see Dlamini, 2005; Govender,
2013; John, 2011; Khalane, 2013; Ndlovu, 2014; Pather, 2015a, 2015b;
Potgieter, 2014; SAPA, 2013). In fact, during the period of writing this
book, the South African media reported on claims by the Creare Christian
academy in Bloemfontein that it could “cure” LGB learners. The claim
was outlined in the school’s prospectus on relationship etiquette (Khalane,
2013; SAPA, 2013).
Outside of schools, this prejudicial belief—promoted by many South
African leaders, justifies their intolerance with the claim that homosexuality
6 D.A. FRANCIS
is “un-African”, describing it as a disease “coming from so-called devel-

oped nations”. Durban Mayor Obed Mlaba told a group of business lead-
ers that the city should stop comparing itself to the more cosmopolitan
Cape Town—a city that “can stay with its moffies and its gays” (Boykin,
2001). Most famously, Jacob Zuma, the South African current president,
when still the African National Congress deputy president, lashed out at
homosexuality, describing it as “un-African”. He has stated, “Same-sex
marriage is a disgrace to the nation and God. When I was growing up
unqingili (homosexuals) could not stand in front of me.” (Tapfumanei,
2006). Reddy (2001) notes that hate speech is often used against persons
involved in same-sex relations, with the intention being to demean, dis-
criminate, and ill-treat people identified as LGBT.
To a reader outside of South Africa, these reports may seem strange,
even bizarre, given that the South African constitution is one of the most
progressive in the world regarding constitutional and legislative rights,
which protects and promotes non-discrimination towards LGBT people.
South Africa prohibited employment discrimination based on sexual ori-
entation in 1996, prohibited incitement to hatred based on sexual orien-
tation in 2000, permitted joint adoption by same-sex couples in 2002,
passed gender-recognition legislation in 2004, recognized marriage for
same-sex couples in 2006, implemented legislation equalizing the age of
consent for homosexual and heterosexual acts in 2007, and was the first
of only six countries in the world that includes sexual orientation as a cat-
egory protected by its constitution such that no person shall be unfairly
discriminated against on the grounds of race, gender, sex, ethnic or social
origin, color, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief,
culture, language, birth, or marital status (DePalma & Francis, 2014,
pp. 1687–1688). Clearly, South Africa is a world leader in terms of how
gender and sexual orientation is reflected constitutionally, but how gender
and sexuality issues play out in practice in South Africa is, therefore, a
question of curiosity, in other parts of the world as well as nationally.
Within education, these pronouncements of protections and pro-
motions of anti-oppression and the wider social values contained in the
constitution are broadly reflected in curriculum policy. For example, the
South African Schools Act of 1996 makes a commitment to creating a new
system of education that would combat “racism and sexism and all other
forms of unfair discrimination and intolerance”, the Revised National
Curriculum Statement talks about the intention to produce “critical
and responsible citizens who are able to participate constructively in a
INTRODUCTION 7
culturally diverse and changing society”(Department of Education, 2002,

p. 23) and one of the aims for Life Orientation listed in the Curriculum
and Assessment Policy Statement is to promote “human rights, inclusivity
and social justice” (Department of Basic Education, 2011, p. 4) and “an
understanding of and commitment to constitutional rights and respon-
sibilities and show an understanding of diverse cultures and religions.”
(Department of Education, 2002, p. 26) Despite these broad pronounce-
ments in the Revised National Curriculum Statements for Life Orientation
(LO) (Department of Education, 2002) and Departmental LO Teacher
Guidelines (Department of Education, 2006) there is a failure to make
clear the issue of gender and sexuality diversity. DePalma and Francis in
their article “Letting our commitments rest on the shelf: Teaching about
sexual diversity in South African schools” conclude that there is a sub-
stantial disconnect between the progressive legislation detailed above and
education policy and practice, from which gender and sexuality diversity is
strikingly absent (DePalma & Francis, 2013).
Schools are not merely sites for the learning of academic subjects but
places where learners are also educated about the possibilities and limi-
tations of sexual identities and expression (DePalma & Atkinson, 2006;
Epstein & Johnson, 1998; Jones, Gray, & Harris, 2014). Schools are places
where young people and their teachers do a great deal of work on the con-
struction of their identities in a whole range of ways, notably, around issues
of sexuality which is intimately connected with struggles around gender
(Epstein, 1997; McArthur, 2015; Pattman, 2005; Unterhalter, Epstein,
Morrell, & Moletsane, 2004). In South Africa, approximately 10 % of
young people across race, gender, class, and religion, experience same-sex
attraction with most discovering their attractions around puberty (Francis,
2012; Richardson, 2008a). Despite LGBT youth coming out at younger
ages, schools have not responded accordingly, leaving many young people
isolated and at risk of violence and harassment (Francis, 2012; Francis &
Msibi, 2011; Richardson, 2004, 2008a). In most South African schools,
LGBT youth find it immensely difficult to assert their rights, and this,
in turn, limits their ability to affirm their identity or to feel a sense of
belonging (Kowen & Davis, 2006). Furthermore, the cultural positioning
of homosexuality as deviant and immoral separates LGB people from het-
erosexuals, making homosexuals invisible when it comes to the sexuality
education curriculum (DePalma & Francis, 2014; Francis, 2012; Francis
& Msibi, 2011; Msibi, 2012; Richardson, 2008b, 2009). For youth
who identify as LGBT, this means they usually grow up without teach-
8 D.A. FRANCIS
ing and learning about their sexual orientation (Bhana, 2012a; Francis,
2012; Kowen & Davis, 2006; Richardson, 2008b). The resulting mes-
sage is that homosexuality and bisexuality are something to be hidden and
kept separate from teaching, learning, and daily school life. The effect of
this invisibility of LGB youth means that they become isolated, further
marginalized, and vulnerable to prejudice and attack. Their heterosexual
peers, on the other hand, have the support of the dominant sexual culture
within and outside the school and are at risk of creating meaning around
same-sex attraction that is based on stereotypes and prejudice (Griffin &
Ouellet, 2003; Harper, Brodsky, & Bruce, 2012; Jones, 2009; Kosciw,
Gretak, Bartkiewicz, Boesen, & Palmer, 2012). There is a great deal
known about the ways in which gender and schooling connect (Bhana,
2002, 2009; Moletsane, Morrell, Unterhalter, & Epstein, 2002; Shefer,
2015; Unterhalter et al., 2004), though, as the findings in my work show
much remains to be learned about how gender, sexuality, and schooling
intersect. In recent years, the voices and experiences of non-heterosexuals
have been recognized as legitimate issues for research. However what dis-
tinguishes the growing body of LGB educational research from that con-
ducted around the needs of other marginalized groups is the relatively
small number of LGBT studies that are conducted within the school set-
ting (Donelson & Rogers, 2004, p. 128).
My book, aptly named Troubling the Teaching and Learning of Gender
and Sexuality Diversity in South African Education describes exactly what
the title suggests. It troubles. Troubling is used with intent to open up
the silence on how heterosexuality is policed, normalized and made com-
pulsory in schools. I use troubling because it acknowledges the social
construction of gender, sexuality and identity (Kumashiro, 2001, 2002)
and offers a critical lens to disrupt heterosexist assumptions at the indi-
vidual, institutional and societal levels. Troubling, while threateningly
broad, disrupts the teaching and learning about non-heterosexuality within
the LO curriculum. It seeks to disturb the illusion that the curriculum is
non-sexualized, value neutral, impartial and therefore above reproach.
Troubling offers the opportunity to look locally and contextually, using
global and local theories to make sense of and, where necessary, take action.
Troubling how gender and sexuality diversity is dealt with in schools can
provide vital information in addressing heterosexism and heteronormativity
in schools. Like Kumashiro (2002, p. 9), I use troubling to question what it
means to “teach in ways that challenge the different forms of oppression…
what it means to address our resistances to discomforting knowledge, and
INTRODUCTION 9
what it means to put uncertainties and crisis at the center of the learning
process.” For Kumashiro bringing about social change requires “disrup-
tive knowledge, not simply more knowledge” (2002, p. 42). This disrup-
tive knowledge, however, “is not an end in itself, but a means towards
the always-shifting goal of learning more” (Kumashiro, 2002, p. 43).
Troubling moves us beyond understanding education as a rote-learning
assembly line to troubling the assumptions about non-heterosexuality,
what and how we have learned so that we are in a position to unlearn mis-
information and ignorance. Troubling also implies that teachers must move
beyond their preconceived notions of what it means to teach and learners
must move beyond their current conceptions of what it means to learn
(Kumashiro, 2001, p. 9). Similar questions about the intersection of race,
gender, religion, class, and ability require troubling or analysis. Troubling
also extends methodologically through troubling the research assumptions
and its implications for the research and its findings (Willigg, 2001).
I examine whether teachers teach about gender and sexual diversity, if
they do, what do they teach, how do they teach and if they do not, what
hinders them? I question the forms of knowledge teachers create that frame
youth who identify as LGBT. It is important that my research is not leveled
at bad teachers or teaching but at how teaching, curriculum, educational
policy, and the professional development of teachers are a symptom of sys-
temic heterosexism. Additionally, I look at young people in secondary-school
environments and ask the following questions: How do young people who
identify as LGB experience the teaching of gender and sexual diversity? How
do they feel that questions of gender and sexual diversity are dealt with in
the curriculum and do they find the content useful? I use Jennifer Bryans
(2012, p. xxi) construct of gender and sexuality diversity which describes
the continuum of biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual
orientation sexual behavior, and sexual identity. It is a useful construct as it is
broader, inclusive and recognizes the centrality of gender and sexuality in all
human beings. Most importantly there is an emphasis that our gender and
sexuality identity is inherently diverse (Bryan, 2012, p. 1).
Overall, the book is an analysis of how the teaching of gender and
sexual diversity happens in South African (SA) schools. What is the view
of how sexuality diversity is engaged with; what knowledge frameworks
are presented, and how is it presented; what are the roles and subjectivi-
ties for LGB learners; what are the networks and technologies available to
LGB youth; what pedagogical strategies are promoted or hindered; whose
concerns are privileged in practice, and how? The goal is to address these
10 D.A. FRANCIS
questions. My book problematizes some of the prevailing assumptions

that frame this area of study and reveals how the teaching of gender and
sexuality diversity happens. In doing so, I aim to make visible the chal-
lenges of teaching gender and sexuality diversity in South African schools
while highlighting its potential for rethinking our conceptions of the social
and cultural representations thereof. I would like to be clear that I am not
assuming that there is no effective teaching on sexuality diversity in South
Africa. As Hugo and Wedekind (2013, p. 151) remind us, in South Africa
and throughout the developing world, effective and committed teaching
can be found, but it is erratic, and the possibility that no effective teaching
and learning is happening in a developing context has to be squared up to
as a real possibility. It is with these assumptions that I have interviewed 33
LO teachers teaching sexuality education and 19 LGB youth.
LO comprises a number of components that include guidance, life-skills
education, health promotion, physical development and movement, envi-
ronmental education, citizenship and human rights education, sexuality edu-
cation, and religious education (Baxen, 2008; Francis, 2010). Bringing these
diverse fields under the umbrella of LO has meant that in many South African
schools a whole range of skills and qualifications are attached to teaching this
learning area (Francis, 2010; Francis & DePalma, 2015; Helleve, Flisher,
Onya, Mũkoma, & Klepp, 2011; Helleve, Flisher, Onya, Mũkoma, & Klepp,
2009). While acknowledging that teachers are critical to bringing about
change, in including gender and sexual diversity in the curriculum and chal-
lenging heterosexism and heteronormativity, it has to be mentioned that in
South Africa, teacher non-engagement with gender and sexual diversity can,
in part, be attributed to the lack of pre-service and in-service teacher pro-
grams (Bhana, 2012b; DePalma & Francis, 2014; Francis, 2012; Johnson,
2014; Msibi, 2012). As Rooth (2005) sums up, LO teachers in most South
African schools lack uniformity of training and come from a diverse range of
fields that do not always adequately equip them to deliver sexuality educa-
tion confidently and effectively. So, sexuality education as such does not exist
as a separate subject. Schools and teachers are given a considerable amount
of responsibility and autonomy in respect of the implementation of the LO
sexuality education program, which means that understanding of youth’s
needs and the approach to teaching it vary considerably.
In answering the above questions, I draw on interviews with 33 LO
teachers and 19 LGBT learners. Data from classroom observations of sex-
uality education, part of the LO curriculum, are also used where they are
relevant. I am aware that LGBT identities and sexualities are frequently
INTRODUCTION 11
and erroneously conflated with sexuality education. To approach LGBT

issues through the framework of sexuality education may seem heterosex-
ist in that it equates LGBT identities and sexualities solely with sex. Some
argue that to continue to do this may suggest that lesbian, gay, and bisex-
ual issues are being “kept in the sex education closet” (Petrovic & Rosiek,
2003, p. 165) or as Irvine (1997, p. 580) puts it “ghettoized in ancillary
health education.” I respect that argument and acknowledge the possible
pitfalls of using the “sex education” space to talk about homosexuality, as
this sexualizes homosexuality in ways, which could be problematic. Yet,
given the high levels of heterosexism in schools (Bhana, 2012b; Butler,
Alpaslan, Allen, & Astbury, 2003; Deacon, Morrell, & Prinsloo, 1999;
Francis & Msibi, 2011) and the general lack of addressing gender and
sexual diversity, there is a beacon light that homosexuality and bisexuality
would be covered in LO, specifically in the sexuality education component
(Department of Basic Education, 2011; Department of Education, 2002,
2006). Sexuality Diversity is an important topic to be explored in its own
right as a social-justice endeavor caught up in the human services.
Understanding the social aspects of the teaching and learning of gen-
der and sexuality diversity is one of the most rapidly expanding fields of
research internationally (Allan, Atkinson, Brace, DePalma, & Hemingway,
2008; DePalma & Atkinson, 2009; Jones, 2013; Martino, 1999). Over the
last decade, gender and sexual diversity in education has been researched
almost exclusively in Western contexts, with such projects conducted
by disparate, relatively unconnected researchers and non-government
organizations—notable examples include USA’s GLSEN (Kosciw et al.,
2012), the UK’s No outsider’s Project (DePalma & Atkinson, 2009) and
Australian researcher Tiffany Jones (Jones, 2009, 2013; Jones et al., 2014).
In non-Western contexts, advocacy around gender and sexuality diversity
in education has been characterized either by silence, particularly in those
parts of the Middle East and Africa where same-sex relationships have
been criminalized, or by specific nuances emanating from difficult cul-
tural contexts (Epprecht, 2013; Nyeck & Epprecht, 2013; Habib, 2007;
Mumtaz, McFarland, Kaplan, & Akala, 2011; Tamale, 2008; Tapfumanei,
2006). Within the South African context, there are edited collections on
LGBT identities and sexualities and same-sex marriages (see Gevisser &
Cameron, 1995; Hoad, Martin, & Reid, 2005; Judge, Manion, & De
Waal, 2008; Manion & Morgan, 2006 for example). These edited collec-
tions tell how South Africa came to lead the world in enshrining sexual
equality in our Bill of Rights, which forms part of the Constitution. These
12 D.A. FRANCIS
volumes draw upon the rich archive of the Gay and Lesbian Association
and incorporate first-hand documents from the time as well as essays by
participants in the events and later commentators. A gap in the South
African and the developing-world context are books that focus specifically
on gender and sexuality diversity in education. Again, there are edited
books (Steyn & van Zyl, 2009; Francis, 2011, 2014; Mitchell & Pithouse,
2009; Moletsane, Mitchell, & Smith, 2012) that focus on education, sex-
uality, gender, identity studies, and HIV/AIDS as central themes and with
minimal referential chapters on gender and sexuality diversity in education.
In recent years, the voices and experiences of non-heterosexuals have
been recognized as legitimate issues for research. However what distin-
guishes the growing body of LGB educational research from that con-
ducted around the needs of other marginalized groups is the relatively
small number of LGB studies that are conducted within the school setting.
(Donelson & Rogers, 2004, p. 128) Schools are not merely sites for the
learning of academic subjects but places where learners are also educated
about the possibilities and limitations of sexual identities and expression
(DePalma & Atkinson, 2009; Epstein & Johnson, 1998; Francis, 2012;
Jones et al., 2014). Structurally, heterosexism and heteronormativity inform
institution such as schools practices and policies. Reciprocally, schools as
institutions constitute, reinforce, and perpetuate heterosexism and are at
least partially responsible for the production and reproduction of sexual
inequalities (Epstein & Johnson, 1998; Ferfolja, 2007; Rich, 2004). They
are also complex configurations of religious, cultural, economic, political,
judicial, and epistemological relations of power that mirror heterosexism
where learners are socialized into socially desirable modes of behavior and
forms of knowledge before being introduced into society. Accordingly,
schools are designed to award privileges and benefits to members of the
dominant group (heterosexuals) at the expense of members of the margin-
alized group, persons who are LGBT. Heterosexist and heteronormative
teacher practices and pedagogies and the curriculum normalize and consti-
tute heterosexuality as the dominant and only legitimate sexuality (Epstein
& Johnson, 1998; Ferfolja, 2007; Rich, 2004). An important consider-
ation is whether educators understand heterosexism and heteronormativ-
ity as interconnected individually, institutionally, and societally as this will
determine the content and pedagogies they will use. Heteronormativity, or
the organizational structures in schools that support heterosexuality as nor-
mal and anything else as deviant (Donelson & Rogers, 2004) is maintained
not only in terms of what is said and done, but also in terms of what is left
out of the official discourse (DePalma & Atkinson, 2006, p. 334).
INTRODUCTION 13
My book is structured into three parts. The first part consists of Chaps.
1, 2, and 3 and presents the background and significance of research in
the area of the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity
and outlines the purposes of the book. Chapter 2 deals with Kumashiro’s
framework, which makes proposals for teaching, learning, and pedagogy
that is based on an analysis of oppression. Chapter 3 outlines the research
design. In Part II, consisting of Chaps. 4, 5, 6, and 7, I present an analysis
of the teachers and LGBT youths voices, which have been gathered from
classroom observations and interviews. Part III concludes the book.
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CHAPTER 2
Troubling Anti-Oppressive Education
Drawing on critical theory and post-structural perspectives, Kumashiro

(2000, 2002), provides a useful framework for issues of pedagogy and the
implications for teaching and learning. Kumashiro condenses research on
anti-oppressive education and concludes that researchers have engaged in
two types of writing projects: understanding the dynamics of oppression
and articulating ways to work against it (2000, p. 25). A significant quan-
tity of the literature and research Kumashiro draws on is from the US or
Europe with very little or no reference to writings from the majority world
or developing world context. Thabo Msibi’s (2014) and Sylvia Tamale’
(2011), calls for an evaluation of such frameworks and have started exca-
vating space in African academia for new approaches. Tamale (2011, p. 3)
writes:
Western scholars have thus far conducted the bulk of studies on sexuali-
ties and a big chunk of what has been published on the African continent
emanates from South Africa. This phenomenon has more to do with geo-
political power differentials than academic superiority. The dominance of
Western theories and perspectives on sexuality studies and the fact that the
main languages of academia are colonial have serious implications for rapidly
growing sexualities scholarship on the continent.
I am broadly in agreement with Tamale (2011) and Msibi’s (2014) call

for more African perspectives on sexuality. Yet, I am drawn to Kumashiro’s

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1_2
20 D.A. FRANCIS
(1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2010, 2010) framing of anti-oppressive educa-

tion for the potential it holds, as a critical approach, to trouble what is con-
stituted as normative or normal and specifically how gender and sexuality
are constituted in South Africa. Anti-oppressive education work in South
Africa is indebted to global developments of knowledge in the field of
gender, and sexualities and those include theories, research and concepts
from the developed, urban and industrial north (Connell, 2007; Epstein
& Morrell, 2012). In fact, there are clear parallels between Kumashiro’s
and South African researchers (Francis, 2013; Francis & Msibi, 2011;
Msibi, 2015, 2016; Reygan & Francis, 2015; Richardson, 2004) work
on how anti-heterosexism education has been conceptualized. In one
instance, there is also collaboration, between Kevin Kumashiro and Eric
Richardson exploring and drawing on such similarities (Kumashiro, Baber,
Richardson, Ricker-Wilson, & Wong, 2004). At the same time, using
micro understanding and context-specific data generated in the global
south, researchers have the responsibility to reimagine and trouble theory
developed in the North.
Kumashiro conceptualizes four approaches within the broad descrip-
tion of anti-oppressive education. Kumashiro (2001, p. 3) uses “other” to
denote “groups that are traditionally marginalized in society, that is, that
are other than the norm.” He examines their implications for schools and
provides ideas on strengths and weaknesses of each. He presents a com-
prehensive overview that is a useful framework for thinking about how
we conceptualize the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity. To make
the connections between theory and context, I have located the South
African educational research on gender and sexuality diversity in relation
to Kumashiro’s four approaches to anti-oppressive education. I have done
this to map the South African literature and to provide a rich analysis on
non-heterosexuality and schooling. Such an approach also enables me to
address, Thabo Msibi’s (2014) and Sylvia Tamales’ (2011) calls for the
need for more local voices on same-sex desire in South Africa and to place
these in tandem with Kumashiro’s four approaches.
The first approach, “Education for the Other” focuses on and targets
improving the experiences of learners who are in some way oppressed,
subordinated or othered, such as LGBT students (Kumashiro, 2000,
p. 26). It describes the corpus of research that indicates visibly harmful
ways in which schools marginalize LGBT youth. The research provides
TROUBLING ANTI-OPPRESSIVE EDUCATION 21
insight on the pervasive homophobia experienced by gender and sexual

minorities in school settings, which had a detrimental effect on their psy-
chosocial development, classroom experience, and education (Butler,
Alpaslan, Allen, & Astbury, 2003; Human Rights Watch, 2011; Kowen
& Davis, 2006; Msibi, 2012; Wells & Polders, 2006). Butler, Alpaslan,
Strümpher and Astbury (2003), for example, reported that the 18 lesbian
and gay youth experienced “discrimination, isolation, and non-tolerance”
within their school contexts. Wells and Polders (2006) highlight that vic-
timization on the basis of sexual orientation was widespread and included
verbal and physical abuse and rape (Wells & Polders, 2006). Research
has shown that the harm results from inactions by educators and school
administrators (Bhana, 2012; Butler & Astbury, 2008; Msibi, 2012; Wells
& Polders, 2006) and even school managers (Bhana, 2014). A second way
that researchers have described how marginalized groups are harmfully
targeted is by looking at the prejudices that influence how students treat
learners who are other (Kumashiro, 2000, p. 27). Msibi (2012) writes
about teachers as being central in spreading the idea that homosexuality is
contagious, and therefore “straight” learners were seen as being in danger
of being “infected” by LGBT learners. One of the participants in Msibi’s
study noted: “I was at school, and Mrs. Nhleko called me to the staff-
room. She started shouting at me and was telling me to stop acting like a
boy. She said I need to stop this lesbian thing because I will start making
other learners like me…” (Msibi, 2012, p. 524).
In the first approach, researchers show that schools are harmful to
LGBT learners who face heterosexist prejudice and discrimination. They
seek to add content about the other to the school curriculum to address
incomplete and inaccurate knowledge, myths, and stereotypes (Bhana,
2012, 2014; Butler & Astbury, 2008; Msibi, 2012; Reygan & Francis,
2015). Kumashiro (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002) tracks the researcher argu-
ments that schools need to be and provide helpful spaces for subordinated
learners through the provision of separate spaces where they can access
help, support, advocacy, and resources. In his analysis, Kumashiro (2000,
2002), concludes that the strength of this approach is that it calls educa-
tors to recognize that there is great diversity among the learner popula-
tion, and, more importantly, that those students who are marginalized
and harmed by various forms of oppression in schools. Kumashiro lists
three limitations with this approach: First, educators cannot focus only
22 D.A. FRANCIS
on the treatment of the other, and ignore other ways in which oppression
plays out in schools; second, by conceptualizing oppression in terms of
the marginalization of the other (and not in terms of the privileging of the
“normal”), and by focusing predominantly on the negative experiences of
the other in schools, this approach implies that the other is the problem,
and third, it implies that without the other, schools would not be oppres-
sive places (Kumashiro, 2000, pp. 28–29). As an approach “Education for
the other” simplistically describes what heterosexual educators and learn-
ers do to LGBT learners. Heterosexism is broader than the individualis-
tic and interpersonal dynamics and “Education for the Other” ignores
the structural forces fueled by social power and privilege. For Kumashiro
(2000) disrupting or troubling heterosexism requires more than prevent-
ing harmful interpersonal interactions and in helping only the other.
The second approach Kumashiro (2000, 2002) names is research that
describes “Education about the other”. Switching the gaze from the school
environment to the school curriculum, researchers have attempted to expose
oppression by zooming in on what all learners—dominant and subordi-
nate—know and should know about the other. Within “Education about
the other”, Kumashiro identifies two kinds of knowledge that researchers
highlight that can lead to the harm of the other. The first kind of knowledge
is the knowledge about what society defines as normal and what is norma-
tive. For example, in Bhana’s (2012, p. 312) study, one of the teachers
talks about LGB youth: “… they need to be taught how to behave. … Why
can’t they behave normally on the outside … They exaggerate even when
they talk, they shout … They do things that will make you notice them
… they must just live their lives and stop seeking other people’s attention
…” Bhana explains the use of “normally” meaning acceptable heterosexual
conduct, dress, and behavior. Similarly, Potgieter and Reygan (2012) and
Wilmot and Naidoo (2014), using a content analysis of grade 10 LO text-
books, report the dominance of heterosexual references and illustrations on
the content of dating, marriage, safe sex, family and life roles, and respon-
sibilities. Wilmot and Naidoo (2014) argue that classroom discussions of
family, dating, sexual practice, safe sex, and marriage assume heterosexuality
as the norm and thus achieve compulsory heterosexuality. Both Potgieter
and Reygan (2012) and Wilmot and Naidoo’s (2014) research point to the
normalization of heterosexuality through the exclusion of LGB sexualities
in textbooks and, therefore, classrooms. The second kind of knowledge is
about the other but encourages a distorted and misleading understanding
of the other that is based on stereotypes and myths (Kumashiro, 2000).
The research abounds describing how when teaching and learning about
sexual orientation that takes place in schools non-heterosexuality is often
excluded (DePalma & Francis, 2014b; Francis, 2012), portrayed in a nega-
tive light (Francis & Msibi, 2011; Richardson, 2004, 2008), or laden with
oppressive stereotypes and misinformation (Francis, 2012, 2013; Francis
& Msibi, 2011; Richardson, 2008, 2009). The research also talks about
teachers who don’t want to consider the lives of LGB youth because of
deep-rooted beliefs about homosexuality being unAfrican (Francis &
Msibi, 2011; Richardson, 2009; Sigamoney & Epprecht, 2013), sinful
(Bhana, 2012; Francis, 2012, 2013; Msibi, 2011; Richardson, 2004), and
unnatural (DePalma & Francis, 2014b; Francis & Msibi, 2011; Kowen
& Davis, 2006; Msibi, 2011; Richardson, 2004). Across the spectrum of
empirical research on how teachers addressed homophobia or taught about
sexual orientation, teachers often viewed homosexuality as deviant, sinful,
or immoral and are reticent to deal with this issue in their classroom due to
cultural and religious opinions (Bhana, 2012; Deacon, Morrell, & Prinsloo,
1999; Francis & Msibi, 2011; Richardson, 2004). For example, in Francis’s
(2012) study with secondary teachers, teachers’ personal religious beliefs
and values strongly influenced their approach to dealing with homosexual-
ity. In some instances, it became apparent that teachers’ prejudices and mis-
conceptions had never been confronted and thus were being disseminated
in class. Religion was a dominant means through which same-sex sexuality
is constructed as not only marginal but also actively regarded as wrong or
sinful. One of the teachers in Bhana’s (2012) study referred to homosexu-
ality as “Sodom and Gomorrah”, and another in Francis’s (2012) study
mentioned that “God made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve.” By
and large, LGBT youth are denigrated as sinners accused of being unAfri-
can and less than human. As Kumashiro (2002) tells, the knowledge about
non-heterosexuality is incomplete and biased.
Drawing on research on “education about the other”, researchers
make two recommendations. First that curriculum needs to include spe-
cific units on the other as Bhana (2012, p. 317) explains: “teachers must
address sexuality so that learners can engage with issues that include the
rights of gays and lesbians and homophobic violence, and are equipped
with the skills and knowledge to do so.” Second, teaching about the other
is to integrate otherness throughout the curriculum. DePalma and Francis
(2014b, p. 1706), for example, call for the inclusion of LGBT experiences
in the curriculum to provide more visibility of non-heterosexuality. They
argue that subject areas, such as history and literature, might be broad-
24 D.A. FRANCIS
ened to include LGBT contributions and struggles, the most obvious

place for inclusion would be within the LO curriculum.
The approaches’ usefulness is that it calls educators to bring visibil-
ity to valuing and enriching their learner’s understandings of difference.
Through representing LGB people as normal or non-heterosexuality as
normative, the approach attempts to normalize differences and otherness.
Like the first “Education for the other,” the second “education about the
other” is not without its limitations. First, feelings or intention do not
necessarily translate into behavior or action, second, the approach leaves
the self- other binary intact, and allows the self (the normative identities)
to remain privileged and third, teaching about the other does not force the
dominant or privileged group learners students to acknowledge and work
against their privileges or dominant status (Kumashiro, 2000, pp. 33–35).
Both the first and second approaches address the invisibility, silence, ste-
reotypes, victimization, violence, and misinformation about LGB people
(Bhana, 2012; DePalma & Francis, 2013, 2014b; Potgieter & Reygan,
2012; Richardson, 2004; Wilmot & Naidoo, 2014). Although these
research studies are necessary and important as they highlight the plight of
LGB youth, they do not address the systemic nature of heterosexism that
privileges and advantages heterosexuals. As Kumashiro explains, approaches
that address normalcy and the normalization of heterosexuals and work
against privileging of gender and sexuality minorities is what is needed.
“Education that is Critical of Privileging and Othering” is the third
approach. Comprehending how oppression manifests within schools
requires an understanding of the relationship between schools, other social
institutions, and cultural constructs (DePalma & Francis, 2014a; McArthur,
2015; Reygan & Francis, 2015). For example, McArthur (2015) in his
briefing on learner voices on how to combat the problem of homopho-
bic violence in South African schools, explains that the actions of agents
of homophobic violence are less about othering boys considered homo-
sexual than it is about asserting their power and dominance in a particular
context. McArthur (2015) attributes homophobic violence in his research
context attributed to troubled masculinities—who are not performing aca-
demically, who are constructed as troublesome and, as failures—struggling
to maintain their hegemony in schools. McArthur calls for a conceptual
framing of homophobic violence that takes into account the nuances of
both how and why young masculinities are complicit in homophobia, as
well as reflecting on the lived experiences of those on the receiving end of
such violence (McArthur, 2015, p. 3). We need to deepen the theoretical
grasp of heterosexism if education is to be effective in addressing social

