Perspectives of LGBTI organisations on queer visibility and sexual justice activism in South Africa

Abstract

This article is a comparative historical analysis of the queer community’s visibility politics during the apartheid and post-apartheid periods in South Africa. It analyses different visibility strategies within black and white queer communities in post-apartheid South Africa,and explores the sexual justice activism of LGBTI organisations in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that these two separated queer communities occupy different spaces that have different political goals. Beyond examining queer apartheid visibility politics, it also explore the ways in which these different visibility politics have historical remnants. It uses Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex (LGBTI) organisations both during and post-apartheid in order to locate the white queer community that became invisible in post-apartheid South Africa. Where do we locate the white queer community in post-apartheid South Africa? How do both black and white LGBTI organisations advocate for sexual justice in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. The intervention of this study considers the political, social and economic dynamics that have regulated South Africans based on their race during apartheid; and the Acts that segregated and oppressed black South Africans during apartheid. It also considers the shift from visibility (apartheid) to (in)visibility (post-apartheid) of the white queer community; the transition from apartheid to democracy and the attempts of multiracial LGBTI organizations that emerged post-apartheid to actively exclude white bodies while simultaneously reclaiming their identity and the history that erased black queer experiences. It shows that just like how the two queer communities were separated during apartheid, they remain separated in post-apartheid.