Rainbow Flags in the Rainbow Nation

A history of same-sexuality and gender variance in South Africa

In order to understand the current status of the transgender rights movement, and the livelihood and challenges faced by transgender men and masculine-identified women in South Africa, it is important to provide extensive context of the successive development of gay identity, gay subculture, and the gay rights movement in this country. It is my belief that these concepts are inextricably linked to the transgender movement as they are both rooted in the idea that a static gender binary does not exist, and that heteronormativity is, in fact, not the norm.  That said, it can also be argued that in the African context, the modern gay rights movement has been driven largely by Northern ideas, and therefore has problematized identities that may have been accepted and normalized in traditional African society and culture.  A similar problem has emerged with the transgender movement.  This tension is one that South Africa has struggled with since the first European settlers set foot on its shores. Thus, one cannot fully comprehend the current challenges faced by masculine women and transgender men without duly examining the history of queer and gay identity in South Africa.

Post-apartheid South Africa has been called “The Rainbow Nation,” a title that connotes a sort of amicable inclusivity where people can coexist and even develop relationships across lines of race, class, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and all of the many other identity categories listed in the Freedom Charter. National legislation like this has set a standard for the behavior of South African citizens and government organizations that has been hailed as some of the most progressive in the world. However, it seems that in many ways the social culture and climate of South Africa is far behind, or at least far different, from the legislature. 

This “Rainbow Nation” is one that is very much still in the process of reconciliation. The cold hands of colonization and apartheid have left their prints on the South African nation, creating not only a system of atrocious oppression of people based on their color, but also created a portrait of white, masculine, physically dominant heterosexual male that was established as ultimately powerful. Anything that did not fit into all of those categories was established as inherently “less than.”

According to Marc Epprecht, a researcher and professor at McGill University, the problem of widespread homophobia as well as the notion of homosexuality as “un-African” in Southern African countries can be traced to their histories of colonization. In fact, he says, it is homophobia rather than homosexuality itself that is a colonial import.   Many Western researchers have denied the existence of homosexual activity in the African continent, and Epprecht argues that “such assertions of the infrequency or non-existence of homosexuality in African society laid the ground for explaining homosexual behaviors in non-traditional settings primarily by reference to external influences.”  This statement is the foundation of Epprecht’s argument, which is that a major part of developing imperialist rule in the African continent was the “otherization of African sexuality.”  In other words, one of the easiest ways to establish Europeans as inherently morally capable of dominance was to categorically demonize Africans as sexual deviants. In the aftermath of such imperialism, Epprecht argues, Africans must work to combat this stereotype, a fight that sometimes manifests itself in the form of homophobia.

The fact that many Western researchers claim to be unable to find any trace of homosexuality or gender variance in Southern Africa is probably because they were asking the wrong questions, or using the wrong language. Especially before the modern queer liberation movement (which many argue did not occur until after 1994), many black South Africans did not claim “gay” or “lesbian” identities. Anthony Manion and Ruth Morgan from the South African Gay and Lesbian Archives describe the challenges they faced in their first oral history project:

“The extent to which this area of enquiry is secret made it particularly difficult to document the lives of same-sexuality identified older women and men in diverse black communities. The standard response was ‘we don’t have lesbians over the age of 40’. We later realized we shouldn’t have been asking for ‘lesbians’ as the older women in these communities do not self-identify as ‘lesbians.’”

Epprecht also writes of the importance of cultural contextualization when trying to conduct research on sexual and gender variance in Southern Africa:

“We need, in other words, to constantly contextualize and historicize as precisely as we can what words like ‘sex,’ ‘man,’ ‘woman,’ and even ‘is’ or ‘has’ meant to the people who used them. Subtle power dynamics can be revealed at work in the assumptions about the meanings of words and silences around sexuality or gender.”

Despite these language barriers, of which there are many in South Africa, researchers have managed to document gender variance as well as homosexual behavior and relationships throughout South African history. There is evidence of what Western culture might today call transgender identities, known as murumkadzi (“man-woman”) and mukadzirume (“woman-man”) among the Shona. Murumkadzi took the role of a wife in a relationship with presumably gender-normative men, and mukadzirume took the role of a man in relationships with women. These people were “not the subject of close investigation,” according to Epprecht. 

Among the Zulu, there has been a long history of same-sexual interactions. In order to establish the potency of men so that they could be recognized as adult warriors, they would occasionally be given a boy as a substitute for a woman to be “used” to prove their sexual maturity.  Even the great Zulu leader, Shaka, has been suggested to be a homosexual. 

There is a long tradition of female sangomas (traditional healers) who engage in same-sex relationships, and it is has been said that gender inversion is a powerful trait among them.  There is a chapter devoted to this in the book, Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men, and Ancestral Wives: Female same-sex practices in Africa, edited by Ruth Morgan and Saskia Wieringa.  It describes the tradition in which sangomas take “ancestral wives” or unyankwabe:

“Unyankwabe is a person you are given by the ancestors; if you are a sangoma, you have to have someone to look after you. It may be your husband, your sister, or your uncle; anyone that the ancestors will choose for you to trust and believe in.”

