英文摘要 |
This study investigates the disenfranchised grief lesbians in Taiwan go through when they face the death of their partners. Lesbians usually can't express their grief like heterosexual partners do as they are worried that their sexual orientation might be revealed if they express their grief openly. As a result, they experience disenfranchised grief in dealing with the loss of their partners. This research adopts the narrative approach in qualitative research methods. The subject of the research is a 50-year-old Taiwanese lesbian who experienced the death of her partner. Three semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted and the collected data was organized into life stories and life themes. This research has the following findings: The medical and legal difficulties of Taiwanese lesbians before and after the death of their partners are that they have no legal status during the medical process and the medical laws and regulations do not extend to lesbian partners. Three types of disenfranchised grief are found among the lesbians who lost their partners, which are disenfranchised grief of loss without acknowledgment or support, disenfranchised grief of unimportant relationships, and inability to cope with grief. At the meantime, the research found that Taiwanese lesbians who lost their partners are often neglected from the funeral rituals and disenfranchised of the opportunity of cultural healing. |