Black lesbian women in South Africa: Citizenship and the coloniality of power

Abstract

Current conceptualisations of citizenship in South Africa are embedded in the egalitarian discourse of the Constitution, lauded for its recognition of historically marginalised groups, including sexually and gender diverse people. Within the paradox of progressive legal advancements and the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, we use a decolonial feminist lens to critically engage with the notion of citizenship for black lesbian women in contemporary South Africa. We adopt a social-psychological perspective of citizenship as an active practice, embedded within the dynamic intersections of historical, structural and discursive patterns of power-knowledge relations in everyday life. We draw from five focus group discussions that were part of a study that explored the intersections of identity, power and violence in the lives of black lesbian women in South Africa. Focusing on the enactments of citizenship in public spaces, we contend that black lesbian women’s lived experiences of citizenship point to the enduring manifestations of the coloniality of power, in which the centrality of race underpins the intersections of class, gender and sexuality. We conclude by arguing that current conceptualisations of full citizenship in contemporary South Africa require a reframing that recognises the coloniality of power and the heterogeneity of marginalised and invisibilised subjectivities.

Keywords

citizenship decolonial feminism coloniality of power postcolonial apartheid race class lesbian South Africa

As South Africa heralded in democracy in 1994, Mark Gevisser and Edward Cameron (1995) asked several important questions about gay identity and gay spaces in South Africa. Of particular relevance to this paper were their questions around the exclusion of black women from mainstream gay culture and the existence of a common gay identity in South Africa. Gevisser and Cameron (1995) conceded, at the time, that the gay identity in South Africa was largely defined to refer almost exclusively to “white, middle-class urban men” (p. 4). Twenty-five years into democracy, we extend Gevisser and Cameron’s questioning by critically engaging with the notion of citizenship for black lesbian women in contemporary South Africa. We use a decolonial feminist lens (Lugones, 2010) informed by Foucauldian concepts of power, knowledge and discourse.

Lugones (2010) describes coloniality as “the process of active reduction of people, the dehumanisation that fits them for the classification, the process of subjectification, the attempt to turn the colonised into less than human beings” (p. 745). The women’s talk pointed to the enduring enactment of postcolonial power and practices, and the centrality of race in the intersections of class, gender and sexuality. By postcolonial, we mean the ways in which contemporary society reproduces the discourses, knowledge, practices and power relations that were characteristic of the colonial era, rather than a specific historical period. Additionally, we use the term coloniality of power (Quijano, 2007) to describe the enactment of race as a central feature in the establishment and rationalisation of the power matrix between the colonised and the colonisers. The coloniality of power (Quijano, 2007) describes how the social category of race continues to sustain postcolonial power relations in modern capitalist and neoliberal contexts. While Quijano (2007) argues for the centrality of race in the performance of coloniality, Lugones (2010) contends that gender is an equally salient construct. We thus recognise the historical matrix of power relations that underpin the oppression of black women. This encompasses the continued enactment of oppression in various forms, and the inter-connectedness of raced and gendered oppression with the experiences of citizenship. Furthermore, the historical linking of race and materiality during the colonial and apartheid eras implies that class is intertwined with race and gender in contemporary South Africa.

What does citizenship look like in contemporary South Africa?

Citizenship is a contested and slippery concept. It means many different things to people in different contexts. Current conceptualisations of citizenship in South Africa may be argued to resemble traditional Marshallian models that focus on the political relationship between the state and individuals, state responsibilities and obligations, the legal status and rights of citizens, and their access to economic and social resources. Current conceptualisations of citizenship in South Africa are also embedded in the egalitarian discourse of the Constitution, lauded for its legal recognition of historically marginalised groups, including sexually and gender diverse minorities. Several pieces of progressive legislation have been promulgated which promote citizen rights and an egalitarian society for sexually and gender diverse people specifically. These include the Civil Union Act of 2006, the Children’s Act of 2005, the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act of 2000, and most recently, the Prevention and Combatting of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill. It is tempting to think that full citizenship of sexually and gender diverse people has been achieved in light of these legal advancements that promote social and economic equities for all citizens. While the state-individual relationship marks an important dimension of citizenship, we maintain that this dichotomous conceptualisation masks how power is discursively and socially deployed in ways that are reminiscent of colonial constructions of the subjugated other (Mama, 1995). We suggest that black lesbian women are constructed and positioned as the subjugated other in contemporary South Africa. We suggest further that this “othering” denies black lesbian women full citizenship.