The ancestral wife is chosen by the dominant male ancestor, who “speaks to”  the sangoma. The sangoma must then pay lobola, or bride-price, to the wife’s family. Though “the issue of a sexual relationship within an ancestral marriage is historically taboo,”  it seems to create a space for same-sex relationships to occur, albeit often in secret. Many lesbian- and same-sex identified sangomas came forward in Morgan and Wieringa’s research, who say that the ancestors have chosen these same-sex relationships for them:

“It’s like Lucia was loved by my ancestor. I could say she was chosen by my  ancestor. It means that this thing of mine, I can see it combines the wishes of my  ancestor. I can put it like that. ”

Gender inversion is also part of sangoma identity and culture, Morgan explained to me in an interview:

“A lot of the women have primary male ancestors that are responsible for their  healing powers. There’s no really good English translation for how it works,  because in the realm that they work, there’s a merging of their identities of their  ancestors and their own identities in some ways ... During that time, the ancestors  presence and needs take over. The women will then be a man, if she’s channeling  her male ancestor, and … her body will accommodate the needs of the male  ancestor. So if the male ancestor wants to have sex with a woman, she will then  say that it’s not me that wants to have sex with a woman, it’s my male ancestor.”

Epprecht writes that, for the most part, black African populations did not consider non-reproductive (anything that was not heterosexual intercourse) sex to actually be “sex” at all, and it seems that they were relatively accepting of it so long as it was kept quiet.  The fact that homosexual and non-intercourse sex acts were not seen as sex has led to the interpretation of some Westerners as “deep, perhaps essential homophobia in African culture.”  Epprecht quickly counters this by saying that these ideas “represent incomprehension, to be sure, but possibly also the echo of an ancient de facto tolerance for sexual eccentricities.”  On the other side of things, Europeans were very quick to condemn homosexual behavior as the result of a deep-rooted problem in a person’s character. It was only with the Dutch and British colonization of South Africa that strict laws with regard to “queer” sexuality were documented and ritualistically enforced. The original colonists brought with them anti-sodomy laws, broken over and over again by sailors traveling through Kaapstadt (Cape Town). The Dutch, the first colonists of South Africa, came from a history of Calvinist political domination, which prohibited any kind of sensuous pleasure, but “sex that deviated from the prescribed norm was viewed as especially reprehensible.”  In fact, the worst crime that one could commit was homosexual sex.  This belief was transported to South Africa through the original Dutch colonists, who imprisoned those found guilty of sodomy on Robben Island. In fact, these “sodomites” made up most of the Island’s first prisoners.

Anti-sodomy laws in the Cape were only the beginning of the settler’s jurisdiction over sexuality and gender expression. In 1914, an Immigration Act was passed that, Epprecht notes, included a “clause that explicitly prohibited persons convicted of sodomy or unnatural offenses from settling in the colony. But so self-evident was the wisdom of this exclusion that no public debate was deemed necessary or took place.”  By the 1930s, homophobia and panic surrounding gay identity was spreading around the world, streaming out of Europe and America. Gayness was linked to communism, which seems to be in line with Epprecht’s larger argument that homosexuality posed an obstacle to the development and permanent success of capitalism and imperialism. Raids on male homosexual bars and parties became more frequent as the Cold War emerged in the 1950s. The South African Defence Force began a campaign in 1960 to “cure” homosexuality with drug and electro-shock aversion “therapy” and mandatory counseling.

Epprecht writes,

“As in the United States, the military establishment regarded homosexuality as indicative of psychological weakness or unfitness for the coming battle. It also suggested vulnerability to communist blandishments or political opposition to apartheid. Proof of the link was embodied in Cecil Williams, a prominent gay member of the South African Communist Party, who was imprisoned and then deported from South Africa in the 1960s.” 

The situation for queer South Africans worsened throughout the 1960s, as the government embarked on a sort of “gay witch hunt” across the nation. In 1966, 350 mostly white men were arrested at a party in Forest Town, near Johannesburg, after being discovered dancing, kissing, and cuddling. Efforts were made to try to uncover and infiltrate homosexual “networks” throughout the country. A government proposal was introduced in 1968 that would have “empowered police to harass private social events and to imprison errant men and women for up to three years for offences.” The extremity of the proposal was weakened a bit by gay rights lobbyists, but the Immorality Act of 1969, which is most commonly known for banning interracial relationships and intercourse, also targeted same-sexuality. In fact, this forced gay communities into “tighter and more geographically isolated spaces.” The Act was also the first that explicitly acknowledged governmental hostility to female masculinity and lesbians by banning dildos.

It is important to note that by this point, outright homophobia was not only coming from the white population of South Africa. In fact, by the mid-1970s, it had become a popular belief among black activists that homosexual relationships were a symptom of apartheid. At a conference in 1976, black African churches “renewed their commitment to target the ‘atrocious vices’ caused by the compound and hostel system.” 

