Beyond coming out: lesbians’ (alternative) stories of sexual identity told in post-Apartheid South Africa

Gibson, Alexandra F; Macleod, Catriona I

Title: Beyond coming out: lesbians’ (alternative) stories of sexual identity told in post-Apartheid South Africa
Creator: Gibson, Alexandra F
Creator: Macleod, Catriona I
Date Issued: 2014
Date: 2014
Type: Book chapter
Identifier: vital:6304
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016063
Description: Over the last several decades, the ‘coming out’i story has become entrenched as the central narrative with which lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people can narrate their experiences of claiming a sexual identity and storying their lives in general (Bacon, 1998; Blackburn, 2009). It has developed into a “canonical narrative” (Bruner, 1987, p. 15), or a culturally recognisable story for LGB people, in that it involves the recounting of a series of familiar events in moving from a place of shame to one of self-acceptance about one’s sexual identity (Cohler & Hammack, 2007; Plummer, 1995). The ‘coming out’ canonical narrative additionally operates as a counter-narrative, which has enabled LGB people to voice their sexuality within heterosexist and heteronormative confines (Blackburn, 2009). Nevertheless, there are limitations (and limiting effects) to this narrative, and further refinement of how we understand sexual identity narratives is required. To illustrate this argument, we draw on a narrative-discursive study of eight lesbians’ stories of sexual identity in post-apartheid South Africa.
Format: 28 leaves
Format: pdf
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Relation: Gibson, A., & Macleod, C. (2014). Beyond coming out: lesbians’ (alternative) stories of sexual identity told in post-Apartheid South Africa. In S. McKenzie-Mohr & M. Lafranche (Eds.), Women Voicing Resistance, discursive and narrative explorations . London: Routledge. http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781848721043/

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