inequality in the area of gender and sexuality. Francis and Msibi (2011,
p. 164) in processing how people come to learn heterosexist stereotypes,
tracked how easy it was for participants to generate derogatory lists of
stereotypes and labels and the widespread use of these words in schools.
One student offered that the name-calling was not meant to harm but was
done in a frivolous sort of way. Francis and Msibi (2011) highlight that
such “frivolous” acts entrench heterosexism and pathologize homosexual-
ity; they also marginalize “deviant” groups resulting in the internalization
of homophobia and the silencing of those who identify as LGB. What gives
force to such negative labels is that they become so ingrained, that they
are seen as incontestable and normal. Francis and DePalma (2015), for
example, connect tacit heteronormativity as a consequence of structural
sexism. They argue that the teaching of sexuality education must take into
account how gender relations, for example, are reproduced individually,
institutionally, and societally and how these three levels inform each other.
Understanding heterosexism, therefore, requires an examination of the
structural forces and moving beyond a simplistic description of what het-
erosexuals do to LGBT people. Unlike the “Education for the other” and
“Education about the other”, “Education that is critical of privileging and
other” does not maintain that working against harmful forms of partial
knowledge involves only learning more about the other. What is different
from the first two approaches, is that “Education about the other” in addi-
tion to explaining oppression as dynamic in which certain ways of being or
having certain identifications are privileged in society while others are mar-
ginalized makes explicit how the social order is reproduced, legitimized,
and made common sense (Kumashiro, 2002, p. 37).
Examples of this third approach can be seen in Francis and Msibi
(2011), Msibi (2015), Richardson (Kumashiro et al., 2004; Richardson,
2004, 2008) and Francis (2013) who all use participatory approaches to
tackle the challenges South African society presents to the teaching of
anti-heterosexism. In an article that describes the teaching of sexual and
gender diversity issues to pre-service teachers Msibi (2015, p. 385) reports
that in addition to the heightened awareness of same-sex terminology and
issues the students gained on the course, he “highlights the possibilities
that anti-oppressive pedagogy offers to teacher educators in teaching for
diversity and social change.” The pull or appeal of the third approach is
that it calls educators not only to educate about oppression but to try to
change society as well.
26 D.A. FRANCIS
Like the first two approaches, “Education that is critical of privileging

and other” is not without faults and Kumashiro names three. First, the
notion that oppression is structural in nature implies that oppression has
the same general effect on people. A framework that allows for a more sit-
uated understanding of LGB youth’s diverse patterns of group identifica-
tion and how these are variably determined by disadvantage and privilege
depending on where and how individuals are socially positioned. There
needs to be sensitivity to the unique and diverse issues and challenges
faced by LGB youth to make critical teaching, learning, and support con-
nections. Second, there is a problem with understanding that the goals
of “consciousness-raising” and “empowerment” dramatically and auto-
matically lead to behavior change or social action (Campbell & MacPhail,
2002; Francis, 2013). For example, Francis (Francis, 2013, p. 11) argues
that participatory pedagogies such as Forum Theatre that embody criti-
cal consciousness, can be a useful construct to challenge heterosexism,
but it is not in itself liberatory, as the issues of socialization, privilege,
and context cannot simply be bypassed. Third, the commitment of
consciousness-raising puts into play a modernist and rationalist approach
to challenging oppression that is harmful to students who are traditionally
marginalized in society (Kumashiro, 2000, p. 39). Francis and DePalma
(2015, pp. 36–37), for example, weave into their analysis the concern of
consciousness-raising and highlight the potential negative consequences
for learners to go back to patriarchal homes with feminist insights. Francis
and DePalma (2015) question what happens to those learners when they
challenge their fathers or others with similar social power? Clearly critical
theory has some worthwhile goals, but as Kumashiro (2000, p. 40) argues
if used uncritically, it can be harmful.
In the fourth approach, “Education that changes students and soci-
ety”, Kumashiro (2000, 2001, p. 11; 2002) draws on “posts” perspectives
on anti-oppressive teaching suggesting approaches to troubling our own
practices and imagining different possibilities for teaching and learning.
Kumashiro (2001, p. 11) maintains “by urging us to look beyond the
repetition of commonsense and tradition that often helps perpetuate mul-
tiple forms of oppression in schools and society;” they can offer “insights
that can help improve the educational experiences of all our students.”
Kumashiro (2000, p. 40) describes how oppression originates in discourse,
and, in particular, the citing of particular discourses, which frame how peo-
ple think, feel, act, and interact. Kumashiro draws attention to how oppres-
sion permeates society including ways that are not so clear and overt. The
crucial role of language and how it informs practices that boost oppres-
sive realities are emphasized. Drawing on marginalized theories like post-
structuralism, it seeks to challenge what is normative or normal and situate
learners to act to challenge oppression (Kumashiro, 2002, pp. 31–37). For
Kumashiro (2002, p. 39) anti-oppressive pedagogy must strive for under-
standing the “effect by having students engage with relevant aspects of
critical theory and extend its terms of analysis to their own lives, but then
critique it for what it overlooks” and for what it forecloses, what its “says
and makes possible as well as what it leaves unsaid and unthinkable.” There
are three studies in South Africa that attempt to examine queer teach-
ings and the learning of sexuality diversity. In an article that examines the
ways in which school managers negotiate and contest the rights of lesbians
and gays at school, Bhana (2014, p. 14) draws on queer theory recogniz-
ing it as an analytical framework to understand “relations of heterosexual
domination and subordination as well as the material and social realities
through which such relations are produced.” Bhana explains its value as a
framework to uncover heterosexual discourses and subordination of sexual
others. Wilmot and Naidoo (2014, p. 325) in examining the representa-
tion of sexualities in life-orientation textbooks, too, draw on queer theory
to disrupt underlying heteronormativity by stripping away the illusion
that the curriculum is neutral and non-sexualized. Finally, Msibi (2012,
p. 516) uses queer theory as it “counters dominant African narratives that
construct queer individuals as simply powerless, disgraced, and in need of
empowerment.” It seeks to demonstrate ways in which these learners resist
and challenge homophobia. While Bhana (2014), Wilmot and Naidoo
(2014), and Msibi (2012) draw intermittently on queer theory, they do
not use it in ways to suggest different methods of thinking about what it
means to bring about change. Educational research, in South Africa, has
yet to yield examples of educators making use of these “posts” perspectives
and insights to raise awareness for social change in schools.
In sum, Kumashiro makes proposals for teaching, learning, and peda-
gogy that are based on an analysis of oppression and describes in depth
four approaches that are possible within the broad description of anti-
oppressive education. The very idea of anti-oppressive education is the
recognition that some groups, such as LGB learners and teachers, for
example, experience substantive injustices due to the unaware injustices,
attitudes, and behaviors of well-meaning, learners, teachers, and school
leaders. Broadening the ways we conceptualize the dynamics of oppression,
the processes of teaching and learning, and even the purposes of school-
28 D.A. FRANCIS
ing are necessary when working against the many forms of social oppres-
sion that play out in the lives of learners. For Kumashiro, there is a deep
commitment to changing how we think about education, from curriculum
and pedagogy, to school culture and activities, to institutional structure
and policies. Teachers are positioned to prepare learners and their com-
munities for participation in an anti-oppressive society that includes iden-
tifying the barriers to their oppression, to their freedom, and then to act
against those barriers and change the context they reside in. In positioning
teachers as agents Kumashiro (2000, 2001, 2004) calls for a critical analy-
sis of structure. Kumashiro’s work speaks directly to structural inequality
and addresses conditions of poverty and injustice. He makes proposals for
teaching, learning, and pedagogy that are based on an analysis of oppres-
sion and describes in depth four approaches that are possible within the
broad description of anti-oppressive education. Kumashiro posits that the
very notion of troubling education implies recognition that oppression
privileges some and marginalizes others. The very idea of anti-oppressive
education is the recognition that some groups, such as LGB learners and
teachers, for example, experience substantive injustices due to the unaware
injustices, attitudes, and behaviors of well-meaning, learners, teachers,
and school leaders. Broadening the ways we conceptualize the dynamics
of oppression, the processes of teaching and learning, and even the pur-
poses of schooling are necessary when working against the many forms of
social oppression that play out in the lives of learners. For Kumashiro, there
is a deep commitment to changing how we think about education, from
curriculum and pedagogy to school culture and activities, to institutional
structure and policies. Teachers are positioned to prepare learners and their
communities for participation in an anti-oppressive society that includes
identifying the barriers to their oppression, to their freedom, and then to
act against those barriers and change the context in which they reside.
Kumashiro’s framework together with various writings in South Africa
on sexuality diversity and education seems to be useful in explaining how
the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity education happens in
South Africa. Moreover, while I draw on this corpus of writings, it is not
my intention to bring the different bits and pieces together into a grand
theory. Rather, I enter each perspective or discourse through different sets
of spectacles. Kumashiro (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2010) makes
a whole lot of sense, and so I use his work, while remaining critical, and
similarly use the various South African writings that add a whole lot of
understanding and context.
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from teachers. South African Journal of Education, 32, 307–318.
Bhana, D. (2014). “Managing” the rights of gays and lesbians: Reflections from
some South African secondary schools. Education, Citizenship and Social
Justice. doi:10.1177/1746197913497663
Butler, A., & Astbury, G. (2008). The use of defence mechanisms as precursors to
coming out in post-apartheid South Africa: A gay and lesbian youth perspec-
tive. Journal of Homosexuality, 55(2), 223–244. doi:10.1080/009183608021
29485.
Campbell, C., & MacPhail, C. (2002). Peer education and the development of
critical consciousness: participatory HIV prevention by South African youth.
Social Science and Medicine, 55, 331–345.
Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory : The global dynamics of knowledge in social
science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
J. Sears (Eds.), A dangerous knowing: Sexuality, pedagogy and popular culture
DePalma, R., & Francis, D. (2014a). Silence, nostalgia, violence, poverty … :
What does “culture” mean for South African sexuality educators? Culture.
Health & Sexuality, 16(5), 547–561. doi:10.1080/13691058.2014.891050.
DePalma, R., & Francis, D. (2014b). South African life orientation teachers:
(Not) teaching about sexuality diversity. Journal of Homosexuality, 61(12),
1687–1711. doi:10.1080/00918369.2014.951256.
Epstein, D., & Morrell, R. (2012). Approaching southern theory: Explorations of
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doi:10.1080/09540253.2012.711036.
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Francis, D. (2013). “You know the homophobic stuff is not in me, like us, it’s out
there”. Using participatory theatre to challenge heterosexism and heteronor-
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Agenda, 20(67), 80–92. doi:10.1080/10130950.2006.9674701.
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27–42.
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teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 56–65.
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Kumashiro, K., Baber, S., Richardson, E., Ricker-Wilson, C., & Wong, P. (2004).
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Sigamoney, V., & Epprecht, M. (2013). Meanings of homosexuality, same-sex
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of sexualities in life orientation textbooks. Sex Education, 14(3), 323–337.
doi:10.1080/14681811.2014.896252.
CHAPTER 3
Troubling the Research
As researchers how we disclose our social identities, positions us in the

research process. Our situatedness, frames of reference, prior beliefs,
political commitments, values, experiences, interests, wider aims in life,
and social identities shape our research agenda (Francis, Muthukrishna, &
Ramsuran, 2006; Willigg, 2001). Such research positioning locates us as
researchers within the overarching social structures and our perception of
this positioning impacts upon data production (Allen, 2010). Reflecting
on this positioning, whether privileged or disadvantaged ensures that
researchers remain critically aware and trouble the power differentials
between oppressor and oppressed, dominant and subordinate, normative
and non-normative, and researcher and participants. In speaking and act-
ing from a particular position, researchers bring to the research process
their identities, history, and experience as they conceive it. I am a black
cisgendered man in a monogamous heterosexual relationship with a cis-
gendered woman, married and with two children. Many of these identities
give me access to privilege. However, is there a place for a cisgendered het-
erosexual man in gender and sexuality diversity research and what impact
would my social identities have on the research process and in produc-
ing anti-normative knowledge? Allen (2010) writes that that the issue of
“straight” researcher in queer scholarship is often couched in terms of
their right to this field, and what contribution if any, they could make
(Allen, 2010, p. 148). These are useful questions and ones I have grappled
with in my research and writing on gender and sexuality diversity.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1_3
34 D.A. FRANCIS
Louisa Allen (2010, pp. 148–149) considers “the epistemological

implications of straight researchers participation in queer scholarship” by
interrogating how one’s identity determines how one produces knowl-
edge. Appreciating the insider benefits of LGBT researchers working in
queer research, Allen (2010, p. 151) makes three points against the argu-
ment that there is an “assumed relationship between shared identity and
the generation of better knowledge”. First, a common element of identity
does not necessarily translate into shared understandings and empathy.
There may be some truth that LGB researchers may have a better repar-
tee and gain the trust and confidence of gender and sexuality minorities.
It is, however, all too easy for LGBT researchers to assume that there is
a shared fundamental similarity with LGBT participants when there are
also differences in the same way, which is true of heterosexual research-
ers, working with heterosexual participants. Wilcox (2012, pp. 32–33)
explains that:
[t]his consideration is especially relevant across the boundaries of religion,

ethnicity, gender, gender and gender history. Thus just as heterosexually-
identified, cisgender researcher would need to learn a great deal about
LGBTQ communities, both through reading and through involvement
with those communities, before launching a study, so too LGBTQ identified
researchers will be most successful if they learn about and experience (to the
best of their ability) the subcultures of their community before beginning
their work.
Catherine Geoffrion (2014, p. 2), too, contests the use of sexual orienta-
tion or identity and argues that “a participant with a same-sex partner
will not automatically identify with a researcher who identifies as gay or
lesbian. A male participant who has occasional sex with other men may be
happily married to a woman and identify as heterosexual but not necessar-
ily identify with a heterosexual (or bisexual) researcher”. A person’s sexual
identity is, therefore, not defined by their sexual activities. Second, Allen
(2010) argues that sexual and gender identities are a factor mediating
relationships between researcher and participants. The life worlds or iden-
tities of the researcher and participants are the sum of many parts, which
includes but is not limited to their gender and sexual orientations. Third,
Allen asks if identity is a perpetually moving target, that is repeatedly nego-
tiated and fluid, how can a relationship with knowledge be characterized
or even affirmed?
TROUBLING THE RESEARCH 35
It is possible that a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender researcher

may have framed my study differently, adopting a different research strat-
egy with a different set of questions. It is likely that a non-heterosexual
researcher may have recruited more diverse participants, developed differ-
ent relationships with them, elicited dissimilar responses, and produced
different findings. It is also probable that an LGBT researcher may have
shown more empathy, insight, and understanding. All we would have
ended with is a different research process and a different outcome, not a
truer or better one (Kumashiro, 2000, 2001, 2002). As Ferfolja (2007)
reminds us that there is an assumption that only those who identify as non-
heterosexual would show any interest in troubling heterosexism rather
than understanding how the heterosexual us/homosexual them binary
impacts on all individuals through heteronormative policing. The same
argument can be made for researching racism, sexism, or anti-oppressive
research. As a cisgendered male heterosexual researcher, all I can do is
trouble the pervasiveness and normalizing of heterosexuality as the domi-
nant and only sexuality and to remain reflexive throughout the research.
The research we generate, after all, is thoroughly and inevitably, embed-
ded in relations of power. Borrowing from Kumashiro (2002) there is a
need to learn and look beyond the research by troubling one’s dominance,
power, authority, and reading, and to refuse finality.
METHODOLOGY
My research draws on two and a half years of in-depth interviews and class-
room observation carried out in the Free State Province, the third larg-
est province in South Africa. A “… hot, parched country with a blazing
sun, drawn curtains, and a drooping eucalyptus”, is how J.R.R. Tolkien
described his early childhood memory of Bloemfontein (Humphrey &
Tolkien, 1955). This Free State city is sometimes poetically referred to as
“the city of roses” and forms part of the greater Mangaung, which means
“place of cheetahs” in Sesotho. It is a climate known for its extreme tem-
peratures with summer highs reaching up to 40 degrees Celsius and winter
lows dropping into minus temperatures (Weather South Africa, 2015).
Summer rains are usually sparse, and fierce winds in the late spring often
envelop the city in a blanket of dust. This is the harsh landscape that
Karel Schoeman (1986) metaphorically compares to death in his novel
“’n Ander Land” (Translated into English as Another Country). In this
“other country” one will find that the extreme contradictions extend
36 D.A. FRANCIS
beyond place names and climate into the lives and histories of the people
who live here.
The Free State is a site where the stories of many groups collide. The
evidence of early human dwellings can be seen in the Bushman rock art
found in the mountains and caves near Clarens, Bethlehem, Ficksburg,
Ladybrand, and Wepener (Advertorial Supplement, 2011). This land
looks deceptively empty, even today, but the history of this province tells
another tale. Between 1834 and 1840 an estimated 15,000 white Cape
Afrikaners (Boers) left the Cape Colony in tented wagons with their cat-
tle, their horses and their guns (Davenport, 1991, p. 46). The reason for
this large-scale exodus seems to be rooted in a desire to escape British
Colonial rule and was fueled by disagreements about land ownership and
the emancipation of slaves (Davenport, 1991, pp. 46–47). In Afrikaner
history, this is known as Die Groot Trek, and many of these Voortrekkers
were heading for the Thaba’Nchu-Vet River area of central Trans-Orange
(Davenport, 1991, p. 46). At this time, the Griqua were living in the
Philoppolis area, and the Baralong people were positioned in the vicin-
ity of Thaba’Nchu (Davenport, 1991, p. 74). The Voortrekkers soon
clashed with these groups and most notably the Basotho, a black nation
headed by Moshweshwe after Mfecane/Lifaqane. It can be described as
a time of high internal stress and conflict sometimes attributed to the
activities of Shaka Zulu, Mzilikazi of the Ndebele or the Thlokwa queen
MmaNthatsisi but was also likely to have been caused by the impact of the
ivory and slave trade from Delagoa Bay as well as the closure of the colo-
nial frontier (Davenport, 1991, pp. 12–17, 143). With the Bloemfontein
Convention of 1854 the Orange Free State became a Boer republic in
which citizenship was restricted to whites and only white males over 18
could vote (Davenport, 1991, pp. 74, 170–171). With the discovery of
diamonds, significantly the dry diggings at Du Toit’s Pan (the site of the
later Kimberly) (Davenport, 1991, p. 183) the tensions in the region only
intensified. The struggle for possession culminated in the Anglo-Boer War
(South African War of 1899–1902). During this war, one of the world’s
first concentration camps was situated outside Bloemfontein. An esti-
mated 26,370 women and children died in a single camp, with mortali-
ties peaking at 50 per day (Advertorial Supplement, 2011). Bloemfontein
later became the site of the Woman’s War Memorial, which was erected to
commemorate this war. After the war, the Orange Free State became the
Orange River Colony in 1910 and one of the provinces of the Union of
South Africa. A series of conflicts between those who wanted to continue in
allegiance to Britain and those who wished to sever all ties with the Crown
led to the birth of the National Party in Bloemfontein 1914 (Davenport,
1991, pp. 232–233). What followed was a period of Afrikaner nationalism
and rule, which gradually gave birth to Apartheid.
In 1880, the white population comprised 45.7 % of the Free State’s
total population. This figure has now fallen to below 10 % (Advertorial
Supplement, 2011). It is surprising then that for the most part, the
Free State retained an essentially White Afrikaner character for so long,
although often at the expense of others. In 1885, the ruling body called
the Volksraad restricted the trading rights of Indian traders and banned
their admission as residents in 1890 (Davenport, 1991, p. 75). In 1891,
the Statute Law of the Orange Free State was passed which prohibited
“an Arab, a Chinaman, a Coolie or any other Asiatic or Coloured person
from carrying on business or farming in the Orange Free State” (Bhana
& Bridglal, 1984; South African History Online, 2000). All Indian busi-
nesses were forced to close by 11 September 1891 and owners deported
from the Orange Free State without compensation. Indians and Chinese
were only allowed to settle and trade in the Free State almost a century
later when the law was lifted in 1985 (Handelman, 1985). “Similarly, the
Free State was the only part of South Africa where it became legally impos-
sible for a black person to become a landowner in his own right before
the Union. Ironically Bloemfontein was not only the birthplace of the
National Party but also the birthplace of the ANC. In 1912, at the South
African Native National Convention the African National Congress was
formed at the Wesleyan School, Waaihoek (Limb, 2010). Free State-born
Bram Fischer was part of the liberation movement by the ANC as he led
the defense team for the Rivonia accused after their arrest on 11 July 1963.
At this trial, eight accused, including Nelson Mandela, were found guilty
and sentenced to life imprisonment (Clingman, 1998). On 16 May 1977
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, then wife of Nelson Mandela, was banished
to a dusty Afrikaner-dominated town of Brandfort in the Free State (Du
Preez Bezdrop, 2000).
Despite the activities of the ANC in the region, the myth of the white
nation with an exclusive claim to rights survived remarkably in the Free
Sate, where at any given moment the black population was, at least, double
the white in size (Davenport, 1991). The town Orania is located just out-
side the Free State border in the Northern Cape. The town was established
in 1991 by Carel Boshoff, the son-in-law of apartheid architect, Hendrik
Verwoerd, who intended it as a site of Afrikaner self-determination (Fihlani,
38 D.A. FRANCIS
2014). Orania is an Afrikaner-only town, where only Afrikaans is spoken,

because of fears about “diluting culture”. The definition of Afrikaner, in
this case, refers to white Afrikaners only. In the Metropole of Mangaung,
you will find a cultural hub of a very different nature. Mangaung is also
where on 8 January 2014 the ANC celebrated their centenary with a cel-
ebration during which President Jacob Zuma lit a centenary flame at the
same Wesleyan church at midnight (Smith, 2011).
The segregated and conflicting history of the people of the Free State
is still evident in educational institutions. The Extension of University
Education Act (No. 45) of 1959 prohibited African, Coloured and Indian
students attending white universities, except with the special permission of
a cabinet minister (Bhana & Bridglal, 1984; South African History Online,
2000). The University of Free State was in all respects a white university
for the first 80 years of its existence, with the first black students only
being allowed to register as students during the 1980s (University of the
Free State, 2006). Although the demographic profile of the university was
fast changing at the turn of millennium, the campus residences were still
largely segregated. An attempt by UFS to integrate the residences resulted
in a fierce backlash from some students. Accordingly, “In February 2008,
a video made by four young white Afrikaner male students of the Reitz
Residence at UFS came into the public domain. It showed the students
forcing a group of elderly black workers (four women and one man) to eat
food into which one of the students had apparently urinated” (Soudien
et al., 2008). The Reitz incident at UFS, “became a reference for framing
the need for transformation in higher education” (Keet, 2014, p. 1). The
incident became a sort of watershed moment in the history of the UFS. In
2009, the UFS Council appointed a new Rector, who proposed a new
vision for the university, …which was partially about moving away from an
image of the UFS as a racist institution to the UFS as a place of reconcili-
ation (Keet, 2014, p. 4).
The racial tension in Free State education is still evident. An incident
occurred as recently as 2014 when two principals and a teacher in three
Free State schools were suspended amid allegations of racism. In one
school learners, alleged staff called them racist, derogatory, and belit-
tling names, such as “kaffirs, baboons, monkeys, and little black bitches”.
Learners also claimed teachers told them to go back to black schools in
townships as “they would never succeed in life and would end up like their
parents who worked in chain stores”. There were further allegations of
physical abuse and a racist wall display which showed Julius Malema next
to a picture of a baboon (SAPA, 2014).
More than 20 years after the fall of Apartheid the visible disparities still
exist between schools in this province. Unterhalter, Epstein, Morrel, and
Moletsane (2004) comment on the slow shifts, post-apartheid, and spe-
cifically on the class inequalities that remain in many areas. The disparity
can be seen in the dramatic differences between schools regarding num-
bers and level of training of teachers, quality of classrooms and equipment,
and the success of school leavers … There are marked differences in per-
formance at this level by the location of the school, so that state schools in
more affluent areas, or schools that enroll children or professional parents,
have dramatically different results from those in poor areas (Unterhalter
et al., 2004, p. 58).
At the formerly “white schools”, affluence remains untouched and is
evident in the immaculately kept and well-resourced grounds, the well-
groomed appearance of the learners, and the latest model of expensive cars
of the parents. This creates a sharp contrast to the dilapidated schools in
the same province, which were built on the inequality of the past and are
now facing up to present challenges. I have witnessed this disparity first
hand when visiting schools around the Free State. I once saw three fully-
grown boys sharing a single chair and I often saw students with bare feet in
temperatures of minus five-degree Celsius. At one school I had to ask for
some newspaper to remove the shards of glass of a broken window, which
the teacher and learners seemed not to notice. Classroom realities such as
“overcrowding and large numbers, lack of adequate furniture, discipline
problems and a mix of old and young learners in the same grade presented
further challenges to effective sexuality teaching” (Francis, 2011).
As in other parts of South Africa the complexities of the educational
system, extend beyond the boundaries of race and class into gender and
sexual orientation. For example, in January 2013 the Creare Christian
academy in Bloemfontein claimed that it could “cure” lesbian and gays
students; a notion that was outlined in the school’s prospectus on rela-
tionship etiquette. Despite many changes in recent years, education in the
Free State remains firmly influenced by its original Afrikaner and Christian
roots. Looking back in history the origins of these sentiments can be traced
back more than 150 years where education in the province grew out of a
“seminary” or theological school established by Sir George Grey in 1855.
For example, during my deanship my line manager once summoned me to
an urgent meeting because someone from the local newspaper had taken
a photograph that showed me with a group of transgender women at a
party. The concern was that the image would bring disrepute to the faculty
40 D.A. FRANCIS
of education, which perhaps highlights how gender and sexuality are still
policed in this heteronormative context.
Within schools, Sexuality Education is integrated into the LO curricu-
lum mainly under the heading of Personal Well-being, which is designed
to account for 17 %, or 11 out of the 66 LO contact hours, prescribed for
Grades 10 and 11 for the academic year (Department of Education, 2011,
p. 9). However, based on the teachers’ responses, the time allocated to
Sexuality Education varied, and individual schools had their own curricula
and timetabling priorities, as Ms. Badenhorst (WWH58) mentions:
Well, maybe we have three periods a week allocated to LO. And this will all
depend on what is happening in the school … Some weeks the LO lesson
may be given up because the mathematics teacher is behind in the syllabus
or there might be an emergency drill or a guest speaker and then usually the
LO periods will be sacrificed. So sometimes my time is really tight, and I am
not able to get through the entire syllabus … This means that some sections
then will have to be cut. (Badenhorst WWH58)
The availability of teaching material also varies from school to school

(Helleve, Flisher, Onya, Mũkoma, & Klepp, 2009, 2011). Teachers are
given a considerable amount of responsibility and autonomy in respect
of the implementation of the LO Sex Education program, which means
that, in practice, approach and pedagogy vary considerably (Francis, 2010,
2011). However, a fatal flaw in the LO initiative was that little or no
attention was paid to the preparation of teachers to offer the new cur-
riculum (Baxen, 2008; Coetzee & Kok, 2001; Francis, 2011; Rugalema
& Khanye, 2002). In presenting my research in the Free State province, I
am not implying the same patterns are in all schools within the Free State
or in other schools elsewhere in South Africa.
THE PARTICIPANTS
When research, such as mine, focuses upon specific individuals who are
seen as transgressing dominant heterosexual codes that are not validated
by society, these individuals are often constructed as “hidden” because
openly identifying with specific factions or lifestyles can result in dis-
crimination (Browne, 2005; Phellas & Coxon, 2012; Reddy, 2005;
Richardson, 2008; Toft, 2013). It is true that LGBT youth and teachers,
for instance, often do not voluntarily disclose their sexual identity for fear
of reprisal (Browne, 2005; Donelson & Rogers, 2004; Ferfolja, 2007;