In this paper, we adopt a feminist social-psychological framework that conceives of citizenship as an “active practice, embedded in everyday social life” (Stevenson et al., 2015, p. 192). Citizenship constitutes an embodied, affective and psychic lived subjectivity and experience, embedded within the dynamic intersections of multiple identities, feelings of belonging, and historical, structural and discursive patterns of power-knowledge relations (Yuval-Davis, 2007). As such, full citizenship extends beyond legal citizenship to include sexual, reproductive, social, economic and psychological citizenship. Stevenson et al. (2015) identify three areas of investigation for future research that also offer a useful analytical tool: 1) citizenship and recognition, 2) enactments of citizenship in public spaces (place and performance of citizenship), and 3) citizenship and lived coexistence. We are cognisant that these areas intersect in complex, nuanced and changing ways in everyday life. In this paper, we focus on the performance of citizenship in public spaces to highlight the coloniality of power (Quijano, 2007).

We recognise the fluidity, multiplicity and heterogeneity of women’s identities, as well as the limitations of labels that impose particular meanings on identities. Social categories and labels are of particular importance in an engagement of citizenship that recognises the historical context in which socially engineered identity categories and labels (race being the most obvious) were enmeshed in justificatory narratives that rationalised colonial power and oppression (Quijano, 2007). Notwithstanding the limitations of labels as identity markers, we use the label lesbian to refer to women in same-sex relationships as the majority of participants in the original study self-identified as such. Additionally, we use the label black to refer to persons currently classified by Statistics South Africa as being ‘black African’, ‘black coloured’ and ‘black Indian’. Importantly, the term black signifies the political positioning of those who identify as black as a distinct identity from white and “non-white” relational identities. Black represents a conscious subversion to white colonial oppression (Biko, 2004).

Contexualising and historicising black lesbian citizenship in South Africa

During the colonial era in South Africa, race, gender and sexuality were deployed as powerful political and social technologies that advanced white supremacy and the brutal enslavement and exploitation of black people (Gqola, 2010; Young, 1995, cited in Tamale, 2011). Tamale (2011) argues that the colonial project redefined African sexualities within a discourse of public, sexual and social morality to advance colonial exploitation. She argues further that African women’s sexualities and the bodies of African women were constructed as the antithesis of conservative European sexual norms. Several anthropological accounts rendered African women and African sexuality as primitive, savage and excessive (Tamale, 2011), thereby establishing African women’s sexualities as unintelligible and unimaginable against European norms (Butler, 1990).

The apartheid system formalised and reinforced colonial power relations. Under apartheid law, South African citizens were classified into one of four racial categories under the Population Registration Act (Act No. 30 of 1950). The Act worked in tandem with other key apartheid laws to discriminate against citizens classified as African, “coloured” or Indian/Asian, through controlled access or denial to political, legal and social rights, resources, opportunities and geographical locations. This formal system of racial classification and segregation informed and justified the creation of socially engineered racial hierarchies, enabled through gross per capita disparities among the racially categorised groups.

Likewise, gender and sexuality were highly regulated and repressed during colonial and apartheid eras. “Heavy censorship and repressive policing” (p. 53) under apartheid law situated sex and sexuality exclusively as a matter for the private, domestic sphere, prohibited inter-racial sexual relationships, criminalised homosexuality and promoted the notion of uncontrolled black hyper-sexuality juxtaposed with that of a vulnerable white minority sexuality (Posel, 2005). As Ratele and Shefer (2013) suggest, intimate relationships, and through this, the regulation of gender and sexuality, “were a key site for the reproduction of racism” (p. 190). During the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, the repression and censorship of sexuality within a highly raced and gendered context functioned to construct and position white, male, heterosexuality as the most powerful within the socially engineered hierarchy. The discourse of hegemonic white masculinity was strengthened by concurrent discourses of “blackness”, violence and deviance that were associated with black people. These discourses served to position black people on the lower end of the social hierarchy.

We agree with Gqola (2010), who argues that “slavery, colonialism and apartheid” are “embedded in each other and beyond” (pp. 6–7). We contend that this embeddedness carries through into the current democratic context, which, despite its progressive nature, also contains oppressive practices. In this paper, we are particularly interested in the intersections of citizenship as embodied experiences and oppressive practices that are obscured in the lives of black lesbian women. We argue that during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, the deviant other/subject was brought about through the active dehumanisation of black people (Lugones, 2010), who were constructed as hyper-sexualised and predatory in their sexual practices (Lewis, 2005; Mama, 1995; Tamale, 2011). The gross colonial subjectification and fixation on the body of Sara Baartman not only reflects how power inequities intersect with race, gender and sexuality (Boonzaier, 2017) but also epitomises the colonial fragmentation and disembodiment of black subjectivities (Gqola, 2010).

The fight for sexual freedom and expression is a political matter. In South Africa, gay and lesbian history has unfolded as part of the broader agenda for liberation (Morgan & Reid, 2003). Issues pertaining to sexuality and gender were considered to be less urgent in comparison to racial imbalances that required redress (Potgieter & de la Rey, 1997). Seidman (1999), however, maintains that South Africa’s new democracy has adopted an explicitly gendered stance regarding citizenship. Despite this focus on gendered citizenship, several trends indicate the contrary for black lesbian women specifically. Local studies have foregrounded the intersections of lesbian subjectivities and continuing forms of institutional homophobia, sexual prejudice, societal discrimination and hate crimes against lesbian women (Judge, 2018; Stephens, 2018).

