1GLBT Travellers

GLBT Rights & Challenges

During apartheid, gay male erotic contact was illegal. (Female same-sex conduct never was, however: as in other formerly British colonies such activities were considered simply unthinkable!) With democracy, South Africa became the first country in the world to enshrine gay and lesbian rights in its constitution. There’s an equal age of consent and GLBT people are legally entitled to marry, too.

Sadly, alternative lifestyles are not embraced by all South Africans. In 2014, a 21-year-old coloured gay man was brutally murdered in a gay hate crime in the Western Cape. It is not uncommon for lesbians in black communities to be subjected to 'corrective rape'. Anti-hate-crime legislation exists, but the laws are rarely put into action.

In the News

Happier news recently in Cape Town has been the establishment of the Pride Shelter Trust (www.pridesheltertrust.com), Africa's first autonomous GBLT crisis centre, which has been in operation since 2011.

Cape Town's lesbian community has been striking out with the women-only parties M.I.S.S (Make It Sexy Sisters; www.facebook.com/MISSmakeitsexysisters), and the Unofficial Pink Parties, which are lesbian-run but welcoming to everyone.

Also in 2014, SA Leather South Africa (www.sal.qw.co.za) voted to become a pan-sexual organisation – previously it had been men-only. If you fancy going hiking with gays and gay-friendly folk while in the Mother City, check out the Cape Town Gay Hiking Club (www.facebook.com/groups/6068816435).

Gay Language

Moffie, the local term for a homosexual, comes from the Afrikaans word for glove; it’s also the title of the flamboyant leaders of the performance troupes in the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival. Among gays, moffie has come to be used like ‘queer’ – in an affirmative way to repudiate its negative connotations.

Older Capetonian gays will also remember an apartheid-era code language, called ‘Gayle’, in which women’s names stand in for certain words; for example, ‘Beaulah’ for 'beautiful' and ‘Hilda’ for 'ugly'.