Griffin, 1991). In South Africa, Richardson (2008, p. 137) in his article
Researching LGBT Youth in Post-Apartheid South Africa writes, “one of
the major obstacles that researchers of LGBT youth encounter in South
Africa is the lack of access to these adolescents.” When society does not
validate sexuality diversity and heterosexuality is the norm, LGBT peo-
ple are a “hard to reach” population (Butler, Alpaslan, Allen, & Astbury,
2003; Kowen & Davis, 2006; Reddy, 2005; Richardson, 2008). Browne
(2005, p. 48), Toft (2013, p. 46) and others use “hidden” to describe
LGBT participants because openly identifying with particular factions or
lifestyles can result in prejudice and discrimination: I do not disagree with
these researchers. Yet while the use of “hidden” may be generally accurate,
in my empirical work with LGB youth when I used the word “hidden”
during the interviews, the LGB participants responded somewhat abruptly
“hidden, why hidden, and hidden from whom?” (Lekota AWL18) or “I
was not that hard to find, was I?” (Barnard WWL17). I would argue that
recruitment of LGB youth participants is a challenge, not because they are
hidden but because of the bureaucracy and gatekeepers that make LGB
participants a hard to reach group.
Given, the compulsory heterosexuality prevalent in education institu-
tions, it was not possible to deliberately seek out LGB teachers within the
schools (Francis, 2012, 2014). To access participants outside the scope
of normative heterosexuality, I made contact with my personal networks,
such graduate students teachers I had worked with, and friends. I asked
the participating LGB participants to let me know of other LGBT people
in schools. My sample snowballed enabling me to gain access to LGB
teachers and youth including those who could not participate. All of the
LGB young people and teachers were out to their families and friends but
not all were out in schools. Sixteen of the 19 youth had no difficulty and
insisted I use their real names and not pseudonyms. They argued that for
too long they had been silent about their sexual orientation and now that
they are out they were “not in hiding” (Koetaan CMG/B16) or have
been “in the closet for far too long” (Nichols WWL18). This was a hard
part for me to get my head around. In maintaining confidentiality and
anonymity by keeping the biographical details to a minimum, I grappled
with how to be truthful to the participant’s experiences without exposing
their identities. Listening, appreciating, and respecting their argument and
sense of agency, I checked with my Faculty Ethics Committee and after
long reflection on the potential risks that research and publications place
42 D.A. FRANCIS
on non-heterosexual participants, I chose to use pseudonyms. Given the

nature of heterosexist violence (Butler et al., 2003; Butler & Astbury,
2008; Deacon, Morrell, & Prinsloo, 1999; McArthur, 2015; Morrell,
2002; Msibi, 2012) in the South African contexts and other developing
world-country contexts, anonymity is an imperative. In a context of his-
torical, ongoing trauma, marginalization and high rates of gender-related
violence, it behooves researchers and educators in the field to develop
methodologically sound designs that pay attention to the pervasive vio-
lence and its effects on the minds and bodies of young South Africans
(Reygan & Francis, 2015). Without any intended arrogance, researchers
do have the responsibility not of protecting LGBT people from harm but
for minimizing and reducing any potential risk or threat their participation
in the research may expose them to.
Unlike the youth, the LGBT teachers were more hesitant and given
the compulsory heterosexuality within which they function it is under-
standable. As Ferfolja (2007) reminds us, educators have a considerable
investment in keeping their sexual orientation a secret in their school com-
munities as such revelations threaten potentially harmful consequences.
Parents and guardians of all the participating youth in the research were
given advance notification of the study and had the opportunity to object.
Not all of the youth who identified as LGB were out to their parents and
four withdrew. Additionally, three parents did not consent to their ward
participating in the study. In total, seven LGB youth who were identified,
recruited, and keen to participate were disqualified from participation.
Making explicit the specificities of the research in the informed consent
form familiarized participants with the focus of the study. This familiariza-
tion may explain why most of the participants honed in on gender and sex-
uality diversity, in the interviews and classroom observations, even when
my questions or the classroom discussions did not have the same intent.
With the focus of the research out in the open, the participants could not
ignore the proverbial elephant in the room which prompted the frank
and open conversation about LGB issues and schooling. The openness is
unlike the silence reflected in many educational settings and practices on
similar or related discussion topics (DePalma & Atkinson, 2006; Griffin &
Ouellet, 2003; Letts, 1999; Morrell, 2003). Most of the interviews took
place at a venue that the participant chose. These included classrooms,
school or university offices, and in some instances the participants homes.
All the participants were informed of the promised confidentiality and
received a clear explanation of the expected tasks they were expected to
participate in, enabling them to make an informed choice for voluntary

participation.
The teachers and youth were a diverse population regarding race, gen-
der, sexuality, language, religion, and age.
In presenting the responses of the participants, I have attached to their
narratives information on their social identities. In addition to assign-
ing pseudonyms, I have included information about their race (African,
Coloured, Indian, White), gender (man, woman), sexuality (LGB), and
age. For example, a participant quotation, followed by CWH41 would
mean the response if from a Coloured, woman, heterosexual, 41 years old
or AMG18 would signify that the speaker is an African man, gay 18 years
old. Descriptions of the participants involved with their unique identity
labels are listed in Table 3.1: Teachers and Table 3.2: Learners. I make ref-
erence to racial categories, but it “should not lend legitimacy or credibility
to the many popular cultural stereotypes and caricatures that accompany
these descriptors” (Francis, 2006, p. 3). I use these categories, established
under the apartheid regime because it continues to be socially relevant
and does reflect economic, educational, and cultural differences (DePalma
& Francis, 2014; Unterhalter et al., 2004). As Baxen (2008) explains, for
the most part, schools in South Africa continue to cater to the designated
racial groups they had served in the apartheid period. Our teacher partici-
pants taught in African schools where the learner demographics remain
unchanged, Coloured schools, which consisted of largely Coloured and
some African learners, and White schools, which were racially diverse.
Additionally, I use “woman” rather than “female” and “man” rather than
“male” as “man” and “woman” encompass both cisgendered and trans-
gendered identities and is, therefore, more inclusive. As I refer to the par-
ticipants in my study as LGB, I want to take a moment to explain why and
how I am using these identity labels. I acknowledge that sexual orienta-
tion and gender identity are fluid, and encompass more than the LGB
acronym. For example, a growing group of people have used the word
“queer” to identify their sexual orientation and gender identity (Allen,
2010; de Larch, 2014; Kumashiro, 2002; Miller, 2015; Msibi, 2012).
Kumashiro (2002) uses queer to refer to sexual orientation, he does not
limit its definition to that of LGBT persons but uses the term to include
any variety of experience that transcends what has become subsumed by
socially and even viable politically accepted categories for gender and sex-
ual orientation. Similarly, Jagose (1996) argues for the suspension of rigid
gendered and sexual orientation categories and attempts to interrogate
44 D.A. FRANCIS
Table 3.1 Teachers

Name Race Gender Sexual Age Teaching life
orientation orientation
Badenhorst White Woman Heterosexual 58 17

Clarke Coloured Man Gay 36 14
Coetzee White Man Heterosexual 54 15
De Kok White Woman Heterosexual 43 12
Duimpies Coloured W Heterosexual 29 6
Engelbrecht White M Heterosexual 25 3
Govender Indian W Heterosexual 46 18
Heideman Coloured M Heterosexual 47 8
Letseka African W Lesbian 48 18
Makgoe African W Heterosexual 33 9
Malekoane African M Heterosexual 36 16
Malope African M Gay 29 10
Mofokeng African W Heterosexual 61 18
Molaudi African M Heterosexual 56 5
Molefi African W Heterosexual 43 14
Molete African W Heterosexual 46 18
Moreeng African W Heterosexual 45 17
Mosoeu African W Heterosexual 41 11
Motau African M Heterosexual 56 15
Motsepe African M Heterosexual 58 16
Mqehlana African W Heterosexual 63 3
Phahlo African M Heterosexual 27 4
Plaatjies Coloured W Heterosexual 49 15
Quinn (Eben) White M Gay 26 3
Rasunyane African W Heterosexual 57 18
Retief White M Heterosexual 26 3
Smit White W Lesbian 35 13
Steyn White W Heterosexual 59 7
Tau African M Heterosexual 57 16
Van Wyk Coloured W Heterosexual 49 12
Welman Coloured W Heterosexual 25 2
Willemse Coloured W Heterosexual 35 10
Williams Coloured W Heterosexual 28 6
and interrupt heteronormativity by acknowledging the diversity across

gender, sex, desires, and sexuality. Msibi (2012, p. 516), writing within
the South African context, positions LGBT people under the “category”
of queer so as to escape labels of identification that tend to fix individuals
or essentialize them. For Msibi, queer acknowledges “the complexity of
identification.” In justifying his use of queer, Msibi (2012, p. 516) writes
about the gay and lesbian learner participants in his study:
Table 3.2 Learners

Name Race Gender Sexual Age
orientation
Barnard White W Lesbian 17

Hlalele African M Gay 18
Jacobs Coloured M Gay 18
Koetaan Coloured M Gay/ bisexual 16
Lekota African W Lesbian 18
Lubbe White M Bisexual 17
Mafisa African W Bisexual 19
Mokoena African M Gay 17
Mophethe African W Lesbian 18
Motsie African M Gay 18
Nichols White W Lesbian 18
Nkoane African W Lesbian 19
Photo African M Gay 17
Photolo African W Bisexual 17
Pretorius White M Gay 18
Rakhongoana African M Bisexual/ Gay 16
Thebe African M Gay 19
Tshishonge African W Lesbian 19
Van Niekerk Coloured M Gay 17
While most of the learners are already “out” in their communities and
schools, others are not. Those who are not “out” are largely involved with
both male and female partners; some are not even engaged in relationships
but understand their own sexual identification as gay or lesbian. The fixed
political “gay” or “lesbian” labels, therefore, do not fit all the participants
in the study as their sense of identification ranges between sexual practices
and their own sense of sexual identification or both. I, therefore, intention-
ally refrain from using “gay” or “lesbian” as there essentially is no one way
of fitting into these labels. The use of queer simply acknowledges that the
participants are sexual beings, whose sexuality is fluid and multiple depend-
ing on space, time, and context.
In a subsequent article, Msibi (2013, p. 107) takes a different position and

argues that while “queer” is useful in capturing the varied and multiple
forms of sexual performances by individuals. For Msibi:
“[Queer]” carries a heavy load of western history _ and hence inevitably

fails to express the evolution of African sexual politics…”[Q]ueer” stems
from particular western struggles, which sought to invert the negative con-
46 D.A. FRANCIS
notations of the word “queer”, and reclaim it … “Queer” may sometimes

be used as yet another fixed form of gender identity, something for which it
was not intended. We already see this in some western contexts where one
use of “queer” is a replacement for “gay”. “Queer” may sometimes be used
as yet another fixed form of gender identity, something for which it was not
intended (2013, pp. 107–108).
I agree with Msibi’s (2013, p. 107) position that although “queer” offers
a helpful way of understanding the “complexity and agency among indi-
viduals who experience a range of sexual identities, desires and practices,
the fact remains that many people outside Western contexts (as indeed
inside them) will not understand how ‘queer’ is being conceptualized.”
The use of queer within South Africa is complex and needs to be socio-
logically and historically unpacked. I use the acronym LGB noting that
such usage has the potential risk of repressing the differences among lesbi-
ans and gay men, a narrow focus on legitimating same-sex preference, the
isolation of the gay movement from other movements, and normalizing
a gay identity leaves intact the organization of sexuality around a hetero/
homosexual binary (Seidman, Meeks, & Traschen, 1999). I have used
how participants have named themselves and stayed clear from imposing
definitions on them. For example, Pretorius (WMB/G18) tells:
Pretorius (WMB/G18): I would say mostly gay.

Researcher: Mostly gay?
Pretorius (WMB/G18): Yes. For example, the reason I say “mostly:”
I’m more attracted to men. I would more likely go into a rela-
tionship with a man. But if, magically, some woman sweeps
me off my feet, I think maybe I’ll kiss … Okay, I don’t have
problems with kissing women. But the thing under there:
Huh-uh. It scares me. Honestly, it scares me. So that’s why I
say I identify as gay and bi. The easiest way to say it.
The educators and learners in my study named themselves as lesbian,

gay, bisexual, and heterosexual to name themselves. In describing them-
selves, none of my participants named themselves as “queer” or identified
as “transgender” or “intersex”. Rather than play lip service to the titu-
lar inclusion of transgender or intersex persons, I have not included the T
and I in the commonly used acronym LGBTI. I do understand that this
does not solve anything, but it allows me to raise, again, an awareness of
the invisibility of the T and I in LGBTI research in South Africa and inter-
nationally (Francis, 2013, 2014; Francis & Reygan, 2016).
Educators and learners in secondary schools in the Free State province

were eligible for this study. Teachers were experienced, with an average of
17.3 years of teaching and 7.6 years of teaching LO, and diverse regarding
educational backgrounds. Thirty-three teachers, 20 women and 13 men
were recruited. Five identified as lesbian or gay. The 19 youth identified as
lesbian, gay, bisexual or lesbian and bisexual or gay and bisexual. The sample
is primarily men and gay. Perhaps this has to do with the fact, as Wilcox
(2012, p. 29) writing in the US explains, that lesbians have historically
developed their sexual identities later than men, placing their identity devel-
opment after many have left their parents’ home; gay men’s sexual identi-
ties, on the other hand, appear to develop while they are still in the parental
home. Wilcox’s explanation may hold true in the South African context, but
I believe the harsh realities where men claim to “cure” and convert young
lesbians to heterosexuality may be a primary reason for non-disclosure and,
therefore, participation. At the time of recruitment and interview, the par-
ticipants ranged in age from 16 to 19, and all were attending school. For
most of the 33 teachers and 19 youth, English was their second language to
either Afrikaans or Sesotho. While I have paid attention to how the sample
has been organized, the teachers and learners in no way represent or make
claims about the Free State Province teachers or LGB youth.
The teachers and youth are from a range of school contexts including
private, public, religious, single sex, co-ed, urban township, urban—sub-
urban, small town, rural state, and rural-farm schools. All names of peo-
ple, buildings, places, and institutions mentioned have been changed. The
number of learners in schools varied and ranged in size from 40 learners
to 1125. I contacted teachers and learners telephonically to establish their
willingness to participate. None of the participants were offered financial
incentives but were offered a small travel stipend if they had used their car
or a taxi to travel to the interview. I asked teachers and LGB youth to refer
me to other study participants who had different gender and sexuality
identities across race and schools. Once teachers and youth were identified
through schools and other networks I asked them to identify other such
LO teachers. Consequently, my convenience sample snowballed, as each
teacher participant suggested others.
DATA COLLECTION
In the interest of positioning the voices, viewpoints, and active participa-
tion of the teachers and youth, I used multiple methods, including in-
depth interviews, classroom observations, and a participatory workshop
48 D.A. FRANCIS
to collect data. I have not included the data of the participatory workshop
that focused on what teachers say they need for the teaching of gender
and sexuality diversity in this book but will write that up as a separate
text. The in-depth interviews, which ranged from 45 minutes to 75 min-
utes, helped develop a profile of teachers and learners to create a “rich,
thick” description and which was used later in narrative form (Merriam,
1998, p. 29). The interview schedule did develop over time. The develop-
ment took account of the existing research in South Africa and beyond,
pilot interviews, and informal conversations with teachers, LGBT learners,
graduate students, and colleagues. None of the participants had partici-
pated in any previous research study and so I spent some time at the start
of the interview explaining the focus and process. The LO teachers inter-
viewed—most with several years of experience—felt reasonably at ease
speaking about teaching and the youth seemed keen to be interviewed.
The interview guide focused on sexual orientation, experience of school-
ing, and specifically the teaching of sexuality education. While this focus
was privileged, I did try, throughout the interview, to encourage a recip-
rocal process of data generation so that the interviews unfolded as con-
versations precipitating issues the participants raised themselves. In some
parts, the participants also raised questions themselves. The interviews
were like conversations and in most cases as the interview progressed,
participants gave more thorough responses, drawing on personal expe-
rience and accounts than others. At the end of each interview, I asked
each participant whether there was anything more that was personally rel-
evant and important to them that they wanted to talk about. This proved
immensely useful as participants used the opportunity to answer questions
they had formerly answered but felt they needed to say more or in some
cases corrected information they thought they might have misrepresented.
Such approaches call participants to bring visibility to issues that are often
ignored by researchers. During my interviews, I zoomed-in on specific
references to gender and sexuality diversity as well as the reactions of
the learners and teachers during the classroom observations’ contextual
moments. Participants’ spoken comments as they appear here have been
lightly edited to assure comprehension and to conform to written gram-
mar and style norms.
I observed three sexuality education lessons of five of the 33 teachers.
Because classroom data collection is the heart of lesson observation, my
approach was intentional. My focus was on the content, and pedagogy
teachers were using in the teaching of sexuality education. Observation
enabled me to see teaching and learning in action. As a method, lesson

observation gave me first-hand experience of the social realness of teach-
ing and learning with its assemblages of noise, backchat, movement, ques-
tions, silences, expressions, and emotions. The 15 classroom observations
provided context and meaning to the narratives the teachers and LGB
youth shared with me during the interviews. The lesson observations were
videotaped and transcribed.
ANALYSIS
Fine and Weis (1998, p. 27) write that when researchers deal with the
analysis of their findings, there is an inclination to “theorize generously,
contextualize wildly, rudely interrupting them to reframe them” rather
than allowing the participants words, meanings, and voices to frame the
dominant discourse. All the participants, teachers, and learners, have
been given the opportunity to review the transcripts of the research. This
has enabled them to disagree, change, and correct my representation of
their narratives. Though not all the participants came back with changes,
two teachers and six learners asked that the transcripts be changed, some
wanted to add more to their original interviews while others corrected
inaccuracies. Adopting such strategies, has allowed me to make sense of
the data from the participants perspective (Merriam, 1998, p. 6). Data
in the form of quotes from documents, curriculum policies, field notes,
and participant interviews, excerpts from videotapes, electronic commu-
nication, or a combination of these are included to support the findings
of my research (Merriam, 1998, p. 5). Comparing data from multiple
sources provided greater analytical insight into the research questions and
enhanced the external validity of the findings.
The data was stored, coded, organized, and analyzed using the qualita-
tive data analysis software NVivo. For the analysis, a within and cross-case
analysis approach (Merriam, 1998) was used in the interpretation of the
data. I coded the data by reading the individual narratives and then re-
reading the transcripts as a collective. In creating codes, I looked for simi-
larities, differences, and frequency patterns and then mapped these out on
a large spreadsheet. Preliminary codes were created based on patterns in
the data. In a second reading, new codes were developed; some old codes
were altered and sometimes collapsed. These codes were then configured
into categories, and from these, themes were built to respond to the ques-
tions posed in the research. My analysis sought to determine how norma-
50 D.A. FRANCIS
tive discourses are perpetuated and reproduced and at the same time how
heteronormativity and heterosexism are reinforced. The corpus of findings
that materialized within and across data sets (Merriam, 1998) has been
analyzed to give a snapshot of how sexuality diversity is engaged within
schools.
This chapter on methodology has been uncharacteristically long and yet
very necessary. In its form, the chapter does exactly what it intends to do,
and that is to call attention to the complexities of conducting research with
non-heterosexualities. The chapter brings to the fore some of the ques-
tions, contentions, and frustrations I have grappled with in my research
and writing on gender and sexual minorities. The chapter has provided me
with a platform to engage more fully with some of the tensions that have
perennially popped up in the international and national research with gen-
der and sexuality minorities. Theorization of, and research into, optimal
ways of researching LGBT issues in education is needed. I want to sug-
gest research focusing on LGBT youth that wrestles with methodological
issues such as insider/outsider epistemological privilege and disadvantage,
sampling and the recruitment of gender and sexuality minority partici-
pants, accessing gatekeepers, evaluating alternative methodologies, ethical
protocols specifically issues of anonymity, informed consent, and partici-
pant risk as a field for future research.
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PART II
Troubling Compulsory
Hetersosexuality
CHAPTER 4
Troubling the Visibility and Invisibility

of Non-Normative Sexualities in Schools
The teacher interviews and classroom observations, for the most part,
position LGB learners into visible and invisible groupings, and both, as a
school problem. There are several areas in sociological literature, Brighenti
(2007, p. 325) reminds us, where the issue of visibility and invisibility
appears, from gender to minority studies, from communication studies to
the theories of power. Most of these studies deem visibility and invisibil-
ity to be necessary filters to understand how minorities are socially posi-
tioned. This chapter concludes that there is an ambivalent inflection in
the way LGB youth are positioned within schools, and this positioning
can be understood as an expression of a deeper ambivalence between vis-
ibility and invisibility, both which marginalize non-normative sexuality.
To develop this argument, I have organized this section into two broad
themes. The first section presents a discussion of the teachers’ construc-
tion of LGB youth as invisible by denying their existence at school. The
second expounds the supra-visibility of sexual minorities but as victims of
bullying and harassment and as “loud and over the top.”
INVISIBILITY
For the most part, teachers employed a number of argumentative devices
that invisibilized the existence of LGB learners in the school as Mr.
Malekoane (AMH36) says, “In our school there are no such things in
our school” or “I am not sure we have any in our school. There might

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1_4
58 D.A. FRANCIS
be, but I am sure there aren’t any” (Mosoeu AWH41). Both Malekoane
(AMH36) and Mosoeu (AWH41) assume that LGB do not exist if you
are not made aware that there are in fact LGB learners in the school. The
denial also extends to the existence of LGB people within the broader
society when in one lesson Ms. Plaaitjes (CWH49) presents the following
debate for discussion:
I want you to get into two groups of four. Once you have decided who is
in your group, I want you to prepare to participate in the following debate:
should gays and lesbians be allowed to marry and have children.
The choice of the debate is particularly interesting given that same-sex

couples can marry in South Africa and adopt children. It is very likely
that some of the learners, in the class, are children of same-sex relations,
possibly adopted or from a previous relationship. The choice of topic for
the debate negates the existence of LGB people in marriages and those
with children. In this instance, the teacher neither recognizes or pay atten-
tion to the marriage equality and adoption of children laws nor does she
teach about the visibility of these laws or LGB people in such relations.
This denial is intensified by other levels of silence and invisibility operat-
ing within the broader social and political context (Gevisser & Cameron,
1995; Hoad, Martin, & Reid, 2005; Posel, 2004; Reid, 2003). Similarly,
when LGB learners are visible and out in the school, teachers go to great
lengths to convince them that they are not, in fact, LGB and that they are
merely going through a phase.
“I would tell him time and time again ‘oh you are not really gay, you are not
gay’… I can tell who is really gay and who is not (laughs). They will grow
out of it.” (Badenhorst WWH58)
“There are these three girls who call themselves lesbians. I called them,
sat them down, and said, ‘Ladies it’s a phase you are going through. It’s this
new thing. You will get through this’” (Van Wyk CWH49)
“And then, after that, (the teacher) started telling me: ‘No, it’s a phase.
You’ll grow out of it. It’s something that most people go through.’ And
then she starts to tell me about her cousin, or her friend, that was gay for a
day. And then the next day blah, blah, blah. And I’m like: ‘Okay whatever.’
But ja, that was the reaction I got.” (Lekota AWL18)
Teachers play a substantial regulatory role not only concerning policing

“who is really gay and who is not” but also constructing those who iden-
tify as gay as immature or childish. For the LGB youth, recognition is a
TROUBLING THE VISIBILITY AND INVISIBILITY OF NON-NORMATIVE... 59
form of social visibility with serious consequences on the relations between

minorities and who is normative. In not recognizing the LGB learner’s
expression of their sexual orientation, teachers normalize heterosexual-
ity and thereby deny their existence. Borrowing from Brighenti (2007,
p. 329), being invisible means being deprived of recognition.
“IT IS FASHION”
For some of the teachers, the LGB youth were merely being fashionable.
Ms. De Kok (WWH43): “If you think about it sometimes they, espe-
cially the girls, feel it is fashionable, fashion to
be you know bisexual or lesbian. They claim
they are, but they are not. They are just copy-
ing the actors and the singers. It’s all sexy and
fashion you know (laughter).”
DF: “Fashion and sexy?”
Ms. De Kok (WWH43): “They want to make a big hoopla. Fashion,
fashion, fashion!” (Moves her hips and laughs)
The idea that being LGB can be viewed as fashionable, simply be “put
on and off” (De Kok WWH43), assumes that it is temporary or passing
and assumes that sexual orientation is a choice as Mr. Motau (AMH56)
responds to a question asking him to clarify choice: “I am not so sure
about this thing. Today because it is fashion they will choose it and then
tomorrow they will be like different”. There is a strong belief that people
are not born gay but choose a lifestyle that can be “overcome or even
cured” (Francis, 2012; Msibi, 2015). This belief is dangerous and learners
can be mistakenly guided to believe that homosexuality is temporary and
that there exists a better “choice” (Francis, 2012). The idea of homo-
sexuality as fashionable is frequently used in post-apartheid South African
parlance and carries multiple meanings. As Reid says (2003, p. 8), fashion
suggests both a “transient identity of choice and a temporary aberrant
phase in an individual sexual trajectory.” Fashion is used to “dismiss the
increased visibility of gays and lesbians” in the wake of political transfor-
mation and is used “as a disclaimer, as a condemnation of deviant lifestyles
or as a way of trivializing same-sex relationships” (Reid, 2003, p. 8). The
teachers draw on this competing discourse of same-sex relationships in the
public space in two ways. One concerning political change and democracy
60 D.A. FRANCIS
and the other consisting of conservative appeals to heterosexism and iner-

tia, the latter is evident in both Ms. De Kok (WWH43) and Mr. Motau’s
(AMH56) narratives. Both present familiar stories that represent LGB
youth as others whose sexual orientation is reduced to “fashion.”
TALKING ABOUT IT
Like Francis’s (2012, p. 7) study the majority of the teachers in my
sample, struggled to articulate the terms “gay”, “lesbian” or “bisexual”.
Here is an excerpt from an interview with Mr. Tau (AMH57):
DF: “Sorry when you say, ‘that things’ are you talking
about lesbian and gay learners?”
Mr. Tau (AMH57): “You know in our … schools it does not exist.
It exists but not in our schools. There are such
things in other schools, but here it is not here.”
(ACMH30)
DF: Lesbian, gay and bisexual learners?
Mr. Tau (AMH57): “Yes it is not here. You know what I am speaking
about. It is not here.”
Throughout the interview, Mr. Tau (AMH57) found it difficult to

articulate the words homosexuality, bisexuality, lesbian, gay, or even
sex. His, like other teachers, inability to resonate words related to non-
heterosexuality suggest that they have not previously interrogated or chal-
lenged their understanding of and feelings about the teaching of sexuality
diversity. During a classroom observation, Ms. Molete (AWH46) attempts
to answer a question on same-sex relationships. While there is an attempt
to engage with the question, track the discomfort and avoidance of words
associated with sexual orientation.
Learner J: “Why are gay men like so feminine and lesbians

act like men?”
Ms. Molete (AWH46): “Such questions on such things are important.
These things are important. It is. But getting
back to your question it all depends on … It
depends on … And so I don’t know much
about such things and why such and such are
like that. But as I was saying and moving on …”
When talking about non-heterosexuality the teachers used the terms “it”,
“that thing” or “you know what I am talking about” when referring to les-
bians, gays, bisexuals, homosexuality, bisexuality, or same-sex desire and rela-
tionships. DePalma and Atkinson (2006, p. 335) explain that there remains
an uneasiness about “homosexuality that marks it as very different from
other aspects of identity.” For example, do teachers share the same discom-
fort when referring to other social groups such as those constituted by race,
gender, disability, or religion? The uneasiness in the teachers non-use of LGB
whether consciously or unconsciously delegitimizes the presence of gender
and sexual minorities learners in schools: It marks them as invisible. Inherent
in the use of “it” is the dehumanization of gender and sexuality minorities.
The inescapable normative heterosexuality that exists in South African society
undoubtedly affects comfort or discomfort in using the words lesbian, gays,
and bisexual in the classroom as Ms. Molefi (AWH43) justifies: “Well we
don’t speak about it enough, so there is some embarrassment for me person-
ally to use the words. So maybe it is about my confidence to use the words.”
Yet there “is a real power to remaining invisible (if it is possible); to be
marked is often to carry a pathology.” (Skeggs, 1999, p. 228) as Jacobs
(CMG18) explains:
“Nobody knew I was gay … I just stayed under the radar … low key … It
was like I had an invisible cloak … No one in the school knew. I think some
of them had suspicions, but there was nothing to confirm their suspicions
… My school was really racist, and if they knew that I was gay I would not
have made it … Like I was in the top three for academics, I was the debat-
ing captain and like deputy head boy of the school. There is no way I would
have done all of that and got honors if they knew I was gay.”
For Jacobs (CMG18) and other LGB, staying “below the radar” and hav-
ing an “invisible cloak”. In other responses, the invisibilizing and denial
by the teachers, although hard to digest, served as a means of covering for
LGB learners who were not out as Hlalele (AMG18) tells:
“Yes, Miss Seekoe was my favorite when I arrived here. She will always give
me tasks, and I always would try to please her. She teaches me LO. In her
class I can ask about gay sex and she will say I don’t know, but I will check
up on an answer and come back to you. At first, in Grade 10 I wrote her a
letter and told her that I was gay. It was just before the holidays. I have not
told any of the other teachers or learners, and I don’t want them to know.
When we returned, she asked me to see her after class, and she gave me a
62 D.A. FRANCIS
hug. She has not told anyone what I shared with her. I really appreciated
this … I am pleased she is at the school. All the learners like her because
she is young and she understands us. She is not judging us like the other
teachers.”
Upon closer scrutiny of the data, though, there were many LGB youth
who claim they would have benefited through recognition and visibility if
their teachers validated their sexuality diversity.
“First prize would be if everyone would know. Then I am in my truth. If

my teachers knew and accepted me, and all the others learners knew and
accepted me as gay, that will be my truth.” (Photo AMG17)
“It would be so nice. Can you imagine I would not feel so awkward to
ask a question about gays and lesbians without anyone thinking, ‘why, why
is he asking that questions.’ I will just ask it.” (Hlalele AMG18)
Non-heterosexuality, for the most part, is silenced and denied in South African
schools. When learners name themselves as LGB, their non-heterosexuality
is constructed as “over the top”, “fashionable” and “an experimental phase”
which youth pass through rather than as a viable sexuality. The LGB learners
are positioned in heterosexual discourse whether homosexuality or bisexual-
ity is seen as a passing phase or simply fashionable (Ferfolja, 2007a, p. 155).
Such invisibility continues to characterize non-heterosexuals as marginal.
While teacher talk on LGBT youth, for the most part, makes invisible the
presence of LGB learners in schools, when LGB are known there is also talk
that they are too visible, as I will describe in the next section.
VISIBILITY: LGB YOUTH AS TARGETS OF BULLYING

AND HARASSMENT
Moving on from invisibility, heterosexism is also evidenced in the way

