‘African positionings’: South African relationships with continental questions of lgbti justice and rights

abstract

Researchers such as Hoad (2007), Ndashe (2010), Swarr (2012) and Matebeni (2014) have raised critical questions about the discursive and material positions through which ‘South Africa’, as a nation, negotiates a continental context of legal, economic, and social violences against diversely identified lesbian, gay, and transgendered people. This article seeks a critical exploration of some of these debates and positionings, in order to deepen conversation on how South African legal and political activism can, or should, engage the realities of blatant efforts to recriminalise l, g, and t knowledges, bodies, lives and relationships. The article includes a brief review of current legal battles in Uganda and Botswana in particular, and engages questions of South Africans' access to information and to political engagement with these battles and their implications. It concludes with an argument for national revisioning of ourselves as simply ‘separate’ and/or ‘privileged’, and calls for renewed strategic activism capable of pan-African perspectives.

keywords:

• LGBTI
• activism
• rights
• justice
• positioning
• pan-African

Notes

1. The acronym lgbti is widely deployed in both activist and policy work, and by 2014 had been critiqued by many (e.g. Bennett, 2010; Gunkel, 2010; Matebeni, 2014) for its homogenisation of diverse experiences, and its collusion with a politics whose goals align only with those of the liberal state (i.e. access to those ‘rights’ already named by that state as part of citizenship). In this piece it is difficult to ignore the power of the term, and we use several other approaches to categorisation, and aim to signal our discomfort with ‘lgbti’ by italicising the letters.

2. For a detailed breakdown of the legal context focusing on LGBT rights across several domains addressing legislation in African countries, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Africa#Legislation_by_country_or_territory.

3. Algeria, Botswana, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya and Morocco voted against the Resolution; Namibia, Congo, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone abstained.

4. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but some organisations we are thinking of here would be the Coalition of African Lesbians, Rainbow, GALZ (Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe), LegaBibo (The Lesbians, Gays & Bisexuals of Botswana), SMUG (Sexual Minorities Uganda), FARUG (Freedom and Roam Uganda), GALCK (Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya), INCRESE (International Centre for Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights).

5. For example, Human Rights Watch (2013), Itaborahy and Zhu (2013)

6. His research articles on homosexuality in Senegal had been discussed by the workshop participants; we include one of them in the references.

7. The Defence of Marriage Act prohibited same-sex marriage from federal recognition in the USA. This meant that up until 2014, when it was struck down, a same-sex marriage legalised in one state would not necessarily be recognised in another.

8. The Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development at the time.

9. See Luis de Barrios, ‘Court rejects fired lesbian minister's appeal’, October 1, 2014, available at:http://www.mambaonline.com/2014/10/01/court-rejects-fired-lesbian-ministers-appeal/

10. In a recent interview the Pope reaffirmed the Church's view that homosexual acts were sinful, but homosexual orientation was not; and stressed the importance of not marginalising gay people but rather integrating into society in a non-judgemental way (see http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-23489702). While an interesting development on the part of any Pope in a long time, this does not change the Catholic Church's formal position on homosexuality.

11. See for example, Queer in Africa Reader (Ekine and Abbas, 2013).

12. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was signed into law by President Museveni on 24 February 2014 after originally being introduced to Parliament in 2009. It broadened criminalisation of lesbian and gay sexual behaviour, and deepened penalisation. It also criminalised any form of education on homosexuality and required mandatory reporting of same-sex desire or activity by third parties.

13. Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum, Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development.

14. See, for example, work by Thabo Msibi (2011), Vasu Reddy (2006), Zethu Matebeni (2014), Mary Hames (2011), Nonhlanhla Mkhize et al (2010), Mikki van Zyl (2005), referenced below, and the reports from organisations such as OUT (http://www.out.org.za/), Iranti-org (http://www.iranti-org.co.za/), Gender DyamiX (http://www.genderdynamix.org.za/), and the Durban Lesbian and Gay Community and Health Centre (http://www.gaycentre.org.za/).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jane Bennett

JANE BENNETT is the Director of the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. Her areas of research include questions of decolonial approaches to feminism on the African continent, sexualities, violence against women and the contestations between research and activism towards social and economic justice. She also publishes fiction. Email: [email protected]

Vasu Reddy

VASU REDDY is the Executive Director of the Human and Social Development Programme at the Human Sciences Research Council and Honorary Professor and Research Fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His area of research covers a broad range of issues in human and social development and the humanities. He has a particular interest in genders, sexualities, care, inequalities and HIV and AIDS, and has published in these areas. Email: [email protected]