Freeing South Africa: The "Modernization" of Male-Male Sexuality in Soweto

Abstract

In February 1993 a black man in his mid-thirties named Linda (an ordinary male name in Zulu) died of AIDS in Soweto South Africa. Something of an activist Linda was a founding member of GLOW the Gay and Lesbian Organization of the Witwatersrand. Composed of both blacks and whites GLOW was and is the principal gay and lesbian organization in the Johannesburg area. Because Linda had many friends in the group GLOW organized a memorial service at a members home in Soweto a few days before the funeral. Lindas father who belonged to an independent Zionist church attended and spoke. He recalled Lindas life and what a good person he had been how hard he had worked in the household. But then he went on in the way that elders sometimes do to advise the young men present: There was just one thing about my sons life that bothered he said. So let me tell you if youre a man wear mens clothes. If youre colored act colored. Above all if youre black dont wear Indian clothes. If you do this how will our ancestors recognize [and protect] you? Linda had been something of a queen with a particular penchant for Indian saris. To Lindas father and to his church dress had ritual significance. One might even say that there was an indigenous theory of drag among many black Zionist South Africans albeit one different from that in North America. To assume church dress not only indicated a certain state of personhood it in some real sense effected that state. Writing on Tswana Zionists who like the Zulu have been drawn into townships around Johannesburg Jean Comaroff (1985) asserted The power of uniforms in Tshidi perception was both expressive and pragmatic for the uniform instantiated the ritual practice it represented 1985:220). If dress had one set of associations within Zionist symbolism it had others for a small group of young black South African activists who saw themselves as gay. To the members of GLOW present most of whom were black Lindas fathers comments were insulting. Most particularly they were seen as homophobic. As the week wore on GLOW began to organize to make their point and to take over the funeral. (excerpt)