LGB youth are depicted, when visible. In so far as visibility is a prop-
erty that can be used to divide marked and unmarked persons (Brighenti,
2007, p. 334), it is also a double-edged sword that can be empowering as
well as dis-empowering as Reid and Dirsuweit (2002, p. 103) show:
In 1990, a few months after the release of Nelson Mandela, the first Gay and
Lesbian Pride March took place through the streets of Johannesburg, accom-
panied by extensive media coverage. By 1995, the national umbrella body
formed to lobby for the retention of sexual orientation in final constitution,
the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality, boasted some 78 affili-
ated organizations, many of these based in Johannesburg and its surrounds.
In 1990’s there was a proliferation of diverse community groups such as gay
netball clubs, lesbian soccer teams, gay church communities, catering groups
and lesbian social clubs. There was also a growth in public visibility through
political activism and public events such as the annual gay and lesbian film
festival, clubs, parties, and gay beauty pageants. The media paid consider-
able attention through radio and television talk shows, documentaries and
news items. Print media ran stories in magazines and newspapers on a regu-
lar basis. Books on gay and lesbian issues in South Africa started to be pub-
lished, and for a few years, there were three main gay publications produced in
Johannesburg and distributed countrywide. Increased visibility, the political
climate of the time and the promise of equality enshrined in the constitution,
created an environment conducive to “coming out” and many people did so,
sometimes in the glare of the public eye. (Reid & Dirsuweit, 2002, p. 103)
The increased visibility had another consequence, in the form of a rise in

heterosexist violence. Many of the teacher narratives highlight LGB learn-
ers as targets of harassment and their need for protection.
“He is always bullied. The boys call him names, and sometimes even hurt
him … Once someone threatened to stab him.” (Coetzee WMH54)
“In 2014, we had to suspend a boy who threatened to rape a girl in Grade
10 who identified as a lesbian. The governing body, the LRC, the parents
everyone got involved. It was just chaos for a whole week.” (Letseka AWL48).
“There is always trouble with this one learner in Grade 11. There is
always you know the teasing and mocking the way he talks and walks.”
(Makgoe AWH33)
In two instances, teachers positioned LGB youth as the reason for the
harassment. In other words, if the LGB learners were not at the school
there would be no problem as Mr. Heideman (CMH47) tells:
Mr. Heideman (CMH47): “I have no problem with them … and I

don’t think the learners actually have any
problems with them. Where the problem
comes in is when they put it all out there
for all of us to see … I suppose it won’t be a
problem if they don’t show it …”
DF: “Show it?”
64 D.A. FRANCIS
Mr. Heideman (CMH47): “Maybe if it can be suppressed like not to let

everyone know.”
DF: “Suppress?”
Mr. Heideman (CMH47): “Yes then it that way no one will know, and
then I suppose there won’t be any bullying
and that kind of thing … Yes, sometimes I
think they are to blame. If they don’t show
it and put it all there with their hands in the
air and the drama then who will know? No
one. Then I don’t think any of us will be
even bothered with them.”
Relatedly, when I asked Mr. Coetzee (WMH54) about the heterosexist

bullying at the school, he responded with his own question:
“Are they really bullied? (Laughs). Sometimes it is very easy to cry wolf and
say ‘I am bullied, I am bullied.’ But really are they bullied or do they pro-
voke with their loud behavior. … They (LGB) can also provoke the other
learners and then when they hit back they (LGB) are in my office “sir this
and sir that”. But when I do my investigations they (LGB) are the stirrers.
They will say something dramatic to this boy and something to that one and
then bam there is a clash, and they (LGB) will be all weepy and dramatic “Sir
this and Sir that.” So who is really to blame?” (Laughs)
The teachers focus predominantly on the negative experiences of the LGB

youth, as bullied, and position them as the problem. In many ways, the
teachers suggest that without the LGB youth, schools will not be oppres-
sive spaces. Such a position ignores or dismisses the view that homopho-
bic violence (from the offender’s perspective) is less about othering boys
considered homosexual than it is about asserting their power and domi-
nance in a particular context. McArthur (2015, p. 3), for example, notes
that homophobic violence in South Africa can be attributed to troubled
masculinities struggling to maintain their hegemony in society. Bullying,
however, has traditionally been perceived in psychological and personality
discourses that pathologize the LGB individual and fail to deconstruct het-
erosexism and broader relations of power (Ferfolja, 2007a). Furthermore
as Ferfolja (2007a, p. 151) posits, reference to anti-LGB harassment sim-
ply as bullying, fails to recognize that the power differentials between
bully and victim often evoke broader societal discourses, in this case about
gender and sexuality performance, although other identities such as race
also intersect with such harassment. Without this conceptual analysis of

heterosexism, for some of the teachers, the LGB learners should not nec-
essarily be read as marginalized or as victims but that they should be seen
as the source of attack and harassment. From the teacher’s responses, it
seems that harassment and bullying is a consequence of the LGB youth
being “stirrers” being LGB. In other words, the LGB learners have to dis-
guise themselves as invisible to remain unscathed. The consensus amongst
the teachers iterate that the LGB learners need to change their ways, they
are the ones who are at fault, and ultimately they are asking for attention
through their non-conformist behavior, and if they behaved normally, the
harassment would end (Robinson & Ferfolja, 2001).
Race, too, is a powerful identity marker, which operates to install prob-
lematic configurations of LGB youth. Notice how teachers Ms. Badenhorst
(WWH58) and Ms. Steyn (WWH59) describe the LGB learners in these
narratives.
“There is this group of black learners in Grade 11 who claim they are gays
and lesbian, and they can be impossible, always demanding this and that.
They are always in the principal office causing arguments with this one and
that. You know just trouble makers.” (Badenhorst WWH58)
“Oh, the girl … oh, she is African told everyone in her class she is a
lesbian. One of the other girls, a very sweet and timid one, got into such
an argument with her on Christian grounds. I was the Grade controller
then and intervened. She, the lesbian one, accuses the other girl, the white
one, as homophobic. I ask you with tears in my eyes what next? If it is not
race it is homophobia. Oh dear lord what is this world coming to? What
next?” (Steyn WWH59)
[Referring to a group of African gay boys] “They can be loud … Always
laughing and very feminine. You know the way they walk, and I sometimes
think they are just seeking attention. They will mince up and down and
screech at the top of their voices.” (De Kok WWH43)
The teachers, all white women, ostracize LGB youth not only from het-
erosexuality but also whiteness. The negative construction of particularly
Blacks, bolsters a racist othering of African sexualities—within a long his-
torical trope of racist sexualization (Shefer, 2015). In many ways, their
racism serves as a cover for non-normative sexualities and vice versa. The
black LGB youth who are visible are blamed for their harassment and
the narratives fix violence to the non-heteronormative person as deserv-
ing. Linked to narratives above, the teachers described the LGB youth
as “supra-visible” (Brighenti 2007, p. 330) or super visible (DePalma &
66 D.A. FRANCIS
Atkinson (2006, p. 342) which are selectively focused on actors seen to be

representative of gender and sexuality minorities.
“Sometimes they can be “loud and in your face” like this one group. Some
of the gays they are very dramatic, and this rubs the other learners the wrong
way. I suppose if they were just normal … Like not make it so obvious that
they are gay.” (Willemse CWH35)
“[The] teacher will say: 'Gay people are loud.' Yeah. Great. Then that’s
done. And we laugh.” (Hlalele AMG18)
There is a fixity and permanence in what the teachers are saying concern-
ing hegemonic representation of gender and sexuality and how this feeds
into the hypersexual, flamboyant gay stereotype. Skeggs (1999, p. 221)
makes the point that when the individual is held responsible for their vis-
ibility, then the future for anything other than the norm must always be a
dangerous one. Struggles for visible identities will often incite danger, for
visibility can threaten the normalized landscape. In the accounts below,
the teachers mediate how non-heterosexuality must “be toned down.”
“If only they would tone things down. Just a little. Sometimes they can be
so overdramatic that the world only revolves around them. I say to them
tone down and be more normal. Everything does not have to be so loud and
in your face.” (Willemse CWH35)
“I have no problem with them, and I get along really well with them … As
long it is not all over me. As long as they don’t show it.” (De Kok WWH43)
“LGBT learners having constitutional rights and they should now
behave normally as respectful citizens” (Mqehlana AWH63)
“Maybe they can be more discrete about their sexuality.” (Coetzee
WMH54)
Teachers also feigned shock in seeing the public expression of physical acts
of desire, intimacy, and affection.
“I was on afternoon duty, and I was walking on the second floor, as I was
going down the stairs, I saw these two girls kissing. I was shocked as I had
not seen this before. I said and in a firm voice, ‘Girls, what are you doing.
That’s not very ladylike’” (Duimpies CWH29)
“It was after school. These two boys were holding hands and walking
along merrily like two girls. I am not homophobic at all, and I understand
that everyone has rights and freedom of expression and all that. But I was
taken aback, and I said, “Is that the behavior we expect at (name of school)?”
(De Kok WWH43)
Through citation of the equality clause, teachers acknowldge the identity

of being LGB but at the same time invisibilize deny the representation
or expression of same-sex practice. In talking about what can be visible
or invisible both teachers emphasize how public expression or acts of
same-sex desire should be left behind as teacher Ms. De Kok WWH43
says “as long as it’s not all over me.” The teachers, in requesting the
youth to “tone down” suggest that the LGB youth need discipline, civi-
lizing, and to be made “more normal” (Willemse CWH35). Notice how
teacher Ms. De Kok (WWH43) makes reference to “equality … rights
and freedom of expression” to argue for conforming to normal standards
of decency. There is almost a script for the good or bad behavior for pub-
lic affection, and both are subsumed in heterosexuality. As Skeggs (1999,
p. 214) notes most LGB learn that most space is heterosexual, and they
have to develop strategies and tactics for negotiating this unremitting
normalization when moving through and occupying space. From the
teacher’s responses, the public affection of same-sex desire is tolerated
only if it is not blatantly overt or public. The actual acts associated with
same-sex desire get left behind and remain problematic because it chal-
lenges heteronormativity. It is difficult for LGB youth to achieve a desir-
able degree of visibility. DePalma & Atkinson (2006, p. 342), borrowing
from Patai (1992), use the concept of “surplus visibility” to describe the
perception of “excess and exaggeration” whenever non-heterosexualities
become visible at all.
The teachers’ amplification of the audibility and magnification of vis-
ibility means for LGB youth that it can be tempting to forfeit visibility
and audibility rather than be accused of unnecessary “flaunting” of one’s
sexuality and seeking attention (DePalma & Atkinson, 2006; Ruitenberg,
2010). The teacher’s responses suggest that same-sex expression of feel-
ings, love, desire and relationship must remain invisible. For the teach-
ers, the LGB youth’s non-heterosexuality is “over the top” that makes
them seem excessive and, therefore, a problem. Thus, as Brighenti (2007,
p. 330) and DePalma & Atkinson (2006, p. 342) write such representa-
tions of gender and sexual minorities as supra-visible or surplus visible,
as are many other forms of moral panic selectively focused onto “actors
deemed to be representative of moral minorities”.
The discussion above pointedly differentiates how visibility and invis-
ibility marginalize LGB youth. While this was the case, there were teach-
ers who pointed to and affirmed the presence of LGB learners in the
school like Ms. Makgoe (AWH33) who shares “Difference exists in our
68 D.A. FRANCIS
school. There are gays and lesbians here, and it disappoints me that we
do not have a way of talking and engaging with this difference. She adds
later in the interview ‘The learners know this, and we have failed them,
all of them straight, gay, lesbian, with our own silence and us silencing
them.’ Similarly Mr. Quinn (WMG26), tells of his suggestion to the
principal to address the assembly about Pride week so that ‘the learners
at the school know they exist and that they are here and present in our
schools and in our communities … He rejected the suggestion because
he felt there were no gays and lesbians here.’” Ms. Makgoe and Mr.
Quinn’s comments are a shift from the data presented earlier in this
chapter. Ferfolja (2007a, 2007b) makes reference to how LGB teach-
ing resources and issues are perceived by school leaders and teachers
as unnecessary because of the invisibility of the LGB population in the
school community.
Visibility or invisibility is mediated by power. The LGB learners are
framed in two ways—as invisible or supra-visible, and both are regulated
and punishable. The regulation accentuates how normative and pervasive
heterosexism and heteronormativity is in South African schools. Whether
visible or invisible, the missing discourses tell LGB youth that they do
not matter and that they are and ought to remain hidden. Both posi-
tions of visibility and invisibility, spur on the dominance of heterosexuality
and simultaneously downplay the need for educational reform. What is
invisible and markedly absent from classrooms and schools is often ren-
dered visible and saturated with meaning outside the classroom, as LGB
are named in school, or erased in popular epigrams such as, “Oh, that’s so
gay.” Once named and visible, however, the LGB youth are socially and
politically marked and marginalized (Loutzenheiser & MacIntosh, 2004,
p. 152). As Reid and Dirsuweit (2002) write that despite the freedoms
that have come with a progressive constitution, which has enabled greater
visibility of LGB people, the experiences of gender and sexuality minori-
ties have remained bleak.
In bringing this chapter to a close it seems that there are costs for LGB
whether they are positioned as visible or invisible. The LGB youth, on the
other hand, position themselves differently and in the chapters that follow,
I discuss this positioning along with the constraints and empowerments
offered to them through the different paths of visibility and invisibility.
For the learners, whether visible or invisible, they show that there are
opportunities and spaces for resistance and survival.
REFERENCES
Brighenti, A. (2007). Visibility: A category for the social sciences. Current
Sociology, 55(3), 323–342. doi:10.1177/0011392107076079.
Ferfolja, T. (2007a). Schooling cultures: Institutionalizing heteronormativity and
doi:10.1080/13603110500296596.
Ferfolja, T. (2007b). Teacher negotiations of sexual subjectivities. Gender and
Education, 19(5), 569–586. doi:10.1080/09540250701535584.
080/13691058.2012.674558.
Hoad, N. W., Martin, K., & Reid, G. (2005). Sex and politics in South Africa.
Cape Town: Juta and Company.
Loutzenheiser, L. W., & MacIntosh, L. B. (2004). Citizenships, sexualities, and
education. Theory into Practice, 43(2), 151–158. doi:10.1207/
s15430421tip4302_9.
Msibi, T. (2015). The teaching of sexual and gender diversity issues to pre-service
teachers at the University of KwaZulu-Natal: Lessons from student exam
responses. Alternation, 12, 385–410.
Patai, D. (1992). Minority status and the stigma of “surplus visibility”. Education
Digest, 57(5), 37–37.
Posel, D. (2004). Getting the nation talking about sex: Reflections on the discur-
sive constitution of sexuality in South Africa since 1994. Agenda, 62, 53–63.
Reid, G. (2003). “It is just a fashion!” Linking homosexuality and “modernity” in
South Africa. Etnofoor, 16(2), 7–25.
Reid, G., & Dirsuweit, T. (2002). Understanding systemic violence: Homophobic
attacks in Johannesburg and its surrounds. Urban Forum, 13(3), 99–126.
doi:10.1007/s12132-002-0010-5.
Robinson, K. H., & Ferfolja, T. (2001). “What are we doing this for?” Dealing
with lesbian and gay issues in teacher education. British Journal of Sociology of
Education, 22(1), 121–133. doi:10.1080/01425690020030828.
Ruitenberg, C. (2010). Queer politics in schools: A Rancièrean reading.
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CHAPTER 5
Shifting Positions of Inclusion
In this chapter, I highlight how teachers draw on powerful narratives

framed by religion, the constitution, and pathology to include LGBT
learners and to teach about non-heterosexualities in schools. Unlike pre-
vious work, that shows how teachers use these narratives to exclude sex-
ual minorities (Bhana, 2012, 2014; DePalma & Francis, 2014; Francis,
2012; Francis & Msibi, 2011; Msibi, 2012), the teacher narratives in
the current study are different and echo similar assimilationists’ patterns
found in the integration of African learners during the desegregation of
South African schools (Carrim, 1995, 1998; Carrim & Soudien, 1999;
Soudien, 1994). Notwithstanding that there is a shift in teacher posi-
tions to include LGBT learners, what they end up doing is to emphasize
sameness and seek to assimilate sexual minorities. The findings point
to two shifts. First teachers are making arguments for the inclusion of
LGB content in the teaching of sexuality education. Second, despite the
numerous micro aggressions caught up in their narratives, they make
arguments for the inclusion of LGB learners in their classrooms and
schools. Two questions this chapter grapples with is why this change
in teachers’ attitudes and are these changes simultaneous indicators of
broader public attitudes? It is important that these shifts, with their
unquantified assemblages, are acknowledged as this is where levers of
change may lie. I am pushing the argument for as far as it can go, but

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1_5
72 D.A. FRANCIS
I certainly believe, as you will see, that there are inconsistencies. The
chapter is organized into three themes—Love the sinner, not the sin; They,
too, have rights, and something happened.
LOVE THE SINNER, NOT THE SIN

For many of the teachers, heterosexuality and religion were mutually
inclusive, and non-heterosexuality was outside this realm of inclusivity.
Loutzenheiser and MacIntosh (2004) highlight that the assumption of
heterosexuality as normal is a normative practice where standards and
norms assumed to be morally superior are created and kept in place. Yet,
despite the micro aggressions teachers talk about the inclusion of LGB
learners.
“We need to try so much a harder. We must focus more on loving the sin-
ner, loving them, and less focusing on the sin. Even though they have not
chosen a righteous path, we must not judge them.” (Badenhorst WWH58)
“I always appeal to the learner’s sense of Christian love. In all my classes,

I always preach a sense that the learners need to distinguish the sin-
ner from the sin. I teach the learners to love the sinner and not the sin.”
(Plaatjies CWH49)
Ms. Mosoeu (AWH41): “When we are talking about it, I always say
are we talking about freedom or what. If
you want to judge then be the judge, but
then one day, one day, there will be a big-
ger judge.”
DF: Judge?
Ms. Mosoeu (AWH41): “Well the ones who judge are the biggest
sinners … Biggest sinners.”
DF: “Biggest sinners?”
Ms. Mosoeu (AWH41): “Well the biggest sinners because they are
judging. The gays they are like lost sheep.”
DF: “Lost sheep?”
Ms. Mosoeu (AWH41): “Yes lost sheep. And that is why as teach-
ers we are like shepherds to show them the
way. And therefore, we must not exclude
the gay and lesbians.”
SHIFTING POSITIONS OF INCLUSION 73
Similar sentiments were shared in many classroom discussions when

learners raised religious objections to homosexuality.
Learner A: “Our pastor says according to the Bible
homosexuality is a sin. Is it a sin?”
(Loud noises in the class)
Mr. Molaudi (AMH56): “Well if you want me to answer the ques-
tion. Then you will need to be quiet. That
is a good question (names the learner). I
don’t want challenge your pastor’s views as
I have not studied the Bible in that depth
(laughs). Maybe your pastor is taking the
Bible literally as Leviticus and so on and so
on … For instance, the Bible says that glut-
tony is a sin as well? … So we only focus on
homosexuality as a sin and not gluttony as a
sin as well. Why not? Why do we make such
a big thing about homosexuality only when
gluttony is also a sin? So why do we judge
them and not ourselves? If we do, then we
also have to judge all the fat people as sin-
ners as well. First judge us, ourselves, our
gluttony or our covetousness and all that
first and then come and then we can also
judge them. So what I am saying is maybe
we should not judge anyone. Maybe judg-
ing is worse, and the Bible is clear on that.”
The teachers do take on positions of acceptance, tolerance, and attempt

to accept LGB learners through reinterpreting sin and sinning. The inter-
changeable use of same-sex desire, tolerance and “sin”, however, position
LGBT learners as sinners and negatively different. For LGBT learners, “sin-
ner” takes on the dominant and all-inclusive identity as though there can
be a separation of the person from their bodies and actions. For the teach-
ers, with acceptance, which implies that there is something to accept, there
are conditions. The LGB learner’s status is confirmed as not judged but as
“them” and as “sinner.” The “us” and “them”, embedded in the teach-
ers narratives, makes explicit the distinction between those who are LGB
and those who have chosen to follow a “righteous path.” Interestingly,
the same “love the sinner, not the sin” discourse was applied to HIV-
74 D.A. FRANCIS
positive persons during much stigmatized periods in South Africa (Francis,

2004; Francis & Francis, 2006). The “us” and “them” distinction relates
to Kumashiro’s (2000, p. 27) point about how these dispositions are
about ‘whom the other is not but should become’. In other words, non-
heterosexual learners, who are marked and stigmatized, should assimilate
themselves to the dominant culture and become more Christian or in line
with the heterosexist claim more righteous. Heterosexuals, on the other
hand, whether ‘gluttonous’ or ‘covetous’ remain the norm and privileged.
Take note of similar patterns tracked in the research by Carrim (1998) and
Carrim and Soudien (1999) on the desegregation South African schools
when African learners were first enrolled in Indian, Coloured and Whites
Schools.
These comments by teachers and students in “Indian”, “coloured” and

“white” schools make consistent reference to an “us” and “them” language,
which not only indicates the racially exclusivist ways in which they define
their own identities, but also the predominance of assimilationism in their
experiences of the desegregation of their schools. The assumption here
being that “they” are coming to “us” and the more “they” are like “us”
or, the more “they” become like “us”, the more acceptable “they” become.
The “host” culture is not viewed as lacking, since deficiencies, if any, are
seen to be tied inextricably only to the incoming “other”. (Carrim, 1998,
p. 311)
When same-sex desire is portrayed as a consequence of sinful conduct,

teaching and learning implicitly produce an image of the sinful or immoral
“other” who must be tolerated.
LGB youth, on the other hand, talk about religion differently by reject-
ing adult constructions of sin and sinning. The participants acknowledge
the inescapable negative individual and societal attitudes towards LGB
learners. They speak of those who make such claims as “false,” “misreading
biblical texts,” “inconsistent with their reading of the Bible” and “using
the Bible to support their confusion.” Look at how Pretorius (WMB/
G18) describes those with bigoted views:
“The big problem is … I wouldn’t say problem. I can’t find the right words
to say this. Either way, it’s going to sound horrible. But, for example,
Christianity: That’s the huge thing. I mean, Hitler did it, saying: “The Bible
says being gay is wrong. If you’re gay, concentration camp, you die. Bye
bye.” In the classroom, for example, you have an open-minded teacher,

and they put this in the books. Where in the classroom they tell you: “You
know what? It’s okay to be gay. It’s normal. There’s nothing wrong with
you.” But then you go outside of the classroom, and you get bombarded
with Bible verses and people telling you’re going to hell, which just makes
it impossible. Then they don’t know which is right, which is wrong. Who
do you trust? Who do you listen to? It just becomes impossible. You don’t
know who to trust, whom to listen to. They are confused. I mean, do you
listen to your teacher, who tells you what you want to hear? If I can put it in
that way. The teacher who actually gives you the truth, that it is okay, there
is nothing wrong with you or someone else who is confused.” (Pretorius
WMB/G18)
The youth reject ignorance and misinformation. They demonstrate

their resistance by exposing homophobic bigotry and as can be seen
in the above narrative by Pretorius (WMB/G18), he likens bigots to
vile and evil personalities such as Hitler. The LGB youth talk about
religion and same-sex desire as reconcilable and not mutually exclusive.
As Jacobs (CMG18) verbalizes it “Why would God create gays and les-
bians people and why can’t [gays and lesbians] worship God? Drawing
from the interviews the LGB youth talk about themselves as leading
‘authentic and truthful’ lives as compared to many of their Christian
peers who engage in same-sex sexuality but would conceal their sexual
orientation.”
“And then afterward a friend … Well, not really a friend, but we just met.
And then he’s like I’m brave as I just said that to everyone that I am gay.
And how did I get to that point? Because he’s so religious so in the closet.
Like, he doesn’t ever speak about his sexuality to anyone. His life is like a
secret, like a lie. And then he asked me how did I negotiate being openly
gay and then still being Christian. And then I told him I mean, I grew
up in a very Christian family. My grandparents raised me. They are very
Christian people. I have been taught that Christianity must free me not
trap me. They didn’t really impose anything on me. And I told him what
worked in my favor as being part of Christianity allows me to walk in my
truth and I walk in it. And I am free and not living a secret. A lie. And then
… Ja, it may be that there are people out there who are so worried about
being themselves because they are Christian, and they’re part of religious
institutions. But what is the point if it traps you?” (Photo AMG17)
76 D.A. FRANCIS
The LGB learners fight back. They resist the “psychological colonization”
and refute and disrupt, the common sense notion of sin and sinner who must
be tolerated—“I am not a sinner. My sexuality is a natural God created bless-
ing, not a sin”. Jakobsen and Pellegrini (2003), in their book Love the Sin, use
a range of case studies to reject the conservative religious argument for sexual
regulation. They challenge the manner in which religion, sex, and tolerance
intertwine in the US and make a compelling case for loving the sinner and
the sin. Mayo (Mayo, 2013, p. 81), too, reiterates what is widely known:
schools are not religious institutions, professional responsibilities limit the
extent to which educators should act on their faith commitments in schools,
and professional standards help draw the line for those who have trouble
remembering.
“THEY, TOO, HAVE RIGHTS”

A common trope in many of the teacher narratives is “we don’t see differ-
ences here as we are all equal” (Engelbrecht WMH25), “To treat every-
one the same as the other like the constitution says” (Malope AMG29)
and “they have rights, and, therefore, we are equal” (Rasunyane AWH57)
is another device teacher used to argue for the inclusion of LGB learn-
ers. However, in asserting that equality exists the teachers deny inequal-
ity at a group level and that there are in fact benefits from heterosexual
privilege.
“I am not sure what all the fuss is about. We are all equal, and I tell the
learners that all the time. We are all equal. We need to understand that that
is what the constitution says. I say to them, I am like you and you like me.
We are equal.” (Engelbrecht WMH25)
[The teacher reads] “Section 9 of the constitution is very clear that no one
will be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, sex, pregnancy, mari-
tal status, ethnic or social origin, color, sexual orientation, age, disability,
religion, conscience, belief, culture, language, and birth. When I am say-
ing sexual orientation, I mean gays, lesbian and such and such.” (Phahlo
AMH27)
While teachers are in dialogue about sexual orientation, equality, and

inequality, what they lag behind is engaging with the systemic nature of
heterosexism and heteronormativity. What they also conflate is an under-
standing of formal and substantive concepts of equality, which Smith

(2014) clarifies. For Smith (2014, p. 609), a formal approach to equality
requires an equal application of the law without an interrogation of the
particular “circumstances or context of the individual or group and, con-
sequently, the content and the potential discriminatory impact of the law
and policy under review.” The teacher’s notion of equality is couched
within this formal approach to equality, which “disregards all aspects of
group membership, and tends to individualize everything so that patterns
of group-based oppression and subordination are rendered invisible”
Rather than draw on the equality clause to positively acknowledge gender
and sexuality diversity, the teachers emphasize sameness. Borrowing from
Finley (1986), Smith argues that formal equality marginalizes and renders
minorities invisible. The teachers citing of “everyone is equal in the eyes
of the law” for the inclusion of LGBT youth is assimilationist “underly-
ing the conception of consistency as equality presumes sameness” (Smith,
2014, p. 609). In appropriating the language of a formal approach to
equality, teachers end up assimilating gender and sexual minorities and
impose “subordinating treatment on those already suffering social, politi-
cal or economic disadvantage”(Smith, 2014, p. 609). A similar trope
is evidenced in how teachers draw on a rainbow discourse to argue for
equality:
“We don’t see differences here as they are all treated equally, all gender, all
sexual beings. They are all equal like colors in our rainbow, rainbow country.
They are all treated fairly; all treated equally.” (Retief WMH26)
“We are the rainbow nation, we are all equal, all humans no matter what
race, gender even sexuality does not matter. At the end of the day, we are all
the same we have moved on to equality and freedom for all.” (Smit WWL35)
The introduction of progressive legislation in terms of gender and

sexuality and the idea of having “moved on” post-apartheid, the teacher
talk typifies what Francis and Hemson (Francis & Hemson, 2007b,
pp. 102–103) write about rainbowism which describes how South Africans,
as a collective, have moved “beyond the past when apartheid ended, and
power differentials were washed away”. A crucial missing element in the
rainbowist discourse, as Francis and Hemson (2007a), articulate it, is an
exploration of power and conflict in society. In many ways the rhetoric of
the Rainbow Nation
78 D.A. FRANCIS
… has fostered “multiculturalism” in the sense of celebrating the differences

outside an assumed norm. It does not connect with the history of strug-
gle and fails to challenge the idea of culture as static tradition … [A]s an
approach that affirms difference without scrutinizing differences in power
relations, and that avoids dealing with the conflicts around differences in
power. (Francis & Hemson, 2007a, p. 44)
The teachers, by obscuring differences, distort the power differentials and

privilege regarding sexual orientation and appropriate the language of
rainbowism to describe how with the passing of progressive legislation,
“they are equal like colors in our rainbow”. Such a view deepens the binary
between heterosexuals and sexual minorities and upholds the dividends of
heterosexuality. As Kumashiro has argued, this approach involves seeing
how “they” are like “us” (and that, deep down, we are all the same), i.e.,
it means understanding the self in the other, and thus, maintaining the
centrality and normalcy of the self (Kumashiro, 2000, p. 45).
The LGB youth, however, speak to the teacher’s view of equality dif-
ferently. The LGB youth challenge the idea that “now because we have
rights we are all equal” and the assumption that because of the equality
clause heterosexism has disappeared. They question equality and what this
means:
“There is this assumption that we are just like heterosexuals. We, well I am
not. That we are all equal? What does that even mean?” (Motsie AMG18)
“We are like you. I need equality because I am like you. I am actually differ-
ent. I am in the middle. I am not straight; I am not gay. I am bi.” (Photolo
AWB17)
There is a proliferation of new interpretations of what equality means.