While legislative recognition of diverse sexual orientations has created greater visibility of the lesbian population, it has simultaneously increased their vulnerability to discrimination, homophobic acts and hate crimes. This is especially pertinent in the absence of adequate and effective legal and institutional support to give tangible effect to constitutional priorities. As such, the enactment of sexual violence and homophobic rape of black lesbian women represent forms of discipline and social control of black lesbian sexuality. These enactments are embedded within justificatory (Tamale, 2014) and pathologising (Hames, 2011) cultural narratives that reflect the continued subjectification and objectification of black women. Public discourse constructs black lesbian women as being deviant, due to their perceived gender and sexual nonconformity (Morrissey, 2013). The continued use of the discourse of “corrective” rape (as opposed to homophobic rape) in communities, media reports and scholarly articles serves to legitimise the practice (Hames, 2011). Furthermore, the sensationalist nature of media focus on crimes against black lesbian women (Hames, 2011) reinforces the discourses of blackness and violence, and discursively constructs black lesbian women as disempowered, powerless victims (Morrissey, 2013). Boonzaier and Zway (2015) argue that the discourse of “risk” presents black lesbian women as “perpetual victims” (p. 8) who lack agency.

One of the ironic effects of constitutional recognition of sexual diversity has been the creation of conditions of possibilities that enable the emergence of the “othered” citizen and the continued fixation on the sexuality of the “other”. This is reminiscent of colonial fixation on the black body – what Gqola (2008) terms “paradoxical hypervisibility” – the heightened focus on the physical and the external that is reminiscent of the “hyper-embodied” colonial “objectification” of the African body and the simultaneous invisibilisation of black lesbian subjectivities (p. 47). Thus, although the human rights discourse used in the South African Constitution and legislation speaks to sexual and gender diversity, the embedded power of coloniality continues to establish white heterosexuality as the colonial “original” against which “othered” sexualities and genders are performed and defined (Butler, 1990) within an ordered and hierarchical modern system (Maldonado-Torres, 2017). The lesbian and lesbian sexuality come to be constituted as the sexually deviant (postcolonial) other in post-apartheid South Africa through this awkward tension. In this paper, we ask how South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history shapes the embodied experiences of full citizenship among black lesbian women in contemporary South Africa.

The research context

This paper draws from five focus groups that were part of a multi-site, qualitative study that explored the intersections of identity, power and violence in the lives of black lesbian women in public and private spaces in South Africa. Women who were or had been in same-sex intimate relationships of an emotional and/or sexual nature were invited to participate in focus groups. As a feminist study, we challenge dominant cultural narratives that construct black lesbian sexuality as unintelligible (Butler, 1990) against gender and sexual (hetero) normativities. Through a decolonial feminist reading of black women’s subjectivities, we privilege the perspective of the “othered” (Mama, 1995; Tamale, 2011) by centring the focus on the lived experiences of black lesbian women themselves. This marks a deliberate reclaiming of personhood to disrupt colonial discourses of depersonalised and anonymous black women.

Participants

Purposive snowball sampling was used to recruit participants through LGBTIQ¹ NGOs and support groups. Although participants were primarily recruited from urban areas in the KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Western Cape provinces, some participants hailed from rural township areas in these provinces, as well as the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga provinces. Thirty women with a mean age of 23 years participated in the focus groups. All participants had completed their Grade 12 (matric) except for one participant who was in Grade 12 at the time of the study. Twelve participants were registered for undergraduate studies and four had completed postgraduate qualifications. Eleven participants were unemployed. All participants reported having been involved in at least one intimate same-sex relationship. At the time of the study, 18 participants reported being single and one participant was married. Four participants were living with their partners and five had children of their own, two of whom had become pregnant as a result of being raped.

Data collection

The first author conducted five audio-recorded focus groups in a manner that advanced broad feminist principles. Focus groups ranged from two to 10 participants and lasted between 1 and 1½ hours. Focus groups are useful in the exploration of gender and sexuality (Montell, 1999) as they locate the person (and subjectivities) in social contexts through their reliance on social interaction and the co-construction and negotiation of meaning (Wilkinson, 1998). Focus groups have been described as a feminist method that provides the opportunity for not only a discussion of feminist topics and “high involvement topics” with marginalised groups (Överlien et al., 2005, p. 332), but also for feminist consciousness building through the facilitation of critical dialogues provided in a safe, supportive space (Wilkinson, 1998). The discussions focused on the foregrounding of the women’s narratives on their terms and providing the opportunity for the women to be in dialogue with each other. All focus groups began with an introductory comment which outlined the research aims. Thereafter, conversation was invited around their experiences as women in same-sex relationships in various contexts and public spaces. Spaces included LGBTIQ NGOs and other community organisations, the communities in which they lived, as well as social and recreational spaces. In keeping with the feminist principles of focus groups, participants were allowed to determine the depth of exploration of issues for the most part.

