By Melissa Levin It was in Yeoville sometime in the 1990s that a ‘spook’ from South Africa’s now ruling party, the ANC, with whom I was acquainted began asking me questions about my father. My family had migrated to Canada, which he knew, and he was asking questions like, “when,” and “was your dad ever […]
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, an African-American reporter based in South Africa, has penned a piece in this week’s New Yorker titled “Violated Hopes” (subscription required) that covers the contentious topic of sexual violence directed against black South African lesbians. Hunter-Gault frames the piece on the experiences of lesbian women in townships in Johannesburg and Cape Town, interviewing several women who have experienced sexual violence at the hands of men.
The South African photographer Zanele Muholi is exhibiting some of her work–at the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation (26 Wooster Street) as part of an exhibition of contemporary photographers, “Lesbians Seeing Lesbians: Building Community in Early Feminist Photography” Here’s a link to the catalog essay. The exhibition, which opened earlier this month, is on till October 22.
A 13-year-old South African girl is the latest victim of “corrective rape,” in which men rape lesbians to “cure” them of their sexual orientation in South Africa. As The Guardian reports 31 lesbians have been killed because of their sexuality in the past decade, and more than 10 lesbians a week are raped or gang […]
Frank Mungisha, an Ugandan gay rights activist included in The Advocate’s “Forty Under 40” list last year, will speak at The New School in Manhattan tomorrow night about his experiences. From the promotional material: He has played a leading role in combating the “Anti-Homosexuality” bill proposed by the Ugandan legislature that threatens lesbian, gay, bisexual, […]
CNN has a story on why despite South Africa’s progressive laws, lesbians and gays are still under attack there. The basic moral of the piece is that if you’re middle class, you can form your own safe, comfortable communities even if other middle class people want to discriminate against you. If you’re working class–and South […]
The (British) Channel 4 news report (video above) on “corrective rape” of lesbians by men in South Africa (among the victims was the former captain of South Africa’s women’s football team, Eudy Simelane) has won the Stonewall Award, which “… celebrates those who have made a positive impact on the lives of lesbian and gay […]
So Uganda, with the help of their rightwing, American Christian boosters, want to “wipe out” gay people by making laws that bans even thinking about it. Now Kenya wants to do a “census” of its gay population. Their excuse is this is a way to fight AIDS. This is when it is common knowledge that […]
Uganda’s Parliament–encouraged by American evangelicals (who converted Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni above)–last week introduced new draft legislation, The Anti-Homosexuality Bill, that will “… greatly expand criminal penalties against lesbians and gays.” Currently, “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” carries a sentence of up to 14 years imprisonment in Uganda’s penal code. […]
That’s South African Judge, Ratha Mokgoathleng, unable to contain his homophobia, speaking earlier to the prosecutor in the case of the murderers of Eudy Simelane, a lesbian woman brutally raped and murdered in a township outside Johannesburg. The New York Times reports that one the killers has been sentenced to life in prison. To contextualize […]