The youth are calling on teachers and adults to do the work here and
challenge the notion that if people can learn about different groups and
develop empathy for them, then ignorance and the prejudice based on it
will be effectively combated (Kumashiro, 2002, p. 3). Van Niekerk shares:
“This one day the LO teacher asked the class how many of you are you for
gays and how many are against. I went cold when she did this … I looked
around, and I saw those who will support me and those who will not. I felt
very sad that day because so many were against. And I just thought what
if they knew I was gay. What would they say? Would they be against me?
Why? Why would they? Then the teacher was speaking to the class about
the constitution and why they should be for gays. I was so upset … I wasn’t
sure what the teacher was trying to prove… that they should not be for gays
because the constitution says so or whether their hearts says so? I needed
to know that and not that they must love me because something tells them
to.” (Van Niekerk CMG17)
What Van Niekerk (CMG17) is arguing is that a declaration of “no one

will be discriminated on the basis of their sexual orientation” is useful but
meaningless if we do not move beyond the declaration of the constitution
to a framework of equality, humanness, and dignity. What he is arguing
for is that a rights frame declaration is not an end, but a means to an end.
Van Niekerk’s (CMG17) comment highlights the need to work for libera-
tion and not focus solely on equality with all its unsuitable assemblages.
In the same way, Lekota (AWL18) says: “Everyone thinks that because it
is stated in the constitution, then it actually means that everyone is now
free that gays and heteros are now equal … that there is no homopho-
bia and transphobia. But that is not the case … the teachers quote the
constitution all the time”. There is a general fatigue among the youth in
talking endlessly about LGB rights within South Africa and yet the broad
LO curriculum still neglects non-normative sexualities. Nkoane (AWL19)
says, “There are rights but who cares about that. The teachers or the
other learners do not have an understanding of that. My thoughts will be
different how about we talk about equality, humanness, dignity instead
of no one will be discriminated on the basis of their sexual orientation”.
The LGB youth are arguing that rights are brought about through activ-
ism as Lubbe (WMB17) questions “How many of us will, in fact, take
someone to court if they say something that is homophobic. What if a
teacher says something homophobic? What will happen? Who will we
report him to? What does that mean for my rights? It means nothing.”
In fact, Sigamoney and Epprecht (2013, pp. 101–102) argue that this
part of the constitution is elitist, out of touch with the majority opin-
ion, and irrelevant to poor black LGBTI individuals who don’t have the
resources to fight for their rights through the courts. The LGB learners
are rejecting adult constructions of themselves and in so many ways, there
is a call for teachers to unpack the constitution and its meaning. The LGB
youth force us to recognize teachers as practitioners who can critique the
constitution and try to make it socially real. The LGB youth are posing
questions beyond section 9 of the constitution and are asking what has
happened to South Africa’s investment in education as freedom? We can
learn from the data that LGB youth have authentic personal understand-
80 D.A. FRANCIS
ings of injustice or human wrongs, and they make this explicit in their
reference to the protections promised by the constitution. The LGB youth
are calling instead for humanness and care by mentioning their human
rights but at the same describe being human outside of constitutional
language. However, as the data in my study suggests there are still high
levels of heterosexism and, therefore, having good laws might not help as
much as Nkoane (AWL19) tells: “Maybe if we were more equal, if there
were more equality between the rich and poor, or more equality men and
women, there would not be so much of homophobia. Maybe our con-
stitution is not going to make a difference until we make a difference by
looking at inequality in South Africa.” What Nkoane (AWL19) is point-
ing to is the unequal socio-economic conditions as a reason people have
not paid sufficient attention to the freedoms around sexual orientation.
Nkoane’s (AWL19) narrative points to the high inequality in South Africa.
The World Bank (2012) report on South Africa tracked the differences in
life opportunities for South African children and found huge differences
based on race, gender, location, and household income. In fact, with a
Gini coefficient of 0.65 or 0.77 or 0.59 SA is one of the most unequal
societies in the world. If there were more employment, housing, water,
sanitation, and access to education for all, there would be a different read-
ing of the sexual orientation clause and heterosexism would be minimized.
If equality around class, race, and gender is more equal then perhaps there
will be more alignment with the constitution. Similarly, Motsie (AMG18)
states “the constitution also talks about no one shall be discriminated on
the basis of race and gender and class and stuff like that and there is still
discrimination. There is still poverty, and poor people are discriminated
against. The constitution also talks about pregnancy and girls who fall
pregnant cannot attend this school. They have to leave.” What Nkoane
(AWL19) and Motsie (AMG18) are specifically pointing to is how South
Africa has let its commitments to freedom and rights around sexual orien-
tation rest on the shelf (DePalma & Francis, 2013). Clearly LGB presence
in schools is shaped by similar discourses of non-heterosexualities in the
public space (Gevisser & Cameron, 1995; Hoad, Martin, & Reid, 2005;
Reid, 2003). Reid (2003) sums this section perfectly noting that the pres-
ence of LGB youth in schools are both empowering and constraining.
There are simultaneous and competing discourses, one in relation to con-
stitutional democracy and the other consisting of conservative appeals to
tradition, religion, and culture.
“SOMETHING HAPPENED”
In this section, I trace the ways teachers used powerful professionalized
and pathologized narratives in describing LGBT youth and normative
sexuality in their schools. I make these points to highlight the determina-
tion to pathologize same-sex desiring learners in schools but at the same
time make certain teachers’ concerns to include the learners as individu-
als with special needs. They legitimize this order by couching it in the
language of normalcy and common sense. (Kumashiro, 2000, p. 36) I
provide evidence that teachers beliefs about same-sex sexualities and their
responsibilities for LGB learners are part of a corpus of attitudes about
how homosexuality is about deviance and pathology that is intimately tied
to the very possibility of normative heterosexuality.
“Her father is an alcoholic, and I know something happened there. I just

cannot put a finger on it … but something happened. Ag shame but she is
such a lovely girl you know.” (De Kok WWH43)
Ms. Badenhorst (WWH58): “There is this one boy … When he was in

grade ten, he was playing rugby with the
other boys and he was a star. He was going
to church, and he had a lovely girl and he
is doing so well in academics and even in
rugby always with the girls he would never
be separated from them. He came from a
good home you know. His father is a lawyer,
and his mother is an elder in the church. A
good home. In Grade 11, midway, we don’t
know what happened to him. He is now
always with the girls, and he now wants to
switch to home economics and at one stage
there was talk that he is gay …. He became
very soft like a girl. Like all dainty and girlie,
you know. We were worried, and he was
being bullied and his parents got involved
and we were all concerned at the school as
to what happened to him.”
DF: “Concerned?”
82 D.A. FRANCIS
Ms. Badenhorst (WWH58): (Softly) “You know what made him gay.
But you know we have to make sure that
there is a place for him in this school … If
anyone gives him a hassle, I look out for
him.”
What both Ms. De Kok (WWH43) and Ms. Badenhorst (WWH58)

are angling at is that there is a constant tension in educational settings
that to speak of gender and sexuality diversity is to first pin—who is the
homosexual or who is the other? Once the LGB learner is named, he
or she is marked with the assumption that they have been negatively
impacted—“something happened”. In this way, gay and lesbian identities
are often homophobically read and essentialized through stereotypes, the
experiences of others, and representations in popular culture (Robinson &
Ferfolja, 2001, p. 131). Inherent in the teacher narratives is the resolve to
pathologize the learner’s feelings, emotions, and desires of sexual minori-
ties in school. For the teachers, there is a deep commitment to fix or
remedy LGB learners and thereby include them as Williams (CWH28)
tells, “They need us. They are here, and they need us and we need to help
them” This particular vignette talks directly to the point I am making
where Mr. Tau (AMH57) goes to great lengths to equate the presence of
LGB learners at the school to learners with disability and talks about the
schools unpreparedness to “deal” with the LGB learners.
Mr. Tau (AMH57): “It’s the same. When schools were becoming inclu-
sive schools when the learners with a disability were
being admitted to the schools. It was the same.”
DF: Same?
Mr. Tau (AMH57): “Yes before the learners with a disability were
admitted at the school there was no problem. We
did not need ramps and then the schools accepted
them and then we had to run like chickens without
heads to try and deal with the problem to make
them included.”
DF: “Tell me more.”
Mr. Tau (AMH57): “When they (learners with a disability) arrived we
then had a problem, which we did not have in the
past.”
DF: “So how does their presence relate to the LGB
youth at the school?”
Mr. Tau (AMH57): “It’s the same. Now that they are here we need to
put things in place so that they are protected and
not leave them out and excluded? … We need to
keep them safe from the bullying and violence. We
did not have that problem before but now with the
presence of the LGBT youth, we do and we need
to deal with it. Just as those with a disability could
not help being born with a disability they cannot
be blamed. We must put things in place to include
them.”
LGB people share many similar experiences to learners with disabilities

including a history of social injustice, oppression, and isolation (Chappell,
2013, 2015). While Mr. Tau (AMH57) does not answer what needs to
be put in place to include LGB learners, he makes the point for inclusion
and doing what whatever it takes to make “them have a sense of belong-
ing.” Notwithstanding, his call for inclusion there is an implied “they are
coming to us” and in need of care. The reference to disability is particu-
larly interesting as it ignores that the physical infrastructure of a school is
one which privileges certain bodies (those able to move-function-climb in
particular ways) - this does not mean these bodies are more able, or other
bodies are disabled. It just means the physical infrastructure privileges cer-
tain types of bodies. The talk about LGB youth can be understood in a
similar manner—gender and sexual minorities are not looking for special
treatment (or special policy for that matter). The special treatment implies
that the societal, social, and value structure of the school is one which
centers and privileges heterosexuals. This cultural/social infrastructure
puts the queer child at risk? The tone of the teacher implies that these
groups have special needs, this is revealing—it highlights that the structure
of privilege at the school (physical for “disabled” children and social for
queer children) is invisible. Since it is invisible, anything different is regis-
tered as special/different/queer?
The teachers draw on narratives of damage and the need for healing
for non-heterosexuals. By dangling the “something happened” to LGBT
youth and, therefore, they need to be included suggests misfortune and
pity. Working from a position of “concern”, the teacher’s narratives
suggest that LGB youth are at risk, in need of intervention and accep-
tance. There is a sense of sympathy for the LGB learners as Ms. Willemse
(CWH35) “Ag shame the poor thing we must do all that we can to sup-
port her.” Support is doing everything to deal with a problem or as Ms.
84 D.A. FRANCIS
Mosoeu (AWH41) puts it “show them the way” through emphasizing

heterosexuality. This kind of knowledge encourages a distorted and mis-
leading understanding of the gender and sexual minorities that are based
on sensationalist and stereotypical accounts (Kumashiro, 2000, 2002).
Inevitably, the teaching and learning experience of all learners, including
heterosexuals, suffer from teacher misinformation and stereotyping. Since
teachers often decide what occurs in their classrooms, it follows that this
position translates into curricular silences (Loutzenheiser & MacIntosh,
2004, p. 155). In sum, the use of “something happened” suggests inclu-
sion by the teacher but is an indication of heterosexist attitudes. The LGB
youth, however, resist the psychological colonization or position. A sig-
nificant finding and a highlight of this book is how the LGB youth, for the
most part, reject this positioning, as is evidence below.
“So we were having this conversation, and the teacher asked me with a
whole lot of concern. So what are you? I said I am bisexual. She then says,
‘come on you cannot be both. She says you have to choose one or the
other’. I felt bad for her. I don’t think she gets what it means to be bisexual
… I think she was talking more about her misunderstanding and was using
me to make sense of bisexuality for her … I felt sorry for her as she did not
know about bisexuality and I did.” (Mafisa AWB19)
“I am out. The whole class knows that I am gay. I have not hidden that I
am gay, and I am not going to. I will continue to ask questions about gays
and lesbians and whether my teachers answer me or not my idea is to bring
a ‘different normalness’ into the classroom. I am gay, and nothing is going
to cancel that or me.” (Photo AMG17)
“They know I am a lesbian in the school, and I make that known in the
sexuality education classroom and elsewhere … The teachers will need to
change. Not me. I can’t. They can. They will need to … change … and
include more than hetero sex and reproduction.” (Tshishonge AWL19)
The LGB youth resolutely situate the “confusion” and “misunder-

standing” of teachers who are homophobic and intolerant. LGBT learners
are very critical of what is being said and resist what is being said about
positioning them.
Unlike previous research that makes it explicit that teachers do not
want to teach about gender and sexual diversity, the data in my study
shows that despite drawing on very problematic discourses, teachers make
arguments for the inclusion of LGB youth. Problematic religious, legal,

and pathological frameworks characterize the teachers call for inclusion.
Yet, while there are problems with the positions adopted by many of the
teachers, in attempting to highlight their own and learners understanding
of gender and sexuality diversity, they point to normalizing differences and
show no compunction for the assimilation of LGB learners. The immedi-
ate reasons for these shifts are complex and I discuss this more fully in
Chap. 7. Contextual changes, such as political liberalization, redefined
religious positions and a new openness about sexuality globally and in
contemporary SA offer a partial explanation for the shift. As can be learned
from the literature on the desegregation of South African schools, there
are problems with assimilationist approaches, which have been found to
be insufficient in dealing with structural inequalities or enabling people to
gain a better understanding of each other (Carrim, 1995, 1998; Carrim
& Soudien, 1999; Francis & Hemson, 2007a). Similarly, and despite the
shift in positioning of the teachers and LGB learners, an uncritical gloss-
ing of gender and sexuality diversity has the potential to reify heterosex-
ism and heteronormativity rather than disrupt its pervasiveness. There are
two clear implications. First, the adoption of predominately assimilationist
approaches in teaching suggests the need for the inclusion of a critical
anti-heterosexist pre-service and in-service teacher education curriculum.
Second, teachers need to realize that their identities and life experiences
are crucial to understanding heterosexual privilege and disadvantage and
how this is essential for their own journey as change agents.
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CHAPTER 6
Troubling the Agency-Victimhood Trope
This chapter is about LGBT youth’s voices. There are very few pieces
of research in South Africa on LGB young people in school. Much of
the available research describes the experiences of LGB youth but not
all studies are based on interviews with them. Instead, they are drawn
from the perspectives of teachers (Bhana, 2012b; DePalma & Francis,
2014; Francis, 2012; Francis & Msibi, 2011; Reygan & Francis, 2015;
Swanepoel & Beyers, 2015), pre-service teachers (Johnson, 2014;
Richardson, 2004), school managers (Bhana, 2014) and parents (Bhana,
2012a). Though the research does not reflect the lived experiences of
LGB youth in South Africa in any straightforward manner, it does high-
light the complex ways in which sexual orientation and gender are made
explicit in schools and how heterosexuality is normalized.
The available studies that do focus on LGB youth are not exclusively
about young people attending school. They include tertiary students post-
school youth (Butler & Astbury, 2008; Kowen & Davis, 2006; Msibi,
2009, 2012; Wells & Polders, 2006), out of school youth (Astbury &
Butler, 2005; Butler & Astbury, 2008; Reygan & Lynette, 2014) and
young people in employment (Reygan & Lynette, 2014; Wells & Polders,
2005, 2006). The diversity in these youth samples might have to do with
Richardson’s argument about the difficulty of conducting research with
youth in schools. Richardson (2008, p. 137) writes, “one of the major

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1_6
90 D.A. FRANCIS
obstacles that researchers of LGBT youth encounter in South Africa is the

lack of access to these adolescents.”
The South African research on LGBT youth has to a large extent
focused on experiences of marginalization (Butler & Astbury, 2008;
Wells & Polders, 2006), victimization (Msibi, 2009; Wells & Polders,
2006), alienation (Kowen & Davis, 2006; Msibi, 2012), violence and
bullying (Butler & Astbury, 2008; Kowen & Davis, 2006; McArthur,
2015; Nel & Judge, 2008; Wells & Polders, 2006), reduced academic
performance (Human Rights Watch, 2011), and school dropout
(Human Rights Watch, 2011). Moving away from positioning gender
and sexuality minorities as deficit and passive recipients, recent research
and writing have shown how the focus as victim has been challenged
by a focus of positioning LGBT youth as agents (McArthur, 2015;
Msibi, 2012). In making the case of positioning LGB people as agents
Ferfolja (2007) writes that it is important to recognize that individu-
als do have agency to resist and challenge, to choose amongst avail-
able discourses, and to exercise power. Research and documentation are
necessary for exposing the ways LGB youth are victimized in schools
as it helps teachers and practitioners improve the life circumstances of
LGB youth through different types of intervention (Harper, Brodsky,
& Bruce, 2012). However, it also serves to perpetuate the notion
that non-heteronormative sexualities are only victims and not agents
(Blackburn, 2004).
This trope of agency and victimhood is also evident in the South
African context. Msibi (2012, p. 518) cautions that when researchers
focus, solely, on the negative experiences of LGBT learners in schools, it
becomes very easy to “view this group as a helpless, powerless group that
is victimized in schools and society”. He argues that such an approach
“removes agency” from LGBT youth. Juxtaposing agency and victim-
ization in LGBT youth research truncates the research into discrete and
discernable compartments. In reality, human experience is hardly so
clear-cut. However, despite its usefulness, the victim-agency dualism is
counterproductive. I do not mean to suggest that that research on posi-
tioning LGBT youth as victims or agents is wrong nor am I implying
that young people are not agents or experience victimization. Instead,
I am arguing that positioning youth exclusively as either victims, and/
or agents is counterproductive for four reasons. It leads us to a cul-de-
sac or dead end, it reduces an understanding of heterosexism to the
TROUBLING THE AGENCY-VICTIMHOOD TROPE 91
individual level failing to take account of the systemic nature of oppres-

sion, it ignores the multiplicity of identities held by LGBT youth and it
compromises a focus on same-sex relationships, intimacy, desire, and the
dreams and aspirations of LGB youth.
CUL-DE DAC
Feminist scholars (Jungar & Oinas, 2010, 2011; Shefer, 2015), inter-
rogate the ways in which the glib uses of agency and victimhood are
in fact “two sides of the same coin—a problematic of the dislocated
individual” (Jungar & Oinas, 2011, p. 250). Jungar and Oinas (2010,
p. 179) provide an especially useful starting point by arguing that while
there appears to be a marked difference between presenting woman
on one hand, and celebrating their agency on the other; the two cur-
rents reveal very similar assumptions. The unreflexive representation of
women as mere “agents” and/or “victims”, calls attention to how the
types of questions asked and the presentation of findings researchers
present, reflect researchers’ own expectations that obscure alternative
narratives and experiences of gender and sexuality (Jungar & Oinas,
2010, 2011; Shefer, 2015). Shefer (2015), for example, argues that as
researchers
we need to be extremely careful of falling into the trap of glorifying women

as agents, as powerful, as strong, as “survivors” in the reaction to the repro-
duction (and legitimation) of normative gender roles. It is important to
resist reversing the image to one of women as always “survivor” and agent
… Taking forward this work, therefore, requires avoiding a binarism where
women and girls are either presented as helpless victims or super-women
survivors, bearing in mind that despite its apparent policy relevance and
rhetorical attractiveness, the agency–victim dualism is a counterproductive
one that leads to a political cul-de-sac.
I believe the same holds true for research with gender and sexual minori-
ties where positioning LGBT youth on a continuum of agency and vic-
timhood denies the complexity of experience. Equally troubling in the
South African context, is the wholesale attribution and application of
the agency of LGB youth, devoid of an interrogation of specific histories
and policies of colonialism and apartheid inherent with laws on sexual
immorality, and institutionalized racism. Kumashiro (2000, p. 27), too,
92 D.A. FRANCIS
shows how research examines the internal ways of thinking, feeling, and
valuing that justify, prompt, and get played out (and even reinforced) in
the harmful treatment of the other. Sometimes, these dispositions—both
conscious and unconscious ones—are about whom the other is and/
or should be. The literature and research on LGBT youth show this
consistently in that as much as LGBT youth experience marginalization
and victimization they are depicted as agents of their decisions. Such a
depiction is problematic as we can see in Blackburn’s (2004, p. 109)
writing about LGBT youth in the US. Blackburn contends, “we need
to see agency beyond school-sanctioned work. This means recogniz-
ing that when a student challenges ideas, he or she is asserting agency”
and “withdrawing from school, whether that withdrawal is emotional
or physical, is also a way of asserting agency.” The consequence of such
contentions is that LGBT youth are held responsible or complicit for
their victimization. Jungar and Oinas (2011, p. 254) highlight that it is
critical to ask—
…what happens when the victim-woman is first established and then negated
within one sentence? Does victimhood disappear the moment the text
decides to disclaim it? Or is the statement an obvious gesture that the writer
needs in order to attest to political correctness? What is clear is that claims
about agency hide and even normalize violence and oppression. A repetitive
evocation of agency overshadows the oppressive circumstances that inhibit
individuals’ scope for action. When focusing on individual agency, the analy-
sis operates by conflating it with choice making, while juxtaposing this with
extensive evidence of subordination.
Tshishonge’s (AWL19) narrative speaks directly to this phenomenon

where her powerful resistance in the sexuality education classroom can be
easily interpreted as solely agentic.
“At school, I ask, “why aren’t we doing this, and that.” Like why are we
just learning about hetero sex because sex is more than just between and
a man and woman” I ask the teachers why they only use man and wife?
I ask them, and push them, and they do try and answer.” (Tshishonge
AWL19)
In presenting the above narrative, which occurred earlier in the inter-

view, I want to show how a narrow reading could easily misrepresent
Tshishonge (AWL19), as an individual heroic agent. It is only a partial

representation of her complete narrative. The following script is also from
Tshishonge speaking about her home life:
“At home, I won’t share that I am a lesbian. My father and mother are
elders in their church, and so I don’t push the issue at home. My father and
mother have very set ways, and it is according to the Bible. Everything is
about God’s word in our house. God’s word say this and God’s word says
that. It is not easy to talk to them about same-sex because for them it will
only be about God’s word.” (Tshishonge AWL19)
When both narratives are read, we glean “the great complexity of subjects’
lives and the extent to which numerous circumstances constrain and deter-
mine their actions” (Jungar & Oinas, 2011, p. 253). The LGB youth’s
lives at school and beyond diverge concerning context and situatedness.
Tshishonge’s (AWL19) narrative provides a useful example of how LGB
lives are variably determined by disadvantage and privilege depending on
where and how as individuals they are socially positioned. There is a turn
away from individualized perspectives such as “individual, heroic agency
which has become a troubled perspective to be replaced by a view on
social circumstances and situated agency as a simultaneous, constitutive
processes of subjectification” (Jungar & Oinas, 2010, p. 185).
What many of the narratives of the LGB youth in my study reveal is that
unlike representations in the literature of LGB youth as individual agents,
there were many examples of how the LGBT youth organized themselves
as a collective in their response to challenges in school.
“I told my mother what the teacher had said about gays and Christianity …
She went bonkers … ape crazy. She phoned this person from her church …,
and that lady phone someone else like a deacon or something. The three
of them marched to the principal’s office. My mother and these two from
the church went all crazy on the principal about the Bible and gays and
homophobia … They (3 women) went prepared with Bible verses left right
and center. They told the principals what the teacher had said about gays
going to hell, and they cannot be Christians. They went all ape crazy on the
principal. And he (principal) knew them because he was also from the same
church … They went crazy telling the principal that the teachers need to
know their Bible and that the teachers need to get proper training and not
to teach what they don’t know. Afterward, the principal called me in with
the teacher, and the teacher apologized for what she had said… A couple of
94 D.A. FRANCIS
weeks later the teacher invited someone from the university to address the
class about homosexuality.” (Van Niekerk CMG17)
“So this day, it was a Valentines dress up day, and I wore a red outfit with
a wig and everything and I looked so beautiful. My fag hags were tell-
ing me how beautiful I looked… We are best friends, and we also have
a lesbian in our group and we hang out and lunch time… So we were
walking to class, and this one guy tripped me on the stairs and I went
down. I was so disappointed because the dress I was wearing caught on
this pole. It tore. I started to cry. Everyone was laughing at me. But I
will never forget that day. My fag hags and my lesbian friend they pulled
that guy down and held him down and said, “if you touch him again you
are dead”. Everyone who was laughing at me then started to laugh at
him you know because these three girls took him down. They took him
down.” (Molebatsi AMG19)
Unlike much of the research in the global north that focus on indi-
vidual agency of LGB youth (Blackburn, 2004; Kjaran & Jóhannesson,
2013; Pascoe, 2007), the youth in my study emphasize the need for the
collective which is inclusive of LGB youth and heterosexuals as a means of
defeating heterosexism in their schools as Lubbe (WMB17) tells:
“It’s not like we alone. We do have families, we do have friends and even
some of the teachers they will stand up for you and they will fight and
I like that. They will stand up to homophobia, and that make me feel
good that I am not alone and that it is just not my battle alone.” (Lubbe
WMB17)
Even when LGBT youth are individually implicated, they show under-
standings of agency as a collective force to resist heterosexism and het-
eronormativity. In the narratives above we see how LGB youth can rouse
the support of heterosexual parents, teachers, and friends in their contexts
as allies against heterosexism. This particular story by Motsie (AMG18)
exemplifies the power of the collective and shows precisely how teachers,
too, can be allies.
“And the one time he (deputy principal) saw me. It was after school. And
I was in grade seven back then. And then he called me the next morning,
and he asked me why I was playing netball. And I told him because I was
chosen in the B-squad of the netball team. And he told me that I should quit
netball and start attending the choir practice, or he’ll take me to soccer. And
then I didn’t go to netball. I didn’t attend choir. And I also did not attend
anything. I just stepped back from school activities. And then he would
consistently make remarks, such as: “You’re going to end up stupid because
you’re always amongst the girls. You’re not going to be man enough. You’re
not going to be masculine because there’s nothing masculine about the
social circle you’re in. It’s always girls, girls, girls. So you’re never going to
learn how to toughen up and be a man.” …He would … You know, he used
to shake us. Like, hold you very tight and shake you. And you know: “You
need to man up!” You know. That, kind of, loud voice. He was very aggres-
sive. He was the deputy principal. So everyone at the school was afraid of
him.” (Motsie AMG18)
Motsie talks in detail about his withdrawal from all activities including
netball until the woman teacher in charge of netball approached him.
“So, she asked me ‘Why did you stop attending netball practice because I
also think that the team needs you because you know you give them that
momentum. You also have strength. So, with you, they feel they’re in a
competition. You give them that competitive feeling.’ I then started crying.
I feel like I’m being harassed by the fact that the deputy principal hates it
when I play netball.” (Motsie AMG18)
In the following we see how the teacher together with his netball team-
mates trouble and challenge the prevalent heteronormativity at the school.
Through Motsie (AMG18) narrative, we see the power of collective action
and its ability not only to bring about change but its ability to transform
the lives of marginalized groups such as LGB.
“The following morning, in his class, he just told me that: ‘I’m not going
to do anything to you. I wash my hands of this whole thing. So it’s up to
you. If you want to be like this, then it’s your own decision. So I won’t be
pestering you anymore.’ Those are the words he said. But the girls in the
netball team who are in that class stood up for me. The captain said, ‘We
are concerned about how you are treating him. Have you seen him playing
netball? Have you seen how good he is? Why are you so angry and do you
see how your actions are hurting the learners and our love of sport?” Why
are you so angry?’ Just at that moment, the netball teacher walked passed,
and she asked the girls to stop and chatted with the deputy principal alone.”
Motsie (AMG18)
96 D.A. FRANCIS
I asked Motsie (AMG18) about what he thought brought about this

change and his continuation to play netball
“Our school is a community and if we are going to solve anything we are

going to have to do this together as a community. I will never forget how
that teacher stood up for me. How my team-mates stood up for me. That
teacher has washed his hands off me. I don’t do mathematics anymore, but
I know he will never treat another gay or lesbian learner like he did. I think
he got the message …. loud and clear.”
I have been intentionally laboring Motsie’s narrative as it strengthens

the argument about how an exclusive focus on LGB youth as agents has
come mostly to be understood as exemplified in the lone hero, overcom-
ing despite all odds, an active individual able to effect broader change for
self and society. The data in my research presents a different scenario with
regards to the power of collective action. In fact, the collective action was
not about large numbers of people who have responded to heterosex-
ism. It was not. Teachers, parents, and learners were drawn from different
sources of interest for their strategies. Involvement in challenging het-
eronormativity and heterosexism emerged from various configurations or
groupings of people whom we do not always see as allies in the research
with LGBT youth. LGB youth drew on multiple social groupings includ-
ing learners, straight and LGB, “fag hags”, teachers, parents, church
elders, and school leaders and managers. The data exposes a positive con-
struction of connectedness and heterosexual allies. The connectedness is
a significant lacuna in the literature and perhaps, has a lot to do with the
individualist presentation of LGB youth either as victimized or the indi-
vidual hero. What the findings in my study highlight, and strikingly so,
are the particular need to investigate the role of collective youth agency,
beyond the LGB and heterosexual binaries, in challenging heteronorma-
tivity and heterosexism.
THE SYSTEMIC NATURE OF HETEROSEXISM

Second, an over-emphasis on the agent-victim dualism reduces heterosex-
ism to the individual level and fails to take account of the systemic nature
of oppression and precisely the role of and interaction between institu-
tions, society, and the individual. While agency and victimization are strik-
ingly highlighted, it is done simply at the individual or interpersonal level
and not defined in relation to how power and privilege are configured at
the institutional and societal level.
“It’s (heterosexism) everywhere. Everywhere you see man and woman, hus-
band and wife. In preschool, the family is husband and wife and children.
The pictures on the wall are of man and woman, husband and wife. In sex
education, it is about sex between man and woman. In the church it is the
same God made Adam and Eve, you take this woman to be your wife, thou
shall not commit adultery with another man’s wife. The soapies are all about
man and woman. And when it is about gays and lesbians it is about how evil
and bad they are. Have you watched the movie Monster? …. It is a movie
with Charlize Theron. She plays a lesbian in this movie, and she murders
men. So anything about gays and lesbians is about such monsters, unnatural
beings they are. You can’t miss it. It’s all in your face, all the time and every-
where.” (Barnard WWL17)
“If they knew that I was gay, I would not have been chosen as a prefect at
the school … it is as though there is a secret code that gays and lesbians
should not be leaders or in authority because we will do something. I am not
sure what but there is like an unspoken code that if you are like White and
straight, then you are like the chosen ones and that you are all normal and
proper. But there is like a hidden code here at the school and even outside
school that gays and lesbians cannot be in authority. I know if anyone knew
I was gay no one would respect me or take me seriously. Can you imagine
if President Zuma were gay would he have been chosen as our president?
People won’t. They won’t admit that it is because he is gay, but there is like
this hidden code that he will just not make a good president. They won’t
say it, but there is this like code you know that he just would not be like
good enough or like deviant. We are just not seen as equal to the straight
people… It is not just how it is in this school but it is like everywhere inside
and outside that gays and lesbians will always be seen as not good enough or
as deviant.” (Rakhongoana AMB/G16)
Through Barnard (WWL17) and Rakhongoana’s (AMB/G16) narratives,

we see how schools privilege and codify heterosexism and sexism in the
school curriculum and discourse. Both track the representation of the fam-
ily as a heterosexual nuclear family and how this representation is rein-
forced at the societal, institutional, and individual level. Focusing solely
on the victimization of LGB youth in schools reduces prejudice and dis-
crimination at the interpersonal level ignoring the “daily exclusions, insults,
assaults endured by those who are not heterosexual” (Bell, 2007, p. 11).
98 D.A. FRANCIS
The LGB youth in my study emphasize the structural and systemic inequal-
ities of heterosexism evident in their schools. Such findings resonate with
Msibi (2012) research where he concludes that schooling experiences for
LGBT learners in South African schools are oppressive and that the struc-
tural mechanisms at play are so restrictive that agency can only do so much.
The authority and power that teachers yield simply becomes restrictive,
prescriptive and regulatory regarding acceptable sexuality. Compulsory het-
erosexuality is enforced through fear. The vitriolic responses by teachers
towards queer learners are meant to keep learners from being queer, there-
fore policing and regulating sexuality. (Msibi, 2012, p. 525)
Unlike heterosexuals who dominate society, gender and sexual minori-

ties are not always able to choose and shape the schools they attend. This is
evidenced in the literature (Epstein & Johnson, 1998; Kumashiro, 2000;
Rich, 2004). In the endless debates that ask how much of our lives are
determined for us and how much by us, we are apt to forget that the bal-
ance between the two differs depending on where we stand in relation to
social power (Bozzoli, 1991, p. 1991). Focusing on the victimization in the
research continues to treat sexual minority youth as a homogeneous group
and fails to examine the ways in which the social contexts that shape the
lives of LGBT youth influence the persistent inequalities (Horn, Szalacha,
& Drill, 2008; McArthur, 2015). In fact, the participants in my study
show that agency is never automatic but a dynamic interaction between
themselves and the social context that can enable or hinder the degree of
agency that individuals have to construct identities (Giddens, 1991). We
see how in the following narratives how the LGB youth experience vary-
ing degrees of power and disadvantage differently in varying contexts. In
Nkoane (AWL19) school, which is a religious school and follows a very
Christian ethos challenging heterosexism and heteronormativity is much
harder as compared to Hlalele (AMG18) who attends a township school.
“This school is a Christian school and so I cannot talk about being lesbian
here. It just would not go down well. There are a couple of us who are
gay here, but we just act all straight. It is considered a sin here …. So even
though the lessons are only about heterosexuals, the teachers would teach
that intentionally. They won’t want to be thought of as encouraging homo-
sexuality. It just would not go down here … there is nothing we can do to
change that.” (Nkoane AWL19)
“I am in a township school, so there isn’t really, you know, any education

about sexual orientation or something like that…although there’s always
been that one gay boy who puts on lipstick and stuff like that goes to school.
We laugh at him. I mean, that’s what we do. And we don’t necessarily talk
about it … I have a friend. He wore a skirt. So he did that. And nobody
seemed to worry. He is one in a million.” (Hlalele AMG18)
Understanding the varying social contexts in South Africa and how

these interrelate with young people’s intersecting identities, enables us
to view the many ways in which youth experiences their lives, the ways in
which they position themselves within it, and the motley array of other
identities that make up their persons. As Carrim and Soudien (1999,
p. 169) note:
Being African in an Indian school or Coloured school is decidedly dif-

ferent from being African in a White school. Being African, middle class,
and proficient in English is very different from being African, working
class from a rural area, and not having English at all. Being Indian, female
and lesbian too would have rather different implications in a white school
environment as opposed to being Indian, male, and heterosexual in the
same school.
In schools with different structural conditions, the LGB youth are cre-
ative actors who openly resist normative understanding and representa-
tions of sexualities as Mafisa (AWB19) who identifies as bisexual tells:
“So we were having this conversation and the teacher asked me with a whole
of lot of concern. So what are you? I said I am bisexual. She then says, ‘come
on you cannot be both. There is no such thing’. She says, ‘you have to
choose one or the other’. I actually felt bad for her. I don’t think she under-
stands what it means to be bisexual … Its not in her frame of reference. I
think she was talking more about her misunderstanding and was using me to
make sense of bisexuality for her … I felt sorry for her as she did not know
about bisexuality and I did.” (Mafisa AWB19)
For many, bisexuality remains a confusing and diminished subject posi-

tion (Sykes, 2011). The “fight back” by Mafisa (AWB19) is an attempt
to situate resolutely the “confusion” not in LGB learners themselves but
in the “confusion” and “misunderstanding” of teachers who themselves
draw on an understanding of compulsory heterosexuality which is per-
100 D.A. FRANCIS
vasive in education and at all levels. The teachers’ narrative is, however,
institutional and societal, not simply a matter of individual heterosexism.
Bringing this section to a close, research with LGB youth, therefore, needs
to take into account an understanding of the structure and the experience
of young people.
THE MULTIPLICITY OF IDENTITIES LGBT

