Queer Pride in (South) Africa – from Stonewall to ‘stonewalling’
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Apart from South Africa, queer Pride events across our continent are often fraught exercises, risking serious harm to organisers and participants. This places an obligation on South Africa to fight for the rights of all who are marginalised, scapegoated or vilified, often for political gain. The Sexuality and Gender Division of the Psychological Society of South Africa calls for the recognition of queer rights and the power of queer-affirmative therapy across the continent as we reflect on the concept of ‘queer pride’. Across many African countries, LGBTQIA+ people continue to face criminalisation, discrimination, violence and barriers to accessing affirming healthcare and psychosocial support, making Pride as much an act of courage and survival as one of celebration. While Pride Month is commemorated at different times across South Africa, the month of June carries particular significance as the original Pride Month in the Northern Hemisphere. It is rooted in the commemoration of the Stonewall protests of 1969 in New York, which served as a catalyst for the modern global LGBTQIA+ rights movement. To ‘stonewall’ also means to delay, obstruct or refuse to cooperate and we argue that this ethos should inform our activism: we should fight laws across Africa that criminalise sexual and gender minorities; we should obstruct efforts to dehumanise; and we should refuse to cooperate with those who seek to blame queer and marginalised people for social ills. This, we argue, is a form of personal and professional ‘civil disobedience’. What are some of the ways this ‘disobedience’ could play out? Firstly, civil disobedience requires us to challenge the notion that being queer is shameful and instead see queer Pride as a response to shaming. Much of the distress experienced by LGBTQIA+ people does not stem from sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics themselves. Rather, it arises from exposure to stigma, discrimination, violence, rejection