Simon Nkoli, an openly gay black man and member of the United Democratic Front who was imprisoned for treason in 1986 is often cited as one of the main reasons why the ANC eventually adopted gay rights as a part of their platform. His courage, as well as the anti-apartheid activism of queer organizations internationally, gained the respect of the party for queer people. In 1981, future president Thabo Mbeki was quoted as saying,

“The ANC is very firmly committed to removing all forms of discrimination and oppression in a liberated South Africa. That commitment must surely extend to the protection of gay rights.”

This commitment was tested, however, during the 1991 trial of Winnie Mandela for assault and kidnapping of four young boys. Her defence strategy was that she was trying to protect the boys from the sexual predation of an older white male. This trial was high-profile and her defence resulted in outrage from gay activists worldwide. Despite a letter of support from the ANC for the Gay Pride March that year, activists were only “somewhat appeased.” 

After Winnie Mandela’s divorce from Nelson Mandela, the party moved away from her brand of African nationalism, and made the significant and pivotal decision to include sexual orientation as one of the identities to be provided protection under the Freedom Charter, which still stands today.
 Even with the progressive nature of the Freedom Charter, however, most of South Africa is not in support of gay rights. Hate-motivated crimes against LGBT South Africans are still common throughout the country. Recently, Zulu former ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma was quoted in a Heritage Day speech, saying that:

“Same-sex marriage is a disgrace to the nation and to God. When I was growing up,  an ungqingili [gay man] would not have stood in front of me. I would knock him  out.”

The leader of the Zulus, King Goodwill Zwelithini, has openly expressed his hatred of homosexuals, saying:

“The Zulu nation would not be this big, with millions of people, if there was the problem of gay people that we have today, This new behaviour is quickly becoming a threat in our nation because it encourages people not to have proper families that have children. We have a huge responsibility as a nation to teach our children to distance themselves from homosexuality.”

At first glance, the King could be written off simply as ignorant. However, what is the underlying root of this problem? If he believes that this is a “new behaviour,” one would assume that he means it arrived in South Africa with colonization.  Epprecht has argued that in many ways, the modern “gay identity” was indeed a colonial import, but the behavior has been proven to have existed long before whites arrived. This begs the question of whether the root of the King’s hatred is against the behavior, which many kings before him did not discourage and some even promoted, or against the development of a gay subculture and the regulation of the government over sexuality and gender, something that emerged only after the first Dutch ships arrived at the Cape. Although the legislature existing today is much more “progressive,” the fact remains that there was no nationwide legal jurisdiction over the body or sexuality until colonization.

The Transgender Movement in South Africa

Amidst this controversy in South Africa, modern queer theory has changed the dynamic of the queer liberation movement. In the last twenty or so years of third wave feminism in the North, texts have emerged from the United States and Europe that argue that gender is a social construct. Judith Butler, a leading scholar in Gender Studies, has written,

“Gender is the mechanism by which notions of masculine and feminine are  produced and naturalized, but gender might very well be the apparatus by which  such terms are deconstructed and denaturalized.”

Butler and others argue that gender is a social construct and as such and that it is not as simple as being assigned a “male” or “female” sex. Instead, gender is built through experience and, as a result, it may not be the same as one’s assigned sex. 

In the last 2-5 years, a small but outspoken transgender movement has gained visibility in South Africa. This is not to say that transgender people have only begun to exist in South Africa during this period, but that it is only now that they are speaking out about their needs and rights, which are often different from the gay and lesbian community.

It is only in the last year or so that most articles specifically about transgender people have been published. In an article in the July 21-27 2006 issue of the Mail & Guardian, there was an article called “Gender, a state of mind” by Yolandi Groenewald. The article focuses on two transgender individuals in Pretoria, one female-to-male (FTM), named Robert Hamblin, and the other male-to-female (MTF), named Natalie Louw. Groenwald writes:

“Most of us understand what being lesbian, gay, or bisexual is all about, but being transgender is an issue that still has to come out of the closet,’ [Hamblin] said. Hamblin believes prejudice against transsexuals can be eliminated with better information campaigns. The organization has started lobbying the Department of Home Affairs to make it easier for people to change their sex, a process that is complicated despite the necessary laws being in place.”

Groenewald also describes the lack of state-provided care for transgender people in South Africa:

“Many private clinics perform sex change operations, but the state allows only six  people a year at the Pretoria Academic Hospital. One person has the authority to  approve or reject the operation.”

Liesl Theron, the president of Gender Dynamix (currently the only NGO in the African continent specifically for transgender people), published an article in the May 2006 issue of Source, a GLBT magazine based in Cape Town. In it, she gives a sort of “Transgender 101,” a very simple crash-course in transgender identity and sensitivity. She explains that gender and sexual orientation are separate, and cites reasons why the gay & lesbian community should care about transgender issues – “The art lies in not creating another set of boundaries or labels to tag people with, but rather to suggest a much more fluid inclusivity.”  

These articles have provided increased visibility and discussion around transgender identity and rights. The documents allude to a certain disconnect between the transgender movement and the larger queer rights movement, which implies a need for reconciliation even between the queer and transgender movements.  After close examination, it seems clear that in the aftermath of colonization and apartheid, reconciliation must extend beyond race, color, and ethnic groups – it must also include the impact of these regimes on the body, gender, and sexuality.

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