Third, agency-victimization dualism ignores the multiplicity of identi-
ties the LGB youth hold. While engaging structure and agency as cru-
cial to understanding the experience of LGBT youth, dwelling solely on
these aspects hinder our comprehension of the total experiences of LGBT
youth. By positioning youth exclusively as agent and victims in terms of
their sexual orientation, ignores the multiplicity of identities they hold.
Robinson and Ferfolja (2001, p. 124) write that intersections of sexuality
with other aspects of one’s identity, for example, gender, race, and class,
are emphasized, highlighting the importance of understanding that sexu-
ality is never experienced in isolation from the whole subject. In giving an
account of lives, the LGBT youth described their life worlds as the sum of
many parts, which included but was not limited to their sexual orientation.
Sexual orientation was simply an aspect of a much more complex and mul-
tidimensional whole as Barnard (WWL17) says “it is not as though I wake
up every morning and think 'Whoa I am a lesbian; I am a lesbian'. I am
a lesbian, but it does not possess me. It does not possess my whole life.”
As the LGBT youth talked about their lives they made apparent inter-
connectedness between their social identities, making it impossible to look
at their sexual orientation as completely separate from other aspects of
their lives. The LGBT youth spoke in detail about their grapples on race,
gender, and religion for example:
“It is not easy attending (names school). They are still locked in the past
with their racism. Blacks can’t do this and they can’t do that. In the hostel,
I tell the Black boys not to stand for their racism and that we have every
right to be here as they do. We are all paying the same. The new grade eights
feel very disheartened but I tell them that we need to fight this racism with
everything we have got.” (Mokoena AMG17)
“In Clocholan, the chiefs will tell the women to bow down to them. Just
because I am a woman? I am not going to bow down. I must bow down
because I am a girl? You know it just does not feel right.” (Mophethe
AWL18)
All nineteen participants shared stories of how their sexual identity inter-
related with their other identities and in some examples such as Pretorius
(WMG/B18) we see how he appropriates his subordinate identity in terms
of his sexual orientation to make sense of his white privilege.
“Like I know I am white, and I can get away with things. But apartheid is
over. And we are all equal now. I speak to my Black friends, and they will
say to me Ja but you are white, and you can do this and do that and you
won’t get into trouble for this and for that. There is nothing I can do about
being white. I am white, but I am also able to understand how that Black
guys feel when it is about racism … I suppose it’s like that with gays and
heterosexuals and how the heterosexual can get away with everything. I so
I can understand how they feel. I can’t be good.” (Pretorius WMG/B18)
“I can understand. Like this one friend actually not really a friend from
my church and he asks me how you can be gay and Christian.” (Molebatsi
AMG19)
With an understanding of the multiple identities LGB youth, we see the

range of experiences, both privilege and disadvantage of their lives. The
LGB youth Simon Nkoli a South African anti-apartheid, gay rights, and
AIDS activist makes explicit the intersectionality when he commented: “I
am Black and I am gay…In South Africa, I am oppressed because I am
a Black man, and I am oppressed because I am gay. So when I fight for
my freedom I must fight against both oppressions” (Davis, 2012, p. 2).
Kowen and Davis (2006), too, drawing on their research with young les-
bians conclude that rather than see young lesbians in uni-dimensional
terms, they need to be considered as a total person, their lesbianism is
but one important part of their unfolding identity. The data from my
study has shown that there is so much more to the experiences and lives
of LGB youth, and this has to be incorporated in the research. We learn
from the above narratives, how perilous it can be to view non-heterosexual
youth as one-dimensional and focus exclusively on their identities as gen-
der and sexual minorities. Class race and gender are complex concepts in
any contexts, but the particular history of segregation, apartheid, political
repression, and emergent democracy in SA has made them both fixed and
102 D.A. FRANCIS
interchangeable (Unterhalter, Epstein, Morrell, & Moletsane, 2004). We

also see how anti-racism research in schools has the tendency to work in
a very heteronormative manner ignoring the experiences and needs of
LGBT youth of color (Francis & Hemson, 2007). The situated nature of
oppression and intersecting difference in the identities of learners make
ambitious any anti-oppressive effort that revolves around only one iden-
tity and only one form of oppression (Kumashiro, 2000). In bringing this
third point to a close, my findings point to LGB youth’s diverse patterns
of group identification and how these are variably determined by disad-
vantage and privilege depending on where and how they are socially posi-
tioned. Researchers working with LGB youth will need to shift focus to
consider the interplay and disruptions that inform how social connectivity
and intersections have shaped their life histories and identities.
RELATIONSHIPS, INTIMACY, AND DESIRE

Fourth, a focus exclusively on the agency-victimization duality seriously
compromises the focus from same-sex relationships, intimacy, and desire.
Additionally, we miss out on the young people’s dreams, aspirations, and
their ideas for the creation of a just world. Focusing on the youth stories
during the interviews, which spanned more broadly than the curriculum
and schooling, has enabled me to glean more about their everyday lives,
leisure activities, and relationships.
The LGB youth spoke openly about desire, love, and relationships.
Here is Hlalele (AMG18) talking about when he realizes that his best
friend is in fact in love with him:
“Both ways. It was awkward for me and awkward for him. It is still awkward
for me, I mean, one day we were from church, the Sunday from church, and
(names friend) suspects that one of my closest friends is actually in love with
me. And I told him that: “Oh my goodness. This is not going to be one
of those things whereby you realize that we are friends and later on, when
you’re twenty-eight, realize ‘Oh my God. We’ve been in love together and
let’s hold hands and sing cum-ba-ya.’” He’s like: “No, it’s not going to be
one of these things.” And I was quite comfortable. And he’s the one who
brought it up, you know, so.” (Hlalele AMG18)
There were many stories where the participants spoke about what it feels
like to be in love. Photo (AMG17) and Mophethe (AWL18) tell:
“And he adored me so much. Like: Oh my God. I like it. You know? The
strength. I’m like … And I am the personality that he likes, you know? The
guy who doesn’t talk to people, who gets all A’s, who does everything so
perfectly, and who looks like there’s nothing, you know, that is wrong with
him.” (Photo AMG17)
“And one of my classmates had a sister who was lesbian. So, the one time,
she came to school, and I checked her out, like, before. Oh my goodness.
And then I saw that she’s the sister of my classmate. And then I just went
there, started a random conversation, just so that I could get her to talk to
me because I’m like: Okay. I need this woman’s attention. You know? But, I
guess, because it stayed encapsulated for so long, people didn’t really notice.
Like, I just used to get teased, that: ‘Oh my goodness. You don’t have a
boyfriend. What is wrong with you?’ You know? That kind of stuff. But Ja,
people didn’t really have an idea that: ‘Hey, she’s into girls! Hey! She’s into
girls too.’”
The LGB also spoke about what it means to be teenagers and their likes and
dislikes at schools, their dreams, and aspirations. Here Barnard (WWL17),
Photo (AMG17) and Nichols (WWL18) share thoughts about what they
want to do when they complete school
“I’d love to study further. I actually … I always tell my parents that: ‘Ja, I
want to study biochemistry. But I feel like biochemistry is only going to take
me so far.’”(Barnard WWL17)
“I want to leave South Africa and go overseas to Paris, New York to study
Fashion. I want to open my Fashion school, Photo Couture. All the famous
people and the not so famous will be wearing Photo Couture.” (Photo
(AMG17)
“I want to be a writer. I want to work with I want to write storybooks for

children and teenagers. But my characters are all going to be different. They
are not going to all be traditional gender like boy heroes and girl princesses.
I am going to mix it all up. New gender roles with same-sex partners.”
(Nichols WWL18)
Finally, while there were painful and hurtful stories that described nega-
tive experiences, there was also playful and expressive talk that indicates a
mocking of bullies and intolerable teachers. For example, Rakhongoana
104 D.A. FRANCIS
(AMB/G16) demonstrates the manner of walk and talk of a homopho-

bic teacher exaggerating his “ultra alpha male” masculinity. In another
example, Koetaan (CMG/B18) likens a teacher who “teased” him for his
“effeminate mannerisms” as the “Incredible Hulk.”
“Oh he was all fat and huge, and he would single me out all the time “Why
are you walking like a girl, why are you talking like a girl. What is wrong with
you?” He was like the Hulk, but not like an incredible good Hulk that fights
bad guys. An ugly Hulk. A fat, evil, ugly Hulk. A bully Hulk.” (Laughs and
mimics the Hulk) (Koetaan CMG/B18)
When describing these experiences, the youth’s descriptions were funny

and entertaining filled with animation and histrionics. The young LGB
people are critical of how power is misused and parody social injustice.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have shown that the research globally and in South Africa
on gender and sexuality diversity pivots on two discursive axes of victim-
ization and agency. I have argued that that there are costs for educational
research to over emphasize this dualism. Without dismissing that LGB
youth are agents or that they experience victimization, I am calling for
research to explore the breadth of the schooling experience of gender and
sexual minorities. There needs to be sensitivity to the unique and diverse
issues and challenges faced by LGB youth to make critical teaching, learn-
ing, and support connections.
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CHAPTER 7
Compulsory Heterosexuality
As the focus of this chapter is the voices of the participating teachers and
learners participating in this study, in what follows I provide the necessary
space for their conversations from the interviews and classroom observa-
tions. Drawing on this data, I argue that Adrienne Rich’s (2004) notion
of compulsory heterosexuality pervades the South African sexuality educa-
tion class. There was no lesson plan or information on how LGB youth
would deal with puberty, sexual health, contraception, relationships, and
sexual activities. The normalization of heterosexuality was evident in class-
room discussion on dating, sex, marriage, and the family. The teacher’s
resources, personal examples, and textbook references centered on hetero-
sexual sexual practice. Teachers worked with a strong assumption that all
learners are heterosexuals. The only reference to sexual practice is hetero-
sexuality and, in fact, none of the interviews or class discussions made any
reference to same-sex practice until learners posed a question about same-
sex relationships. Evident from the classroom observations and interviews
that teachers worked with, was an assumption that all learners in the class-
room and school were heterosexuals irrespective of the presence of learn-
ers in the class who were questioning or identified as LGB and did ask
questions about same-sex sexual practice. The ways in which the teaching
of gender and sexuality diversity is taught requires a particular pedagogical
stance, but that depends first on a serious conversation on how we trouble
policy, curriculum, and teaching.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1_7
110 D.A. FRANCIS
In this chapter, I will show how heterosexuality is normalized in schools

through at least three ways. First, the ways curriculum policies, teaching,
and learning material advantage heterosexuality. Second, through peda-
gogy, classroom norms, routines, and practices that celebrate and privi-
lege heterosexuality (desire, relationships, dating, marriage, reproduction,
nuclear family). Third, what teachers say and do that legitimates hetero-
sexuality and hinders the teaching of LGB sexualities. The data shows
that the interplay of policy, curriculum, and teaching coalesce and impede
the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity in the South
African classroom.
POLICY
South Africa has come a long way in making explicit sexual equality in
its Constitution. And while the Bill of Rights, which forms part of the
Constitution, is a model of tolerance, there is a disconnect with how edu-
cational policies cascade these rights to mitigate local understanding and
constructions of gender and sexuality diversity. The national policy ini-
tiatives are useful and set the tones for what needs to happen at school
and in the classroom context. But it fails to address the micro-level policy
change and talk in the classroom. Many of the teacher participants, for
example, mentioned the striking absence of how school policies do not
reflect the tone of the constitution on issues of gender and sexuality. None
of the educational policies such as the South African Schools Act of 1996
(Republic of South Africa, 1996), Revised National Curriculum Statement
(Department of Education, 2002), Curriculum and Assessment Policy
Statement (Department of Basic Education, 2011) or Departmental Life
Orientation Teacher Guidelines (Department of Education, 2000) go as
far as to mention the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, homosexu-
ality, or bisexuality. Educational policies are silent on the nomenclature of
non-normative sexualities and stand unequivocally at odds with the Bill
of Rights and its call for inclusion and non-discrimination on issues of
sexual orientation. DePalma and Francis (2013) argue that educational
policy is couched in broad notions of equality and social justice empha-
sizing a strong disconnect between the Bill of Rights from which gender
and sexuality diversity is strikingly absent. There is an expectation that
schools are inclusive and socially just but for many of the teachers they ask
a poignant question “Where does it say in the policy that we must teach
COMPULSORY HETEROSEXUALITY 111
about gender and sexuality diversity?” (Molefi AWH43). Similar concerns

are raised by Ms. Mosoeu (AWH41), Ms. Govender (IWH46) and Mr.
Clarke (CMG36).
“I answered all the questions, and we had a lively discussion on gay and
lesbians and how they have sex and the risks. The learners enjoyed the
lesson, and they had many questions. One would never think that they
would ask such informed questions. They were asking about orgasms
and penetration (laughs). Who would think? And we had an excellent
discussion. The next day some parent phoned the school I was sum-
moned to the principal’s office. She wanted to know what was said in
the class the previous days as some of the learners were highly offended.
Highly offended? So I asked what was so offensive? So she says that we
were talking about homosexuality and orgasms and penetration. And I
said yes we did and did I put my foot in it. She then asked for me to
discuss with her and my HOD [Head of Department] and show them
exactly where in the CAPS documents does it say I must teach such
offensive lessons and I must show them my lesson plans for the lesson. …
The questions on gays and lesbians came up spontaneously, and the les-
son took on its own life. I searched the [policy] documents to see what
it says about the teaching about gays and lesbians… Not a word. Not a
word!” (Mosoeu AWH41)
“It’s a great learning area, but there are some open spaces and gaps that
need to be filled because the Department, especially, just give you something
to teach about, but when you want to take it further you can’t, because then
you’re at that stop street where you feel like: If I’m going on this route then,
at the end of the day, they will say to me: ‘Listen, pack your things and go
because we’re not asking you to teach this. You must only do this, that we
want you to do.’” (Govender IWH46)
“In my sexuality class, the learners wish to know about homosexuality.
They want to know how two men have sex. They want to know how two
women have sex. I am not shy I tell them. They know I am gay. But one
day, my HOD says to me in passing that parents are starting to make a noise
about me teaching about homosexuality. So I say to him. Do they make
a noise when I teach about heterosexuality, penises, and vaginas? He says
(names teachers) why are you trying to stir things up. How is it that the
other LO teachers don’t teach about homosexuality. Why can’t I follow the
syllabus like the other teachers? And so I say it is in the syllabus. There are
lessons on homosexuality in the textbooks, and I am following that. He says
that one lesson plan in the textbook does not mean I must just teach about
homosexuality” (Clark CMG36).
112 D.A. FRANCIS
Patel (2016, pp. 115–116) writes that policies have always been the crys-
tallization of values, a set of directives composed to achieve prioritized
outcomes. The silence in policy at the micro-level suggests that the inclu-
sion of LGB learners does not rank high in education values and priorities.
Attitudes, beliefs, misinformation, and stereotypes in the local context
can impede national policy imperatives. For many of the teachers, the
everyday context in which policy is interpreted in the school context is
at odds with the macro structures as Ms. Smit (WWL35) tells “so even
though the constitution has such excellent views on sexual orientation, the
attitudes in this school from parents, teachers, and some of the learners is
frightening.” Clearly, meaning-making and knowledge about gender and
sexuality diversity at the school and classroom level do not directly repro-
duce State policy initiatives such as the Constitution. Learners, too, track
the silence in the curriculum when the content on gender and sexuality
minorities is ignored or avoided:
“I need a more open-minded approach to talking about sexuality. Because

what they didn’t say, is what people learned outside. … So I feel that the
school can actually set all these things right, which doesn’t happen. I mean
the school has the space to challenge misinformation about gays and lesbi-
ans. I feel they can put in more effort into teaching and learning about sex-
ual identities and sexual orientation. And actually teaching students, because
what you learn at school is important. Because that’s where it’s thoroughly
researched, and not just someone who read somewhere in a tabloid maga-
zine like YOU magazine has to say about homosexuality and then tell you
something and you just take that at face value. So I feel that, in high school,
they have the opportunity and the resources and the funds to actually teach
about gays and lesbians.” (Photolo AWB17)
Teachers and school learners, too, are critical actors in the interpre-
tation and realization of policy practices. I am not dissing the gains of
the progressive policy framework for sexual orientation at the national
level. Far from it. What I am arguing for is a better connection regarding
how educational policies continue the thread initiated by this progres-
sion. I have argued elsewhere that teachers should be helped to under-
stand this legislative framework in which they live and teach and should
engage in reflection and debate about how this authority interacts with
the other authoritative discourses relevant to their professional lives to
guide their classroom practice (DePalma & Francis, 2014, p. 1709).
Cascading the values of the Bill of Rights through policies such as the
South African Schools Act of 1996 (1996), Revised National Curriculum
Statement (2002), Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (2011)

or Departmental Life Orientation Teacher Guidelines (2006) is important
so that teachers have a deliberate and intentional rationale to include the
teaching of gender and sexuality diversity in the curriculum. If this policy
framework is in place, it will entail that office-based educational managers
and teachers take on the necessary role and responsibility of implemen-
tation. With a deliberate and intentional policy initiative that reassures
the teaching of gender and sexuality diversity, support will follow at the
national, provincial, and school levels.
For many of the teachers, there is an erroneousness that to teach
about equality, inclusion, and social justice as is mentioned in the South
African Schools Act of 1996, Revised National Curriculum Statement,
Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement or Departmental Life
Orientation Teacher Guidelines is to teach about racism and ableism. Mr.
Quinn (WMG26) and Ms. Duimpies (CWH29) explain:
“For many of the teachers I interact with in the region, their understanding
of the sections of human rights in LO is only about racism or about how
one’s group culture is sidelined, or religious intolerance … none of them
will talk about the violations of lesbians and gays as a human rights issue.”
(Quinn WMG26)
“The sections on multiculturalism in LO, we cover apartheid, racism,
language, and religious difference.” (Duimpies CWH29)
Education policies such as the South African Schools Act of 1996

(1996), Revised National Curriculum Statement (2002), Curriculum and
Assessment Policy Statement (2011) or Departmental Life Orientation
Teacher Guidelines (2006) give preferential mention to race, culture,
and language and not to gender and sexuality diversity in the teaching
of human rights and social justice. Wilmot and Naidoo (2014, p. 333),
in their analysis of LO textbooks, highlight an important oversight in the
failure to mention sexual orientation as an aspect of human diversity in the
section on Democracy and Human Rights. If an expectation of policy is to
manage change, then one way of addressing this policy gap in education is
to put in place similar policy requirements as expected of practice related
to race, language, and religion. And I turn now to a narrative that talks
about this phenomenon.
“Sjoe, Sjoe, Sjoe, if it is racism, the newspapers will be here, the minister
will be here, and there will be a human rights investigation. Who cares
114 D.A. FRANCIS
about the Lesbians and Gays? Who cares whether we teach about sexual
orientation? … Why doesn’t the CAP documents list these as suggested
lessons and so we are covered, and won’t get into trouble if we do teach
about Gay and Lesbian or homosexuality? Why can’t the curriculum policy
documents list suggested topics to be covered and then we don’t have
to worry as we will have evidence that we can teach about homosexual-
ity? Why can’t they do it like they have done for racism, multiculturalism
apartheid?” (Smit WWL35)
Throughout the data sets, teachers were adamant about explicitly men-
tioning sexual orientation in the same way as race or religion is referred
to in school policies and described difficulties, and sometimes the hostile
environment created by the absence of such policies in schools. In most
schools racism would not be tolerated, and anti-racist teaching is seen as
a critical component towards educating learners in unlearning their preju-
dice. The silence in the curriculum on issues of sexuality diversity enables
compulsory heterosexism. What is communicated to learners through the
omission of the teaching of sexuality diversity is that “tolerance towards
LGBT people appears to be a matter of personal conduct and choice,
rather than a fundamental constitution right?” (Wilmot & Naidoo, 2014,
p. 333) Consequently what follows is irresponsibility, defensiveness, and
assumptions.
PEDAGOGY, CLASSROOM NORMS, AND RITUALS

Key aspects of sexuality education, as part of the LO curriculum, include
topics on the body focusing on physical changes during puberty, sex-
ual health, contraception, relationships, and sexual activities. During
my fifteen lesson observations, teachers covered topics on sexual health
information, physical development, and reproduction. In two of the fif-
teen lessons sexual intimacy and sexual pleasure was part of the class-
room discussion. And in only two classes, I observed, were intentionally
planned or delved on non-heterosexual sexualities unless one of the
learners broached the topic through a question. In this section, I will
show how through pedagogical practice, heterosexuality is normalized
through (1) making overt the heterosexual/us versus homosexual/them
binary, (2) privileging of heterosexuality by constructing homosexuality
as an add-on and (3) positioning homosexuality as outside of the school
community.
Ms. Molete (AWH46): “And the penis enters the vagina until the male
ejaculates.”
Learner A: “What about anal sex?”
[Laughter in the class]
Ms. Molete (AWH46): “What about anal sex?”
Learner A: “Can the man enter the woman through her
anus.”
Ms. Molete (AWH46): “Yes! Yes! That can happen too. Some people
may enjoy anal sex, and therefore, they may also
practice anal sex.”
Learner B: “So Gays have just one way of having sex?”
[Laughter in the classroom]
Ms. Molete (AWH46): “Yes, yes, they will have anal sex. The penis will
enter the anus.”
[at this point other learners are edging learner A
to continue with more questions]
Learner B: “And lesbians?”
[Again laughter]
Learner A: “What about lesbians”
Ms. Molete (AWH46): “What about lesbians and why suddenly all
these questions?”
Learner A: “Sbu [referring to the boy sitting next to him]
wants to know how lesbians receive satisfaction
if there is no entry?”
Ms. Molete (AWH46): “Okay I think we are moving away from our
topic, and I don’t understand why you (name
of the learner) want to know about lesbians and
receive satisfaction? Why do you want to know
about lesbian sex? You are not a lesbian Sbu, are
you? [Laughter in class including teacher] …
Moving on, I have mentioned that your port-
folio is due next Monday so those of you who
have not completed the sections on …”
Like many teachers in South Africa, who shut down discussion on sexuality
diversity, Ms. Molete (AWH46), disables any talk on same sexuality. From
the observation script, it is evident that learners can ask questions, and there
is willingness, for the most part during the lesson, by the teacher to answer
the learner’s questions but the discussion is guided by the parameters of
116 D.A. FRANCIS
heterosexuality. Through a series of questions Learner A and B want to

know about same-sex sexuality and the teacher hinders this inquiry. The
teacher pointedly asks him why he wants to know about “lesbian sex” and
individualizes it to the personal situation by asking “You are not a lesbian
Sbu …” Working beyond the heterosexist assumptions of the teacher and
the learner’s inquiry, Sbu could be asking the question for various reasons.
There were many learners around prompting Sbu and he could have been
asking the questions on their behalf including someone who possibly identi-
fies as a lesbian. Or Sbu could have been asking the question for his own
interests and benefit in thinking about how he could satisfy his girlfriend
sexually or that his girlfriend may be bisexual. This is one of the limita-
tions of heterosexism as it not only conceals how LGB people are disad-
vantaged but how it constrains and limits heterosexuals, too, to narrowly
gender defined rules of behavior and options for self-expression (Bell, 2007,
p. 10). Ferfolja (Ferfolja, 2007a, p. 152), too, reminds us that there is an
assumption that only those who identify as non-heterosexual would show
any interest in this topic, rather than understanding how the artificial divide
between heterosexuality and homosexuality all individuals through regula-
tion and policing. The principal pedagogy here is to challenge the artificial
boundaries between homosexuality and heterosexuality and to open up dis-
cussion and engagement on how heterosexism hurts everyone, homosexual,
and heterosexuals. Questions, such as the ones raised by Sbu, force us to
imagine sexuality as more than the binary of heterosexuality and homo-
sexuality. More than that, it urges educators to consider and be open to an
understanding of the continuum of sexualities as not a single rigid reality.
Popular media and specifically a local soap opera called Generations was
a useful conduit for opening up classroom discussion on same-sex sexuali-
ties. Both teachers and learners made frequent reference to the soap opera.
“Generations opens you up. It opens your mind to homosexuality. I think

those two gay characters have really changed people’s minds. You watch
generation and you want to know what is going on in their lives. And when
you come to class the learners they too want to know you what is happening
with Senso.” (Malekoane AMH36)
“When Senzo and Jason are making love and his father catches them, the
two men making love, he beats them. And so I used that clip in my class and
the learners they love it. They know the characters. And I ask the learners
was the father justified in beating them? And the class has their say and for
the most part, they dislike the father, Sibusiso for beating them. But it is an
excellent way to open up the discussion in a way the learners can relate and
participate.” (Clark CMG36)
The soap opera was also a useful teaching tool for teachers to introduce
the issues of homophobia and violence. As Mr. Malope (AMG29) tells:
“I am glad the show did not depict the father as a loving, accepting father
of his gay son. Because the reality in many homes is that parents would not
accept their children being gay or lesbian that easily. So the show is realistic,
and it forces us to question ‘is violence the response to deal with alternate
sexual orientations or even better is violence the best response to our chil-
dren and people we love if they are of a different sexual orientation?’”
Through the viewing experiences of same-sex relations on Generations,

teachers and learners can migrate the discussion into the LO classroom, to
teach and learn about South Africa’s changing society. Using its popularity
Generations serves as a useful pedagogical device to ignite questions and
discussion.
Second, in many of the questions and ensuing discussion, the reference
to LGB people was as though they merely existed outside of the classroom
and school.
Learner A: “So why do gays and lesbians have the pride

march? What does the march mean to them?”
[Loud laughter and the boys around Learner A
slap him on his back and mumble things to him]
Ms. Smit (WWL35): “Well they need to. It is an opportunity to cel-
ebrate their sexuality, their pride and the fact that
that they have rights to equality?”
The above lesson is taken from a teacher who seemed more informed
on gender and sexuality diversity and who went to great lengths to
explain the history of Pride. At the end of the lesson, she tasked the
learners with a research topic on the Soweto Pride March. They had
to report at the next lesson, in groups of six, on the history, images,
resistances, and controversies of the Sowetan Pride. When discussion on
sexuality diversity emerged, like Ms. Smit, many of the teachers moved
issues of same-sex sexuality outside of the school community. Often
without teachers planning for such teaching and learning to occur, they
118 D.A. FRANCIS
ended up positioning LGB people outside and as though they did not
exist within the classroom and school community. Notice in Ms. Smits
script above the multiple references to “them”, “they” and “their” and
the spatial reference to the “Sowetan Pride” March without reference
to the absence of a Pride March in Bloemfontein for example. While
teachers may have not knowingly engaged directly with LGB youth or
LGB-headed family, this does not mean that they are not a part of the
school community. Many of the classroom discussion, including ones
that were relatively positive, sustained and advantaged compulsory het-
erosexuality with heterosexual learners living with heterosexual parents
being taken for granted. Similarly, in another class, the teacher presented
a map of Africa listing the various countries in Africa where homosexual-
ity is criminalized.
“In these countries you can see that homosexuality is a criminal offense.
Unlike South Africa, which has a progressive constitution, Lesbians and
Gays are not imprisoned.” (Makgoe AWH33)
Ms. Molete (AWH46) then refers to a textbook exercise that refers to

men in African countries who are imprisoned because they are gay. Again,
same-sex sexualities and homophobia are constructed as something that
resides outside of school and even South Africa (Francis, 2013b; Wilmot
& Naidoo, 2014). In the classroom discussion, there is a series of examples
of people outside of South Africa who are tortured and killed for being
gay. For example, teachers Ms. Moreeng (AWH45) and Ms. Mosoeu
(AWH41) mentioned during the interviews “I don’t know what is going
on in the other countries. Look at Uganda and how the gays and lesbians
are treated there” and “Have you seen that program on the Ugandan
activist who was killed. We cannot be like that. South Africa is a leader in
human rights and there must be no looking back”. Similarly, Ms. Letseka
(AWL48) also tells, “We (South Africans) are different and not the same
as the Ugandans and Zimbabweans. Our laws on gays are more humane
than the other African countries.” Even homophobia is positioned spa-
tially and as outside the classroom, school community and South Africa.
As Loutzenheiser & MacIntosh (2004, p. 155) argue pointedly that in
classrooms where non-heteronormative sexualities are discussed, the LGB
person is usually considered outside within the classroom.
Data from interviews also suggest that young people do have questions
about sexuality diversity, and I have listed a couple from my classroom
observations: “Do gays and lesbians have orgasms; Do Gays use a lubri-
cant; Is anal sex painful; I wonder how it must feel to be in a relation with
another girl; How do bisexuals tell their boyfriends or girlfriends that they
are actually bi; Is it not risky to date a bisexual; Can Gay couples adopt chil-
dren?” And in many instances, the questions were couched in heterosexual-
ity as learner asks “How would Gays know who’s the male and female in
the relationship or Arent bisexuals confused and unfaithful all the time?” In
all the classes, I observed, learners raised questions about sexuality diversity
revealing a need for a more defined policy and curriculum framework.
Third, heterosexuality is positioned as the norm. The sexuality edu-
cation class typified heterosexual relationships and intimacies, and when
non-heterosexuality was mentioned, it was usually in the form of an exten-
sion of heterosexuality or an add-on as Mr. Molaudi (AMH56) teaches
“While there is sex between a man and woman there is also sex between
man and man and woman and woman” or “As you develop sexual urges,
you will feel attracted to members of the opposite sex” There were other
examples that illustrate this phenomenon:
“So class so while you have the nuclear family with a father mother and chil-
dren you also have other forms of families such as child-headed families you
also get families with same-sex parents.” (Plaatjies CWH49)
“What are other examples of sexuality other than sex between a man and
a woman?” (Smit WWL35)
“Now with the start of homosexuality and bisexuality more and more
people are starting to think about how to include people who are different
from us.” (Phalo AMH27)
“If you are a boy you will fall in love with girls, or if you are a girl you will
fall in love with a boy. You will court and eventually probably marry. You will
then have sex and have children. If you are lucky as me, you will have a son
and a daughter. Unless you are gay or lesbian” (Motsepe AMH58)
Notice in the above narratives how heterosexuality is constructed

as the original sexual orientation. There were many examples where
heterosexuality is normalized and privileged. It is the set of assumptions,
norms, and discriminatory actions that leads to heterosexuality being the
presumed, and even compulsory, sexuality for students (Sykes, 2011,
p. 18). Wilmot and Naidoo (2014, p. 331) and Potgieter and Reygan
(2012, p. 47), drawing on their research on LO textbooks, highlight the
stereotypical assumptions, depicting opposite attractions and dating as the
natural progression that teenagers follow. Such assumptions pose many
120 D.A. FRANCIS
concerns for teaching and learning. There is no attempt, by the teach-

ers, to use these incidents as teachable opportunities and to challenge the
prevalent heterosexism. By making explicit the artificial barriers between
heterosexuality and homosexuality, heterosexuality is elevated and given
special attention (Sykes, 2011). At the same time, the explicitness delegiti-
mizes same-sex sexualities in the formal and hidden curricula.
TEACHING
Previous research with teachers in South Africa (Bhana, 2012; DePalma
& Francis, 2014; Francis, 2012) show that there are many obstacles to
teaching about non-heterosexualities. Teachers work in a context without
support and they report that parents, school managers, learners, lack of
pre- service and in-service training, and no policy framework as hindrances
to the teaching about sexual diversity (Bhana, 2012; DePalma & Francis,
2014; Francis & Msibi, 2011; Reygan & Francis, 2015; Richardson &
Archer, 2008). Teachers also talk about personal reasons not to teach
about sexuality diversity. They cite religion and the notion of culture
and tradition to justify heterosexist positions (Bhana, 2012; DePalma &
Francis, 2014; Francis, 2012; Francis & Msibi, 2011). One of the teach-
ers in DePalma and Francis (2014, p. 1701) research illumes this point:
“I’m an Afrikaans, NG girl. So my view of that is very conservative. And I
think that’s probably going to influence the way that I teach the subject.
I think LO is supposed to be a subject where you’re very open-minded
about religion, and sexuality, and so forth. And it might influence the way
that I think about that. So it’s very difficult to separate one’s personal val-
ues from one’s teaching.” Teachers also talk of being concerned that they
will be accused of being gay (Francis, 2012). In these studies, teacher’s
personal position, values, and morals were firmly knotted and underscore
their discomfort to teach about sexuality diversity. The conflict between
values and the teaching of sexuality education has meant that teachers
are, in the majority of cases, not willing to deliver adequate and unbiased
sexuality programs (Baxen & Breidlid, 2004; Francis, 2011, 2013a).
Strikingly, the findings from my research are different. The 33 teachers
detailed the lack of support and interventions evident in the literature for
not teaching about lesbian and gay sexualities. However, none cited per-
sonal arguments such as being afraid of being labeled gay, religion, tradi-
tion, or culture as restraints to include curriculum content about gender
and sexual minorities. Such shifts in attitude can be attributed to religious
leaders who have taken a noteworthy stance to advocate for change and
interpretation of Christian Philosophy and doctrine and LGB inclusion
(Bhana, 2014; DePalma & Francis, 2014; Leonard, 1984; van Klinken
& Gunda, 2012). For example, excerpted from his book, “God Is Not A
Christian: And Other Provocations” Archbishop Desmond Tutu (2011)
writes:
This is a matter of ordinary justice. We struggled against apartheid in South

