The Binary Order of Things: A Discursive Study of Nursing Students' Talk on Providing, and Learning About, LGBT Patient Care

• Published in: Journal of homosexuality Vol. 70; no. 10; pp. 1979 - 2010
• Main Authors: Pinto, Pedro, Macleod, Catriona Ida, Nhamo-Murire, Mercy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Routledge 24-08-2023; Taylor & Francis LLC
• Subjects: African cultural groups; Ambivalence; Attitude of Health Personnel; Curricula; Curriculum; Discourses; Discrimination; Discursive violence; education; Education, Nursing - methods; Egalitarianism; Female; Focus Groups; Foucauldian analysis; grotesque discourses; Health disparities; Health services; Healthcare Disparities; Homophobia; Humanism; Humans; Ignorance; Inequality; Interviews as Topic; Learning; LGBT health; LGBTQ people; Male; Medical education; Nurses; Nurses - psychology; Nursing; Otherness; Patient Care - methods; Patients; Prejudice - prevention & control; Prejudice - psychology; Religion; Sexual and Gender Minorities; Sexuality; sexuality and gender binaries; South Africa; Speech; Teaching; transphobia; South Africa; sexuality and gender binaries; education; transphobia; LGBT health; nursing; Discursive violence; grotesque discourses; homophobia
• ISSN: 0091-8369; 1540-3602
• DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2022.2048163

Against the backdrop of the healthcare inequities and maltreatment facing LGBT patients, recommendations have been made for the inclusion of LGBT health topics in nursing curricula. Based on data collected in focus group discussions with South African nursing students, we complicate the assumption that training focused on health-specific knowledge will effectively reform providers' prejudicial practices. Findings reveal ambivalence: silence and discrimination versus inclusive humanism. Participants drew on discourses of ignorance, religion, and egalitarian treatment to justify their inadequacy regarding LGBT patients; while doing so, however, they deployed othering discourses in which homophobic and transphobic disregard is rendered acceptable, and "scientifically" supported through binary, deterministic views of sexuality and gender. Such "expert" views accord with Foucault's notion of "grotesque discourse." We conclude with a discussion of the findings' implications for nursing education; we call for the recognition and teaching of binary ideology as a form of discursive violence over LGBT lives.