Africa, supported by people the world over because black people were being
blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about—
our very skin. It is the same with sexual orientation. It is a given. I could
not have fought against the discrimination of apartheid and not also fight
against the discrimination that homosexuals endure, even in our churches
and faith groups.
While there are definite shifts in the research, I do want to signal how
this religious tolerance, also discussed in Chap. 5, is tempered with a dis-
course that implies that there is still something to tolerate and accept.
Rather than cite religion, culture, and tradition, as is evident in previous
research, teachers make two arguments why they do not teach about sexu-
ality diversity. I cannot account for certain why this is the case but draw-
ing on the teachers narratives it seems that leaders redefining religious
institutions position on same-sex sexualities, media attention such as the
granting of the Equality Bill in the US and Ireland, the criminalizing of
homosexuality in Uganda and the inclusion of LGB sexualities on soaps
such as Generations are just some of the reasons perceptions and attitudes
are changing. It seems that as Ms. Makgoe (AWH33) puts it “the time
is right to change and as old as we are we need to understand that there
are gays, lesbians and bisexuals amongst us and that we need to change.”
Similarly, Ms. Welman (CWH25) shares:
“I suppose I am growing and changing. When the equality bill was passed
in the US and everyone on Facebook changed their profile picture. Then I
also did the same. I did not think I would, and then did and then I thought
about it. The world is changing, and I said to myself ‘It is the time you
changed. Every second the world is changing, and you have to change too.’”
Back to why teachers say they do not teach about sexuality diversity.
First, teachers say they do not know what and how to teach about sexual-
ity diversity.
122 D.A. FRANCIS
“I don’t have much information on such topics, as we did not study about
homosexuality and bisexuality at the University. These topics were not cov-
ered in those days when I was studying.” (Steyn WWH59):
“My knowledge of homosexuality and that kind of issues I am not so
clued up on. We have not learned any sections on that, and so I don’t
include that because I don’t have much knowledge.” (Willemse CWH35)
“We were at our region meeting with the subject advisor, and there are
so many teachers in the province who are asking the advisors in question to
arrange training for us so that at least we can understand the basics of sexual-
ity and so on and so on.” (Molete AWH46)
“We once had this class on intersexed people because of the Casta
Semenya case. The learners were asking questions about intersex, bisexual,
and transgender this and that. I did not know where to start even. The ques-
tions were pouring in, and I just stood there like a white sheet, like a ghost
… So there is a lot to learn.” (De Kok WWH43)
My empirical research on classroom teaching of sexuality diversity con-

firmed how untrained teachers were, with little or no content knowledge
in the area of sexuality diversity. Inevitably, there is no pedagogy to work
with as can be seen in the following transcripts from lessons on sexuality
education:
Learner C: “Is it true that all gays and lesbians were abused
when they were young?”
Mr. Molaudi (AMF56): “Good question. Well, what do the other learn-
ers think?”
Learner D: “It is true. Girls who were molested by men
hate men and that is why they hate men and
only fall in love with women?”
Learner E: “It is not about that it is when to say for
instance you are a boy, and you don’t have a
father figure or a male model on how to be a
man. Or for example, you are a girl, and you
don’t have a role model as a mother, a female
role model. Then you don’t know how to be a
man or woman.”
(Learners murmur sounds).
Mr. Molaudi (AMF56): “You will need to be quiet if you want to lis-
ten and learn from what other are saying. To
Learner D did you have your hands up?”
Learner D: “There is this girl who lives on our street. Her

uncle abused her, and she is a lesbian. She cut
her hair all-short and wears only boy’s clothes.”
In another Sexuality Education lesson, the teacher asks the class to role-
play a scene where a boy asks a girl out on a date. In one a scene, a boy
(Moruma) enacts asking a girl (Lerato) out, and she rejects him saying
that she is in a relationship with another girl. Moruma, with friends, and
Lerato, with her girlfriend, later bump into each other at a club. Moruma
spurred on by his friends because of the rejection, rapes Lerato in the toilet.
When he is done, he says, “Lerato just needed to enjoy the strength of a
real man.” The play ends with Lerato, with her head down, and Moruma,
with an expression of victory, walking off stage together. The following
classroom discussion ensues:
Ms. Molete (AWH46): “You have watched the roles plays on how to
ask someone out to go on a date. What have
you learned from the roles plays?”
[There are a couple of references to the other
role-plays performed]
Learner F: “The scene of Morumo and Lerato was interest-
ing especially how Moruma had to show Lerato
he was a man.”
Ms. Molete (AWH46): “Any other thoughts?”
Learner G: “I don’t think what Moruma did was right.
Using force and raping Lerato does not prove
he is a man.”
Learner F: “Then why does Lerato end up going with
him?”
[Laughter especially from the boys]
At the end of a series of questions by the learners, the teacher waits for the
laughter and talk to subside and then continues with the lesson “Any other
views?” (Molete AWH46). Rather than process or trouble the role-plays and
the learner comments she ignores the potential teaching moment stimulated
by the critical incident. For example, Bhana (2012, p. 307) writes:
The heinous attacks against gays and lesbians provide teachers with a cru-
cial opportunity to open dialogue and critique about the meaning of sexual
124 D.A. FRANCIS
equality; the ways in which violence is engendered; and the connection

between schooling and the responsibilities of learners to the development of
South Africa’s democracy.
There remains incomplete information and knowledge that needed to

be made intentional. Ms. Molete’s (AWH46) reaction, or, in this case,
non-reaction is no different from many of the other teachers who when
confronted with similar incidents to same-sex relationships continued
the lesson as if there was no critical incident and, therefore, the result
no teaching and learning. Similarly, in both Mr. Molaudi (AMF56) and
Ms. Molete’s (AWH46) lessons, the discussion goes on for some time
with numerous experiential accounts from the learners. The teacher con-
tinues with “what do other learners think?” and promotes a facilitated
democratic space without processing the discussion or challenging any of
the inaccuracies that are mentioned. In fact, there are glaring inaccura-
cies in both lessons that are not addressed. No study has concluded that
being LGB is as a consequence of psychosocial or family dynamic, includ-
ing histories of childhood sexual abuse (Association of Gay and Lesbian
Psychiatrists, 2000). Nor is being LGB simply a personal choice (American
Psychological Association, 2008). Without a solid grasp of content and
pedagogical knowledge, teachers fall into everyday life discussions about
gender and sexuality diversity that are poorly related to knowledge forms.
This discussion leads into an important question, if teachers do not fully
understand the nature of sexuality diversity, how can they help learners
critically reflect on popular misconceptions they encounter in their families
and communities (DePalma & Francis, 2014; Francis & DePalma, 2015).
Second and related to the first, teachers talk about their level of dis-
comfort when teaching about non-heterosexualities. Most of the teach-
ers spoke about how teaching sexuality diversity can be very confronting
and hard. Teachers talked about wanting to teach, but their discomfort
and uncertainty is underscored by a lack of a conceptual understanding
of issues. Teachers like Ms. Mqehlana (AWH63) explain, “See the terms
and things we learned when we were growing up were not politically cor-
rect terms. Sometimes I am afraid, I might say something that will offend
a learner in the classroom and won’t like that. So we need to know the
correct terms and language so that we can also correct the learners when
they use derogatory terms because here in this community people don’t
use those nice words to describe gays and lesbians.” I am not saying that
all teachers are uncomfortable teaching about non-heterosexualities. What
I am arguing is that there is a level of discomfort that teachers experience

on the teaching of sexuality education broadly (Francis, 2011, 2013a,
2016; Helleve, Flisher, Onya, Mukoma, & Klepp, 2009; Mitchell, Walsh,
& Larkin, 2004; Mukoma et al., 2009) and sexuality diversity specifically
(DePalma & Francis, 2014; Francis, 2012; Francis & Msibi, 2011; Reygan
& Francis, 2015). There remains uneasiness about the teaching of non-
normative sexualities that marks it as very different from other aspects of
identity (DePalma & Atkinson, 2006, p. 335). For example, many teacher
participants in Ollis’ study (2009) maintained they would not have taught
about transgender and sexual diversity issues if the researcher had not
requested them do so. Most of the teachers in the study found cover-
ing these issues “quite confronting.” A number were concerned not only
about “how the students will respond but” whether they “can handle the
material well” (Ollis, 2009, p. 150). Similarly, using in-depth interviews,
Reygan and Francis (2015, p. 115) found that teachers who experienced
discomfort with teaching about sexual diversity “had inherited bitter
knowledge about non-normative sexual and gender identities and experi-
enced strong negative affect when discussing the topic.” They report that
rather than consciously and proactively engaging in pedagogy of discom-
fort, the teachers experienced discomfort about sexual and gender diver-
sity and, therefore, distanced themselves from the topic.
In some instances, teachers deflected their discomfort and made the
case that learners are uncomfortable as can be seen in the following expla-
nations as Mr. Coetzee (WMH54), and Ms. Plaatjies (CWH49) tells “I
don’t think the learners are ready for such topics. They don’t have the
maturity to take the issue seriously” and “They will not take the lessons
seriously they are not so comfortable with these matters. I have seen this.”
Ms. Rasunyane (AWH57) also tells “I don’t think the learners will want to
study about lesbians and gays. The minute you mention these things, they
become so uncomfortable.” The beliefs that non-heterosexuality is irrele-
vant to young people’s daily lives assume they live in a vacuum, ignorant of
sexual diversity. It also denies that many children self-identify as same-sex
attracted (Ferfolja, 2007a, p. 149). Based on my classroom observations
learners seemed open to including lessons about non-heterosexualities. In
one specific lesson, I observed, the teacher started the lesson by introduc-
ing that, over the next three weeks, they will be covering content on sexu-
ality education. She began by asking the class what topics they would like
to see included in the three weeks. While there were requests to include
questions on the body and changes during puberty, there was clear inter-
126 D.A. FRANCIS
est in same-sex relationships, and three learners in a single class raised

these issues. When these requests were made, there was the usual laughter
and banter. These simmered down quickly as the teacher reiterated the
importance of including teaching on sexuality diversity. The class of learn-
ers, I observed, seemed open and interested in learning more about same-
sex sexualities. Providing insight into her classroom practice, Ms. Smit
(WWL35) explains during our interview
“I always let the learners suggest what we need to include as topics so

that they feel that the sexuality education section is for them and about
them. Not about me (laughs). I find every year new topics emerge.
Homosexuality and bisexuality are topics they do want to know more
about … yes, there is always noise and laughter when this is first men-
tioned but they do want to learn more about homosexuality. They want
to know more about gay and lesbian sex. I have learned that I need to be
more serious about the topic, and so when they laugh and giggle, I keep
a serious tone because for me teaching about homosexuality is no joke.
Including gay and lesbian sex in the curriculum is serious and important as
when I discuss heterosexual sex.”
Similarly, Mr. Clarke (CMG36) tells: “The learners they will say. ‘But sir,
we know as boys and girls who we are and whom we are attracted to. But
there are not only boys dating girls? There are boys dating boys. There
are boys dating boys and girls. So are we going to be learning about boys
and boys and girls and girls?’” Then you, as the teacher, you must now
know how to explain to the learners about homosexuality and bisexu-
ality. Ms. Welman (CWH25) and Mr. Quinn (WMG26) accounts show
familiar narratives about young people’s openness to learning about non-
heterosexualities in schools.
The teachers do concern themselves about how little they know about
sexuality diversity. However, there is a keenness to learn more and from
the data there seems to be a strong commitment to teach about gender
and sexuality diversity as Ms. Molefi (AWH43) say “All we need is to
reskill ourselves with the necessary content and learn ways we can teach
this to the learners in a way that is easy to understand and comfortable.”
In so doing, the teachers model what teaching and learning should be
about because discomfort does not mean teachers should not teach. The
teachers in my research say what they need for the teaching of sexuality
diversity.
“Well if I knew more about these things I would teach. There is just too
much information that I cannot get my head around at the moment. But if
I took this slowly, with time I will grow more confident with the topic. It
is too complicated for me to teach at the moment. But with support from
the school and Department I can get my head around this all.” (Heideman
CMH47)
“Sometimes I wish that someone will just take us all up the mountain the
LO teachers somewhere for a week and drum all of that stuff into our heads
so that we can be knowledgeable about gays and lesbians. But we don’t
know, and the learners want to know this and they want to know that and it
is so sad that I don’t. I read up but I wish someone can explain some of the
things to me.” (Moreeng AWH45)
“We did a workshop with GALA, and they provided us with some useful
handouts and some ways to introduce lesbian and gay issues in the cur-
riculum. I have used some of the material they gave us more I do think I
need to get more familiar with the content. We need more session with such
NGOS.” (Makgoe AWH33)
The teachers call for training sessions, teaching and learning resources
networks and support was overwhelming. In fact, many of the teachers
were open to NGO’s coming into the schools and leading the teaching
about gender and sexuality diversity as Ms. Makgoe (AWH33) and Mr.
Malope (AMG29) tell:
“The need for teaching about lesbians and gays is needed, and there is abso-
lutely nothing preventing us from partnering with NGOs to come into our
schools and teach about these issues. Even though many of them are very
young, we have much to learn from the NGO’s. In fact, even the learners
relate better to them as they have fun activities that the learners enjoy, and
they have the jargon.” (Makgoe AWH33)
“A few years back the NGO working with Positive Sexuality conducted
lessons with the Grade 10s on safe sex, teenage pregnancies, and homosexu-
ality. They were very good, and they used drama and dance. The learners
enjoyed those sessions. It was different, and it was not their boring old teen-
agers teaching about sex. Some of them were very good looking and young
and the learners could not wait for them to arrive… They also come in and
teach and leave, and so they don’t have any of the problems with the parents
and principal.” (Malope AMG29)
The teacher’s recommendation and call for collaboration with NGO

organizations working with gender and sexuality diversity provides a use-
128 D.A. FRANCIS
ful entry point for local collaboration and action. At the same time, in
their alacrity to learn and grow, teachers also raised their concerns about
where additional time will come as Ms. Badenhorst ((WWH58) tells “time
is the crucial thing. Where are we going to get the time to read, and learn
about all of these new concepts about gays and lesbians? The universities
should offer a short certificate course like the ACES or the NPDEs, and
we can do that. That will really help us to cope with our already heavy
workloads and our responsibility to also give attention to our matriculants
and their needs in the other academic subjects.”
For almost all participants, teaching was not limited to the topics or sub-
jects they taught. Teaching was about helping learners to survive the world
as emotional beings as well. The desire to help students become strong and
resilient was often linked to the LGB teacher’s own experiences of pain and
discrimination in schools. This is apparent in Mr. Quinn’s (WMG26) nar-
rative in which he described experiencing homophobia in high school, this
initially led to emotional turmoil and attempted suicide “I could not take
the bullying, the teasing, and pain anymore and in grade eleven I tried to
end my life.” Mr. Quinn (WMG26) eventually decided to become a teacher
to help learners who are going through similar difficulties: “I decided to
go into teaching so that no learner whether black or white gay or straight
will go through such hurt.” Mr. Malope (AMG29) shared a similar story:
“The confusion was due to the issue with culture and my being gay. I decided
that I need to come out and let people deal with the fact that I am gay. This
was a dark side for me because I couldn’t do anything or enjoy myself;
I couldn’t play games with my friends. The derogatory names that I was
called at school are what made me the best that I am. I decided to become a
teacher and help other people understand what it is to be gay and deal with
what it means. I have come across learners with different attitudes, and this
has been challenging me. I decided to take these learners and discuss the
issues of culture and initiation schools. To discuss this and let the children
feel free that they can discuss this. This would let the children tell me what
they are talking about in the initiation schools. I wanted them to explain to
me if there was a part that was being taught to judge and belittle people.
They told me that there was not, so I challenged them as to why they then
judge others. I was fortunate that the people that I work with understand
the concept of Christianity and I have not experienced any of the dark sides,
and even my learners are very understanding. I have reached what I wanted
to achieve. Maybe some of my learners now know the concept of sexuality
and cultural diversity and respect for each other.”
Both Mr. Quinn’s (WMG26) and Mr. Malope’s (AMG29) narratives

reflect the trajectory from experiencing discrimination at school to
addressing the teaching about gender and sexual diversity. Both teachers
have chosen to rewrite their script and demonstrate their commitment to
teaching in more inclusive ways.
As the above narratives, Mr. Quinn (WMG26) and Mr. Malope
(AMG29), show teaching and learning practices are linked to the social,
cultural, and affective experiences and practices. It is interesting to note
that while structural elements within schools (governing bodies, curri-
cula, and the department of education—amongst others were mentioned)
the narratives above locate teaching and learning practices as political and
emotional. In a way teaching and learning are situated entirely as a human
endeavor—while this might seem obvious, it is something that might be
forgotten in structural readings of the teaching of sexual and gender diver-
sity in education. Any strategy then would need to be human too.
As you may have tracked from the social identity codes assigned to
the participants, many of the teachers who identified as LGB made more
inroads in introducing LGB sexualities into their teaching. Given that they
are the best political and educational models they can give the learners
and others in their context, LGB teachers took one of two positions. First,
there was a reluctance to challenge homophobia and in some cases even
teach about non-normative sexualities. Two of the five LGBT teachers
seem guarded about coming out in case they were “cast as pedophiles” as
one of the teachers (Quinn WMG26) put it. Their acceptance of “the way
things are” colludes with compulsory heterosexuality and legitimates nar-
rowly defined gender and sexual identities and expression within the class-
room and school. This does not mean that LGB teachers have not tried
to effect change. They have but with costs as Mr. Clarke (CMG36) tells:
“There was a problem one day … We were doing team teaching in the sexual-
ity education class, this other teacher and me. So, one of the Grade Ten learn-
ers asked me why is it that the gays are mostly HIV positive. So I thought I
should answer as the learner asked me the question. So I spoke about anal sex
and the risk to HIV prevalence etc., and I also spoke about heterosexuals hav-
ing anal sex and the risk … I also unpacked the stereotype of gays and HIV,
and so I had to explain in detail, which took some time. Then … I think the
answer that I gave to the learner made the other teacher uncomfortable. The
teacher went to the office and told the principal about what transpired about
how much of time I spend in the class talking about and I’m now only teach-
ing about homosexuality, and I bring the topic in whenever I get a chance …
130 D.A. FRANCIS
And then the principal called me in … He starts the conversation ‘Are you a
homosexual?’ The conversation went berserk … And that makes me realize,
nowadays, I have to watch before I open my mouth.”
Similarly, Ms. Smit (WWL35) and Mr. Malope (AMG29) have been
told to “get off their hobby horse and to teach what is in the syllabus.”
The literature is abundant on themes of LGB teacher’s experiences of het-
erosexist policing which have resulted in deep silences and misrepresenta-
tion (Ferfolja, 2007b; Francis, 2014; Msibi, 2013; Neary, 2013). Second,
Lesbian and Gay teachers took on the position as experts regarding hav-
ing knowledge on LGBT issues as one of the Ms. Letseka (AWL48) tells,
“they all know I am a lesbian, and they come and talk to me…I tell them
if there is anything, anything about being gay, lesbian [or] bi anything.”
Mr. Clarke (CMG36) also tells:
“For who I am, the background of my life … And most of the time I can
reflect back on where I came from when I’m in a classroom situation because
most of the times: If you heard what learners are talking about then you can
say to yourself: But I was also there. I understand this situation, and I know
how to deal with it so I can help this learner with the situation he or she is
in.”
Similarly, scan the following transcript:
Mr. Malope (AMG29): “I say to them all, lesbians, gays and even the
trans ones they can talk to me about everything.”
DF: “Everything?”
Mr. Malope (AMG29): “Yes everything because I have been gay my
whole life and in my experience this is where I
come from. I do have answers because I am gay
after all.”
LGB teachers are in a unique position to educate about heterosexism

and LGBT identities, and they position themselves and are positioned by
the principal and other teachers, as hubris or experts. As one of the par-
ticipants tell “when the principal comes across any gay, lesbian, bi or trans
learner she will just say go straight to Mr. Clarke” (CMG36). There is
an understanding that LGBT teachers have experiential knowledge and
with that lack of professional knowledge amongst teachers, LGBT teach-
ers are assumed to know everything about LGBT topics and although
they do have experiential knowledge and life experience, their professional
knowledge is partial or incomplete. The personal experience becomes
the authority, essentializing one’s “truths” on the world (Robinson &
Ferfolja, 2001, p. 123). And, so while there is a place for experiential
knowledge this finding has two clear implications. First, the need for a
discussion for wider social action involving more teachers to thematize
gender and sexual diversity and second where the role of LGBT and het-
erosexual teachers with personal experience could be more practically
included in this context.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have looked at how schools teach and how learners learn
about sexual diversity. The findings are compelling on how teachers in
classrooms required and rewarded heterosexuality. Heteronormativity
and heterosexuality dominated classroom and school culture at all levels.
Teachers strongly emphasized that to teach gender and sexuality diversity
they need a policy framework and curriculum that is more intentional and
clearly structured. I have argued that without an explicit policy framework,
teachers are offered little guidance and support on what and how to teach.
The challenge for educators becomes how to teach and write curricula,
employ theory, or perform pedagogies in ways that do not simply reify
and renormalize heteronormative publicly mediated prescriptive identi-
ties. (Loutzenheiser & MacIntosh, 2004, p. 152) Curriculum changes
and pedagogies that pay attention to challenging heterosexuality as a privi-
leged sexual orientation and the othering of non-heterosexuality is what is
needed in the sexuality education classroom. Such a stance, and given that
teachers do want to shift and redefine their position into an educational
role, as changes agents challenging heteronormativity and heterosexism,
necessitates a discussion on how and what needs to happen.
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of sexualities in life orientation textbooks. Sex Education, 14(3), 323–337.
doi:10.1080/14681811.2014.896252.
PART III
Conclusion
CHAPTER 8
Conclusion
So what more does my research with LGBT youth and teachers reveal
about the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity educa-
tion in South Africa? The gains in South Africa, post-apartheid, for sex-
ual orientation provide a good opening to explore how the teaching and
learning of gender and sexuality diversity happens in schools. This open-
ing arises because SA has a most progressive constitution, yet as I have
shown through my research and the work of others, in the last twenty-
one years since the fall of apartheid schools have been sites of disparity
and contradiction. Heterosexism, within South African classrooms and
schools, maintains the power of heterosexuality as dominant and privi-
leged. The seven chapters of my book reflect this temporary lapse and
show how schools are quintessentially heterosexist and heteronormative
spaces. A significant finding, and highlight, of my book, is how the teach-
ers and despite their lack of training, show a commitment to learning
about sexuality diversity and teaching. The teachers’ attitudes and experi-
ences provide a new insight into the South African research on LGB issues
and schooling that unlike previous research opens up new possibilities for
the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity in schools. Despite the
varied assemblages of how they have come to teach LO, there is a will to
change, learn and teach about sexuality diversity. Equally striking is how
the LGB youth spurred on by different experiences understand and in
turn, resist heterosexist and heteronormative practices sometimes in very
hostile school spaces.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1_8
138 D.A. FRANCIS
So what needs to happen and where do the levers of change lie? This
is a question I have grappled with throughout this book. And so, in this
concluding chapter, I bring the various sections of the book together by
opening up a conversation about what I think needs to happen in the areas
of policy, curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher education. While I initiate
this conversation, I am also cautious that there might be a misreading of
me being prescriptive in offering ways to think or rethink the teaching
of gender and sexuality diversity. I am cautious because to assume that
there is a list of solutions is to oversimplify the teaching and learning of
sexuality education, an exceptionally complex learning area. Borrowing
from Kumashiro (2001, p. 4) my goal is not to name strategies that work
(for all teaching and learning, in all situations, against heterosexism), but
rather, to emphasize the partiality of any approach to challenging oppres-
sion, and the need to continually rework these approaches. So to read this
chapter as a straightjacket regarding what needs to happen in schools is
to run contrary to my intentional use to trouble as a way of opening up
conversations.
POLICY
The progressive legislation detailed in the South African Constitution
and the educational policies for the teaching of sexuality diversity are
out of synch. In fact, the words homosexuality, bisexuality, gay, les-
bian, bisexual, or even sexual orientation do not appear in any of the
curriculum policies for the teaching of Life Orientation. The national
policy initiatives are useful and sets the tone for what needs to happen
at school and in the classroom context but without an explicit education
policy framework there remains a challenge for this process to happen.
Drawing on the evidence, presented in my research, there is a need for
robust policy and curriculum documents that spell out the details for
practice. Without such a policy framework in place, teachers are put in
a tenuous position, and as can be seen from the teacher narratives, it’s
hard to integrate homosexuality and bisexuality into the curriculum.
Without a policy framework, it comes as no surprise that teachers are
not adequately addressing issues of diverse sexual orientations in the
classroom. If this is to change, the policy gap needs to be addressed.
Educational policy makers will need to articulate unequivocally that
sexuality education respond to learners who have diverse sexual identi-
CONCLUSION 139
ties and that teaching must go beyond the singularity of heterosexuality.

For this to happen and to ensure that attitudes, beliefs, misinformation,
and stereotypes in the classroom context are in synch with national pol-
icy imperatives, the key players in developing these plans would include
the Department of Education, school governing bodies, school manag-
ers, and LO teachers. It is important that teachers and senior manag-
ers are involved so they can ensure that what filters into the classroom
resonates with the macro policies such as South Africa’s constitution.
In the development of these policies and especially thinking through
how these pan out in terms of content and pedagogy, policies would
also need to include experts from both education and gender and sexual
diversity. To address the null and hidden curriculum, schools will also
need to conceptualize and put in place policies that ensure equality
and social justice for all learners free from prejudice and discrimination.
There exist noteworthy correlations between policy and a variety of
well-being and psychosocial outcomes for GLB learners, including low-
ered incidence of homophobic abuse and suicide, and the creation of
supportive school environments (Jones, 2009; Jones & Hillier, 2012).
To encourage whole-school approaches, to challenging heterosexism
and heteronormativity and where conditions do exist in schools, teach-
ers may draw on the participation of parents and local organizations to
include gender and sexual diversity in their statement on the values of
the school. In the next section, the issues I raise are useful in relation to
curricula and curricular development.
CURRICULUM
Issues related to gender and sexuality diversity were raised by learners’
questions, revealing a need for a more defined framework within the
curriculum. For the teaching of sexuality diversity, in South Africa and
potentially in other developing countries, we require a knowledge mix
that is clear and explicit. The sexuality education curriculum will need to
pay attention to basic but essential knowledge forms about gender, sexu-
ality, sexual orientation, relationships, and desire. The curriculum will be
inclusive and will include positive representations of gender and sexual
minorities, their histories and how these interact with a post-apartheid
context. Because inclusion can have an enormous scope (Kumashiro,
2000), and as is evident from my research in the ways teachers appropri-
140 D.A. FRANCIS
ated assimilationist approaches to framing their teaching, the curriculum

content will pay attention to how power and privilege operate to sustain
heterosexism as a system of oppression. Teachers, therefore, will need
a shift from predominantly assimilationist approaches and assumptions
to more critical ones that acknowledge the different backgrounds and
experiences learners bring with them into schools (Carrim, 1998; Carrim
& Soudien, 1999). Equally important, and as the data in my study has
shown teaching and learning practices are linked to the teachers’ and
learners’ social, cultural, and affective experiences. Curriculum, there-
fore, while paying attention to the structural aspects of heterosexism,
must allow for teaching and learning processes as political and emotional
or to unfold as a human endeavor (Francis & Reygan, 2016; Reygan &
Francis, 2015). While this might seem obvious, it is something that might
be overlooked in structural readings of the teaching of sexual and gen-
der diversity in education. Any curriculum strategy then would need to
be human too (Reygan & Francis, 2015). Sexuality cannot be separated
from other social identities such as race, gender, and class. Curriculum,
therefore, will need to ensure that intersections with other aspects of one’s
identity are emphasized. Sexuality is never experienced in isolation and
relies on the construction of our other social identities (Loutzenheiser
& MacIntosh, 2004; Robinson & Ferfolja, 2001). The curriculum will
explore the interconnections between sexual orientation and other forms
of identification. Curriculum content must include accurate, honest, up-
to-date, and age-appropriate information on sexual and gender identity
issues at every grade level, across the curriculum, and in other school
programs and assemblies (Blumenfeld, 2000). It is also important that
the teaching of gender and sexual diversity is culturally appropriate. One
of the considerations for curriculum, and especially in a context of high
levels of heterosexism such as South Africa and other developing world
contexts, is how to introduce gender and sexuality diversity at every grade
level, including the foundation phase. And finally, regarding the “null cur-
riculum” (Eisner, 1985), what schools do not teach, such as schools ritu-
als, for example, assemblies, sports events, matric balls, and prize-giving
ceremonies will also need to be considered and adapted to be inclusive of
gender and sexual diversity. Finally, the curriculum in its promotion of an
understanding of sexuality will need to foster positive attitudes towards
non-heterosexuality. Textbooks and curriculum, therefore, will need to
explain and reflect the realities of gender and sexual diversity, in holistic
and unstigmatized ways.
CONCLUSION 141
PEDAGOGY
The classroom can be a place of inquiry about difference and specifically
different sexual orientations. Well-supported and trained teachers are what
is needed and therefore regarding pedagogy, I would argue for a Freirean
(1972, Horton & Freire, 1990) approach that takes as its starting point
the questions that young people bring. The research findings show the
active role of the learners, who draw on their experience and learning and
stimulate conversations and discussion about sexuality diversity. By isolat-
ing curriculum and pedagogies, educators lose opportunities to construct
classroom knowledge that breaks down the hierarchical structure of the
classroom, where the teacher is all-knowing, and students are deficit bod-
ies bringing little or no useful knowledge to the classroom (Loutzenheiser
& MacIntosh, 2004, pp. 153–154). It is important that young people are
positioned as knowers and agents in their understanding and experience
of sexuality and relationships. In such an approach the teacher is open
and has access to the differing experiences and perspectives that students
bring, and can use these as resources and data for teaching and learning.
However, given the teacher’s limited knowledge and the discomfort in
teaching about non-heterosexuality, such an approach is weakly framed
in disciplinary terms (Hugo & Wedekind, 2013) and requires teacher
confidence as well as a strong knowledge base that can be deployed as
needed (Francis & DePalma, 2015). From the research with teachers on
the teaching of gender and sexuality diversity, this is clearly not in place
in the South African context (DePalma & Francis, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c;
Francis, 2012). The challenge is to develop teachers with content and
pedagogical capabilities, and to sustain them in social contexts that may be
hostile to any discussion about sex (Francis, 2010, 2013). The challenge
is further exacerbated when one considers the classroom realities such as
overcrowding and large numbers, lack of adequate furniture, discipline
problems, and a range of old and young learners in the same grade present
further challenges to effective sexuality teaching (Baxen & Breidlid, 2004;
Francis, 2011; Helleve, Flisher, Onya, Mukoma, & Klepp, 2009; Mukoma
et al., 2009). One argument is for a pedagogy that is probably more inten-
tional and clearly structured both in terms of what knowledge and experi-
ence young people bring to the classroom and in terms of what attitudes
and behaviors need to be learned and unlearned (Francis, 2010). Ellis and
High (2004, p. 214) remind us that with an increasingly strongly classi-
fied and framed curriculum, teacher and learner autonomy in transacting
142 D.A. FRANCIS
the curriculum may limit discussion of sexuality and sexual identity. Or as

Casper and Schultz (1999, p. 26) argue teaching is an art that must follow
for the unpredictable:
A narrow curriculum frame doesn’t leave much room for unexpected

moments in which great things can happen. If we proceed with a restrictive
conception based only on what children ask or can readily grasp, we lose
access to these moments of tremendous possibility. If we only wait for learn-
ers to ask questions, we are, in effect, waiting for development to take the
lead when in reality learning tends to lead development.
This suggests a necessary tension that is very hard to work around. Given
the contextual realities, we need to accept the very real constraints within
South Africa and try to work realistically within these. It becomes clear
that what counts is not defining what an optimal pedagogy is, whether
strongly or weakly framed, but developing teachers who can teach flexibly
across the pedagogic range, depending on what the situations and subject
matter demand (Hugo & Wedekind, 2013). Such a stance necessitates the
up scaling of pre-service and in-service education.
TEACHER EDUCATION
Life Orientation teachers are pivotal for the successful teaching of gender
and sexuality diversity (Francis & DePalma, 2015; Helleve et al., 2009).
Francis and DePalma (2015) write that as agents, teachers are crucial
to the success of sexuality education, as they have the potential to make
significant contributions to the lives of learners through the development
of a critical consciousness—the raising of awareness and enablement to
recognize their capacity to transform their social realities. Drawing on
the findings of my study, the LO teachers lacked content and pedagogi-
cal knowledge to teacher gender and sexuality diversity. They came from
a diverse range of fields, which did not always adequately equip them
to deliver teaching on sexuality diversity confidently and effectively.
Without training, it comes as no surprise that teachers are not adequately
addressing issues of diverse sexual orientations in the classroom. Two
issues affect the teaching of sexuality diversity in South African schools.
First is the level of content and pedagogical knowledge of teachers in
the system and second, how they are professionally developed to teach
in the area.
CONCLUSION 143
Within South Africa, how teachers are prepared to teach about sexu-
ality diversity is concerning. There is far too little being done to equip
teachers to challenge and teach issues related to diverse sexual orienta-
tions (Francis, 2012; Johnson, 2014; Richardson, 2004, 2008). Johnson
(2014, p. 1265) based on her research of three teacher-training programs
in South Africa reports that “student teachers are ill-prepared to engage
with LGBTI issues in schools.” Johnson continues “the absence of LGBTI
issues in teacher-training programs investigated in the study indicates the
invisibility of LGBTI issues in teacher-training programs and signals the
lack of preparation of student teachers to address these issues within the
context of the schools”. Those involved in teacher education, too, will
need to move beyond traditional signs of “knowing” the discipline or
common sense and receive training on how to teach LO in anti-oppressive
ways (Kumashiro, 2001). Evidently, there is a deficiency in how teachers
are prepared to teach sexuality education and even worse is how unpre-
pared they are to teach about sexuality diversity. Given the findings from
my research and other research (Bhana, 2012; Msibi, 2012; Reygan &
Francis, 2015), it is critical that teachers are skilled in integrating sexuality
diversity in their teaching. A number of countries, including South Africa,
have now mandated teaching sexuality education for all learners, it is
important to focus on pre-service teacher education to ensure a workforce
that can fill the apparent gap that currently exists in primary and secondary
schools (Ollis, Harrison, & Maharaj, 2013). This gap, however, will also
have to address critically the inclusion of content and pedagogies on non-
heterosexualities. In the current pre-service teacher education programs,
there are no social and cultural analysis modules that engage with theories
of gender and sexuality diversity. Pre-service teachers who intend to teach
sexuality education and specifically sexuality diversity will need to deepen
their conceptualization of gender and sexualities theories to enable them
to teach with accurate information and confidence in classroom contexts.
The improvement of LGB learners’ experiences in schools can only
be achieved through teacher-focused and context-specific interven-
tions (Bhana, 2012; DePalma & Francis, 2014b; Francis, 2012; Msibi,
2012). Research shows that in-service education for teachers that address
knowledge and attitudes to non-heterosexuality can be effective in creat-
ing socially just classrooms and schools (Francis & Msibi, 2011; Ollis,
2010). In South Africa, we have a long way to go if we aspire for all
Life Orientation teachers to teach about gender and sexuality diver-
sity. In-service teacher education is, therefore, pivotal. Higher education
144 D.A. FRANCIS
will need to respond to this need by structuring graduate or certification

courses that teachers could complete on gender and sexuality. Teachers
would require substantial in-service education and extra time to read and
understand the field of study. Second, the teachers will need more sup-
port in the teaching of gender and sexual diversity in schools. School
managers will need to take cognizance of this fact and explore how
best to provide in-service professional development for LO teachers for
the teaching of sexual and gender diversity. Teachers can improve, but
the steps must be gradual and focused on their current level (Hugo &
Wedekind, 2013, p. 145).
It should be understood that by challenging homophobia in schools,
teachers are not doing LGB learners a favor, but rather are expected by
their role as professionals to do this (Msibi, 2012, p. 530). Teachers
need to be informed, able, and comfortable to talk about gender and
sexual diversity in schools. Given the teachers discomfort in using terms
that refer to sexuality diversity, they need to be comfortable with the
terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, homosexuality and bisexuality and be in
a position to articulate these words in ways that are affirming, inclu-
sive, and educationally relevant to learners. Importantly, and given the
strong reaction from parents and school managers for the inclusion of
LGB content, teachers must be enabled to articulate a clear rationale,
within and beyond the classroom, as to why issues related to LGB need
to be integrated into the curriculum (Francis, 2012). In articulating
this rationale teachers can draw on the Professional Code of Ethics of
the South African Council of Educators, which grounds teacher pro-
fessionalization. The Professional Code of Ethics stipulates that teach-
ers “ acknowledge, uphold and promote fundamental human rights, as
embodied in the Constitution of South Africa” (South African Council
for Educators, 2002). Teachers can also strengthen their arguments for
teaching about gender and sexuality minorities by utilizing the School
code or mission statement. These, in most cases, list human rights,
respect, and diversity as values the school will subscribe to. Within the
classroom, the learners raised numerous questions about LGB sexuality.
Teachers will need to acknowledge honest comments and questions on
sexuality diversity in a positive way. Chasnoff and Cohen (2009, p. 8)
write that sometimes learners might feel embarrassed to ask a certain
question or state an opinion. Simply saying, “I’m really glad you asked
that question” or, “I think a lot of people have that question” can help
put a student at ease.
CONCLUSION 145
Finally and importantly, teachers must understand themselves as sex-

ual beings and be comfortable with their own sexuality. Both pre and
in-service education must enable teachers to be open about their own
learning experiences and socialization in heterosexist contexts. To cre-
ate change requires “disruptive knowledge, not simply more knowledge”
(Kumashiro, 2002, p. 42). Teachers must be able to disrupt or trouble
their socialization and learning as separate from the content they are
expected to teach in the sexuality education classroom. If this is not done,
there is potential for a negative effect on teaching about same-sex desires
and sexualities.
WHOLE-SCHOOL APPROACHES
As indicated above, there is a lot of work for schools to do to change as
sites of compulsory heterosexuality. One way to take the lid off chang-
ing schools as typically heterosexist and homophobic institutions is to
unlearn and re-educate through whole-school approaches that interrupt
assumptions around heterosexuality, uncover silences, and break down the
dangerous stereotypes and misrepresentations (Kumashiro, 2000; Neary,
2013). I imagine how best to take off the pressure from teachers, who
in some instances operate in somewhat hostile environments when top-
ics of gender and sexuality are raised. Pushing away from the assump-
tion that change will only emanate from within schools, there is a critical
need to find solutions outside of educational institutions. To ignite such
change, it is a necessary for schools to create alliances with other insti-
tutions such as public health, law, social welfare, and other civil society
organizations. Parents, too, need to be brought onboard in the teach-
ing of gender and sexual diversity in schools. Parents, have for too long
hindered those teachers who are trying to teach about sexual and gender
diversity; or reinforce prejudicial ideas from home (Bhana, 2012; Francis,
2012; Francis & Msibi, 2011; Msibi, 2011; Richardson, 2004). For any
strategy to be successful, there is a critical need to work with parental
attitudes that need to change. The question is how do we bring parents,
experts from the broader community including universities, NGO’s, com-
munity clinics, and even progressive religious institutions, to talk to each
other for the sake of buttressing and deepening the teaching of gender and
sexual diversity? Schools will need to imagine more innovative interven-
tion practices as to how schools can collaborate with community organiza-
tions to take up lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues more assertively. There is
146 D.A. FRANCIS
abundant international evidence on how non-governmental organizations

have worked with schools and co-create guidelines for school principals,
guidance counselors, and teachers on including sexual diversity in the
formal curriculum, homophobic bullying in school policies, and creating
inclusive school environments for LGB people (Jones, 2009; Kosciw &
Pizmony-Levy, 2013; Mayo, 2013). For example, the Gay and Lesbian
Memory in Action (GALA) has been involved in work in the formal
education sector, including working with Life Orientation (LO) teach-
ers in secondary schools and pre-service teachers in engendering non-
homophobic behavior in South African schools (Hoosain Khan, 2013,
2014; Johnson, 2014; Manion & Morgan, 2006). Teachers themselves in
this study, articulate the need to collaborate with NGOS to take up issues
of gender and sexuality diversity. Schools connecting with NGO’s who
work with gender and sexuality diversity can provide support for teachers,
learners, and school managers. As I have argued elsewhere, it might be
useful to think of a mixed approach, with a blend of in-house teaching on
LGB issues (provided the teachers are willing, well-trained and supported)
and external teaching, bringing in-service providers who do this kind of
work very well (Francis, 2012).
In bringing my book to a close, my research has shown that schools
in South Africa are quintessentially heterosexist and homophobic institu-
tions. As a nation, South Africans have come a long way since overthrow-
ing apartheid and Mr. Nelson Mandela, the newly elected president of
democratic South Africa, stated that heterosexism would no longer be tol-
erated under the new political dispensation. There is a long way to go if we
want schools that affirm sexuality diversity and that preclude discrimina-
tion on the basis of sexuality. If we do not continue to trouble the rampant
heterosexism and heteronormativity in schools the status quo of teaching
and learning about sexuality diversity and heterosexism will merely remain
the same. Education, after all, offers an opportunity to teach not only
against heterosexism but also to trouble and reduce it.
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INDEX
A apartheid, 37, 39, 43, 77, 92, 101,

ableism, 113 113, 114, 121, 137, 146
activism, 63, 79 assimilationist, 71, 77, 85, 139, 140
Africa, 6, 7, 10, 11, 19, 20, 27,
28, 35–7, 39–41, 43, 46, 48,
58, 63, 64, 74, 79, 80, 89, B
99, 101, 103, 104, 110, 116, Bhana, Deevia, 8, 10, 11, 21–4, 27,
118, 120, 121, 137, 139, 140, 71, 89, 120, 121, 123, 143–5
142–4, 146 Bible, 73–5, 93
African National Congress (ANC), 6, Bill of rights, 11, 110, 112
37, 38 binary(s), 3, 24, 35, 46, 78, 96, 114,
African/s, 3, 5–12, 19, 20, 23, 25, 116
27, 28, 36–8, 42–5, 47, 59, 61, bisexuality, 8, 11, 60–2, 84, 99, 109,
62, 65, 68, 71, 74, 77, 80, 85, 110, 119, 122, 126, 138
90, 91, 98, 99, 101, 109, 110, bisexuals, 61
112, 113, 118, 137, 138, 141, black/s, 33, 36–8, 65, 79, 100, 101,
142, 144, 146 121, 128
Afrikaans, 38, 47, 120 Bloemfontein, 5, 35–7, 39, 118
Allen, Louisa, 33, 34, 43 boys, 3, 4, 21, 24, 39, 61, 63–6, 82,
ANC. See African National Congress 99, 100, 103, 115, 117, 119,
(ANC) 122, 123, 126
anti-oppressive, 19–28, 35, 102, 143 bullying, 4, 57, 62–9, 83, 90, 128,
anti-racism, 102 146
Note: Page numbers with “n” denote notes.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53027-1
152 INDEX
C DePalma, Renee, 6, 7, 10–12, 23–6,

Carrim, Nazir, 71, 74, 85, 99, 140 42, 43, 61, 67, 71, 80, 89, 110,
Christian, 5, 39, 72, 74–5, 98, 101, 121 112, 120, 121, 124, 141, 142,
Christianity, 74–5, 93, 128 144
Christian National Education Department of Basic Education, 7, 11,
city, 6, 35 110
class, 7, 9, 23, 39, 58, 61, 65, 73, 78, Department of Education (DoE), 3, 7,
80, 84, 94, 95, 99–101, 109, 11, 40, 110, 129, 139
111, 115–18, 122, 123, 125, desire, 20, 36, 44, 46, 61, 66, 67,
129, 130, 140 73–5, 82, 91, 102–4, 110, 128,
classroom, 10, 13, 21–3, 35, 39, 42, 139, 145
47–9, 57, 60, 61, 68, 71, 73, 75, difference, 24, 34, 39, 43, 46, 49, 68,
84, 92, 109, 110, 112, 114–20, 76–8, 80, 85, 91, 103, 115, 145
122–5, 129–31, 137–9, 141–5 disability, 6, 61, 76, 83, 84
colonialism, 91 discrimination, 4, 6, 21, 40, 41, 81,
Coloured/s, 37 97, 121, 128, 139, 146
coming out, 7, 63, 129 diversity, 7–13, 20, 21, 25, 27, 28, 33,
community, 34, 63, 68, 96, 114, 117, 41, 42, 44, 48, 50, 60, 62, 77,
124, 131, 145 82, 84, 85, 89, 90, 104, 109–14,
compulsory heterosexuality, 22, 41, 115–21, 124–9, 131, 137–46
42, 98, 100, 109–31, 145 DoE. See Department of Education
constitution, South Africa, 6, 11, 63, (DoE)
79, 80, 110, 118, 137, 139, 144
corruption
Creare Christian academy, 5, 39 E
critical theory, 19, 26, 27 education, 3, 6–12, 19–28, 38–41, 48,
cross-dressing, 22 50, 71, 80, 81, 84, 85, 92, 97,
culture, 5–8, 28, 34, 38, 74, 76, 78, 99, 100, 109, 110, 112–14,
81, 82, 113, 120, 121, 128, 131 119–23, 125, 126, 129, 131,
curriculum, 5–10, 12, 21–3, 27, 28, 137–40, 142–5, 146
40, 49, 79, 85, 90, 97, 102, 110, education about the other, 22, 23, 25
112–14, 119, 120, 126, 127, education for the other, 20, 22,
131, 138–42, 144, 146 24, 25
Curriculum and Assessment Policy education that changes students and
Statement, 7, 110, 113 society, 26
curriculum reform, 68 education that is critical of privilgeing
and othering, 24, 25
effeminate, 104
D ethics, 41, 144
democracy, 59, 81, 101, 113, 124 ethnicity, 34
INDEX 153
F girls, 3, 4, 58, 59, 63, 65, 66, 81, 82,

family, 22, 75, 97, 109, 110, 118, 119, 91, 94–5, 100, 103, 119, 120,
124 122, 126
farm school, 3, 47
fashion, 59, 60, 103
feminine, 3, 60, 65 H
feminism, 26, 91 harassment, 7, 57, 62–9
Ferfolja, Tania, 12, 35, 41, 42, 62, 64, hegemony, 24, 64
65, 68, 82, 90, 100, 116, 125, heteronormativity, 8, 10, 12, 25, 27,
130, 131, 140 44, 50, 67, 68, 76, 85, 95, 96,
freedom charter, 28, 66–8, 72, 77, 79, 98, 102, 131, 139, 146
80, 101 heterosexism, 8–12, 22, 24–6, 35,
Free State, 35–40, 47 50, 60, 62, 64, 65, 68, 76, 78,
80, 81, 85, 91, 94, 96–100,
114, 116, 120, 130, 137–40,
G 146
GALA. See Gay and Lesbian Memory heterosexual, 6–8, 12, 22, 24, 25,
in Action (GALA) 27, 33–5, 40, 42–4, 46, 62,
gay, 3, 5, 6, 11, 12, 21, 23, 27, 66, 67, 74, 76, 78, 83, 85, 94,
34, 39, 43–7, 58–63, 65, 66, 96–116, 118, 119, 125, 129,
68, 72, 74, 75, 78, 79, 82, 84, 131
93, 96–9, 101, 110–20, 122–30, heterosexuality, 8, 9, 12, 20, 22, 23,
138, 144–6 35, 41, 42, 47, 52, 60–2, 65–8,
Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action 72, 78, 81, 84, 89, 98, 100,
(GALA), 127, 146 109–31, 137, 139, 141, 145
gender, 3, 5–13, 20, 24, 25, 33, 34, hidden curriculum, 139
39, 40, 42–8, 50, 57, 61, 65–8, hidden population, 41, 68
76, 77, 80, 82, 84–5, 89–91, 98, HIV/AIDS, 12
100–1, 103, 104, 109–13, 116, homophobia, 21, 23–5, 27, 65, 79,
117, 120, 124, 126–9, 131, 80, 93, 94, 117, 118, 128, 129,
137–6 144
gender and sexuality diversity, 7–13, homophobic violence, 23, 24, 64
20, 33, 42, 48, 77, 82, 85, 104, homosexual, 6, 7, 24, 35, 46, 64, 82,
110–13, 117, 124, 126, 127, 114, 116, 121, 130
131, 137–3, 146 homosexuality, 5–8, 11, 21, 23, 25,
gender and sexual minorities, 21, 50, 59–62, 73, 81, 94, 98, 109–12,
61, 67, 77, 84, 91, 98, 101, 104, 114–16, 118–22, 125–7, 130,
120, 139 138, 144
gender-related violence, 42 human rights, 7, 10, 21, 80, 90, 113,
Generations, soap opera, 116 118, 144
154 INDEX
I marriage, 6, 11, 22, 58, 109, 110

identity, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 34, 40, 43, 46, masculine, 3, 95
47, 59, 61, 65, 67, 73, 100–2, masculinity, 5, 104
125, 129, 140, 142 men, 34, 46, 47, 60, 80, 97, 111,
inclusion, 23, 46, 71–85, 110, 112, 116, 118, 122
113, 121, 139, 143, 144 Middle East, 11
in-depth interveiwing, 35, 47, 48, 125 minorities, 21, 24, 34, 50, 57, 59, 61,
Indian/s, 37, 38, 43, 44, 74, 99 67, 68, 71, 77, 78, 82, 84, 90,
inequality, 25, 28, 39, 76, 80 91, 98, 101, 112, 120, 139, 144
in service teacher education, 85, 143 Mlaba, Obed Mayor, 6
intersectionality, 101 moffies, 6
intersex, 46, 122 Msibi, Thabo, 7, 10, 11, 19–25, 27,
invisibility, 8, 24, 46, 57, 58, 62, 67, 42–6, 59, 71, 90, 98, 120, 125,
68, 143 130, 143–5
K N
Kumashiro, Kevin, 8, 9, 13, 19–28, normal, 12, 22, 23, 26, 27, 66, 67,
35, 43, 74, 78, 81, 84, 91, 98, 72, 75, 97
102, 138, 139, 143, 145
O
L oppression, 8, 13, 19, 21, 22, 24–8,
legislation, 6, 7, 78, 138 77, 83, 91, 92, 96, 101, 102,
lesbian, 4, 5, 11, 12, 21, 23, 27, 34, 138, 140
39, 44–7, 58–63, 65, 68, 72, 75, other, 4, 6, 8, 12, 20–5, 34, 35, 37,
76, 82, 84, 93, 94, 96–103, 39–42, 46, 47, 58, 60–8, 74, 76,
110–19, 120–8, 130, 138, 144–6 78, 80–2, 84–6, 91, 92, 99–101,
Life Orientation (LO), 7, 8, 10, 11, 111, 112, 115, 118, 119, 121–4,
22, 24, 27, 40, 44, 47, 48, 61, 78, 128–30, 139, 140, 143, 145
79, 110, 111, 113, 114, 117, 119,
120, 127, 137–9, 142–4, 146
love, 67, 72–6, 79, 95, 102, 103, 116, P
117, 119, 122 parents, 38, 39, 42, 47, 82, 89, 94,
96, 100, 111, 112, 117–20, 127,
139, 144, 145
M pedagogy, 13, 19, 25–8, 40, 48, 110,
Madikizela-Mandela, Winnie, 37 114–20, 122, 125, 138, 139,
Mandela, Nelson, 37, 62, 146 141–2
marginalisation, 21, 42, 90, 92 phase, 4, 58, 59, 62, 140
marginalised, 8, 12, 20, 21, 25, 26, policy, 6, 7, 9, 77, 84, 91, 109–14,
65, 67, 68, 95 119, 120, 131, 138–9
INDEX 155
post-apartheid, 39, 41, 59, 77, 137, 139 partners, 4, 34, 103
post-structuralism, 27 relationships, 11, 59, 60, 91, 102,
prejudice, 8, 21, 23, 41, 78, 97, 114, 109, 124, 126
139 sexism, 6, 25, 35, 97
pre-service teachers, 25, 89, 143, 146 sexual identity, 5, 9, 34, 40, 101, 142
pride, 62, 68, 117, 118 sexualities, 5, 10, 11, 19, 20, 22, 27,
principals, 3, 4, 38, 65, 68, 93–5, 111, 65, 81, 90, 99, 110, 114, 116,
116, 127, 129–30, 146 118–21, 126, 129, 143, 145
privilege, 12, 22, 24–6, 28, 33, 76, 78, sexuality, 3, 5–13, 19, 20, 23–5, 27,
83, 85, 93, 97, 101, 102, 110, 140 28, 33–5, 39–48, 50, 57, 60–2,
65–8, 71, 75–8, 81, 82, 84, 85,
90–2, 98, 100, 104, 109–14,
Q 115–23, 124–9, 131, 137–46
queer, 27, 33, 34, 43–6, 83, 98 sexuality education, 7, 10, 11, 25, 40,
48, 71, 84, 92, 109, 110, 114,
119–23, 125, 126, 129, 131,
R 138, 139, 142, 143, 145
race, 6, 7, 9, 39, 43–5, 47, 61, 65, 77, sexual orientation, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 21,
81, 100–1, 113, 114, 140 23, 34, 39, 41–5, 48, 59, 60, 62,
racism, 6, 35, 38, 91, 100–2, 113, 114 75–80, 89, 99–101, 110, 112–14,
rainbow, 77, 78 117, 119, 121, 131, 137–43
rape, 21, 63, 123 silence, 8, 11, 24, 42, 49, 58, 68, 84,
religion, 6, 7, 9, 23, 34, 43, 61, 71, 72, 112, 114, 130, 145
74–6, 80, 100, 113, 114, 120, 121 sin, 72–6, 98
research, consent, 42, 50 sinner, 23, 72–6
research, ethics, 41 social change and education, 9, 25, 27
research, hidden population, 41 social justice, 7, 11, 110, 113, 139
research, parental consent, 47 social power, 22, 26, 98
resistance, 8, 68, 92, 117 Soudien, Crain, 38, 71, 74, 85, 99, 140
Revised National Curriculum stereotypes, 8, 21, 22, 24, 43, 66, 82,
Statement, 6, 7, 110, 113 112, 129, 139, 145
Richardson, Eric, 7, 8, 20, 23–5, 40, stigmatised, 74
41, 89, 120, 143, 145 straight, 21, 33, 34, 68, 78, 96–8,
rituals, 114–20, 140 128, 130
rural, 47, 99
T
S Tamale, Sylvia, 11, 19, 20
same-sex teacher education, 85, 142–5
desire, 20, 61, 67, 73, 74, 145 teacher identity, 5, 7, 9, 40, 43, 47,
love, 67, 73, 103, 116, 117, 119 59, 61, 65, 67, 73, 99, 124,
marriage, 6, 11 129, 140, 142
156 INDEX
teacher professional development, 144 W

township, 38, 47, 98, 99 white/s, 36–9, 43–5, 65, 74, 97, 99,
transgender, 5, 39, 43, 46, 110, 122, 101, 122, 128
125 women, 36, 38, 39, 46, 47, 65, 80,
trouble, 8, 24, 33, 35, 63, 95, 101, 91, 93, 100, 111, 122
109, 114, 138, 145, 146
troubling, 8, 9, 19–28, 35, 89–104
Tutu, Archbishop Desmond, 121 Y
youth, 5, 7–10, 13, 20, 22–6, 40–3,
47–50, 57–60, 62–9, 74, 75,
U 77–81, 83–5, 89–94, 96–102,
unAfrican, 23 104, 109, 118, 137
unlearning, 114
Z
V Zuma, President Jacob, 6, 38, 97
violence, 7, 23, 24, 42, 63–5, 83, 90,
92, 117, 124
visible, 10, 39, 57–68

Troubling The Teaching and Learning of Gender and Sexuality Diversity in South African Education

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TROUBLING THE

QUEER Series Editors

Reta Ugena Whitlock

More information about this series at

Queer Studies and Education

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016954177

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover illustration: © Hisham Ibrahim / PhotoV / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

Varghese, Zoë Francis, Tanya Williams, Jamie Washington, Samuel offer

Part I Introduction and Background 1

2 Troubling Anti-Oppressive Education 19

3 Troubling the Research 33

Part II Troubling Compulsory Hetersosexuality 55

4 Troubling the Visibility and Invisibility of Non-Normative

5 Shifting Positions of Inclusion 71

6 Troubling the Agency-Victimhood Trope 89

7 Compulsory Heterosexuality 109

Part III Conclusion 135

The editor of Queer Theory in Education (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998),

Table 3.1 Teachers 44

Introduction and Background

Given Seoketsi got expelled from Kwena Molapo Comprehensive Farm

© The Author(s) 2017 3

is “un-African”, describing it as a disease “coming from so-called devel-

culturally diverse and changing society”(Department of Education, 2002,

questions. My book problematizes some of the prevailing assumptions

and erroneously conflated with sexuality education. To approach LGBT

DePalma, R., & Atkinson, E. (2009). Interrogating heteronormativity in primary

Troubling Anti-Oppressive Education

Drawing on critical theory and post-structural perspectives, Kumashiro

I am broadly in agreement with Tamale (2011) and Msibi’s (2014) call

© The Author(s) 2017 19

(1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2010, 2010) framing of anti-oppressive educa-

insight on the pervasive homophobia experienced by gender and sexual

ened to include LGBT contributions and struggles, the most obvious

grasp of heterosexism if education is to be effective in addressing social

Like the first two approaches, “Education that is critical of privileging

Msibi, T. (2016). Bitter knowledge. In M. N. Rodriguez, J. W. Martino, C. J.

Troubling the Research

As researchers how we disclose our social identities, positions us in the

© The Author(s) 2017 33

Louisa Allen (2010, pp. 148–149) considers “the epistemological

[t]his consideration is especially relevant across the boundaries of religion,

It is possible that a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender researcher

2014). Orania is an Afrikaner-only town, where only Afrikaans is spoken,

The availability of teaching material also varies from school to school

of reprisal (Browne, 2005; Donelson & Rogers, 2004; Ferfolja, 2007;

on non-heterosexual participants, I chose to use pseudonyms. Given the

participate in, enabling them to make an informed choice for voluntary

Table 3.1 Teachers

Badenhorst White Woman Heterosexual 58 17

and interrupt heteronormativity by acknowledging the diversity across

Table 3.2 Learners

Barnard White W Lesbian 17

In a subsequent article, Msibi (2013, p. 107) takes a different position and

“[Queer]” carries a heavy load of western history _ and hence inevitably

notations of the word “queer”, and reclaim it … “Queer” may sometimes

Pretorius (WMB/G18): I would say mostly gay.

The educators and learners in my study named themselves as lesbian,

Educators and learners in secondary schools in the Free State province

enabled me to see teaching and learning in action. As a method, lesson