Discourse and discourse analysis

Language unfolds in discourse (Parker, 1992) which draws upon shared and collective meanings, revealing the social and collective basis of language (Burman & Parker, 1993). It is through socially and historically produced discourses that the material basis of power is established and maintained by those who have the power to regulate dominant, “truth” discourses (Foucault, 1982). Individuals position themselves in relation to multiple discourses and forms of power and, in so doing, define their subjective experiences (Weedon, 1997). The historical, social, cultural and political contexts in South Africa structure sexuality and gender in particular ways. They shape how society thinks about and responds to black lesbian sexuality in contemporary South Africa. Thus, how constructions of blackness produce racialised (and colonised) subjects (Stevens et al., 2017) is particularly salient in the neoliberal South African context where, historically, the social construct of race was used to justify white racial power and oppressive practices during apartheid. The same may be argued for the deployment of discursive constructions around gender, sexuality and class in ways that legitimise oppressive practices.

We used a decolonial feminist lens, informed by Foucauldian theorising of power, knowledge and discourse, when we read and coded the transcripts. A feminist decolonial lens recognises the ways in which racialisation and gendered subordination are co-produced as well as the ways in which coloniality is all-encompassing (Lugones, 2007). The names of all participants and organisations were allocated an alpha-numerical code to protect the identity of participants. Codes were replaced with pseudonyms in the write-up of the analyses.

Ethical considerations

Ethical approval for the larger study was obtained from the University of Cape Town. All ethical guidelines that inform psychological research and practice in South Africa were adhered to. Informed consent was obtained from all participants, although this was not necessarily in written form to protect participant identities. Participants could withdraw from the study at any stage without any negative consequences. Counselling services for debriefing and/or psychological support were made available to all participants, although no referrals were made. The reflexive and iterative nature of this study formed an essential foundation from which to approach specific ethical and feminist methodological issues. This approach acknowledged the historical and politicised choices and subjectivities of the researcher and the participants. We paid special attention to the performance of power within the research processes and the insider-outsider status of both the researcher and the participants. In sharing their experiences with the first author, the participants had assumed positions of vulnerability through the various degrees of discursive exposure. In order to disrupt the construction of the participant as object, the first author was willing to share information about herself and answered questions from participants as they arose. Inevitably, this foregrounded insider-outsider status and encouraged critical reflection on its effects on the research processes. There were some aspects of sameness between the first author and the participants that might have resonated a sense of connectedness with the participants, especially to experiences that spoke of discrimination and oppression. This mainly centred on the first author’s political positioning as a black woman and her lived experiences of growing up during apartheid.

However, while categories of sameness might have shaped the co-construction of knowledge in some ways, we are aware of the potential danger of endorsing an essentialist approach to identities through the performativity of gendered and cultural scripts (Butler, 1990). Here, outsider status and categories of difference became particularly pertinent. Within dominant cultural discourses of sexuality, certain external markers present the first author as heterosexual. The authors were concerned with how the perceived heterosexual/lesbian sexual binary might have impacted the co-construction of knowledge, especially with the potential mirroring or reversal of power dynamics between heterosexual/homosexual identities. As a psychologist, the first author was also mindful of the power and status of the discipline of psychology, and its role in the regulation of sexuality through “scientific” and “pathological” psychological discourses. The historical role of psychology in colluding with the apartheid project (Macleod, 2004) represented an additional dimension to the researcher-participant dynamic. However, the feminist approach to the research process aimed to counter these uneasy juxtapositionings.

Analysis and discussion

Lugones (2010) argues that the dichotomous and hierarchical logic of categories is “central to modern, colonial, capitalist thinking about race, gender, and sexuality” (p. 742). The women drew on a strong discourse of “us and them” which foregrounded how power relations are interwoven in social hierarchies that construct and position black lesbian women as different and “othered”. Social hierarchies centred on gender, race and class differences, and political histories and activism. Although nuanced at times, race featured as a consistent thread in their talk. We suggest that this underlying narrative points to the centrality of race, and the enduring legacy of the coloniality of power (Quijano, 2007) in contemporary South Africa. We explore these discursive tensions in the women’s accounts of their experiences in social, institutional, NGO and activist/community spaces.

The discourse of “us and them”: The masculinisation of “gayness”

In South Africa, the intersections between geographical locations and LGBTIQ social spaces is both raced and gendered (Williams, 2008). In her exploration of queer social spaces in Cape Town, South Africa, Williams (2008) reflected on how apartheid’s racialisation continues to exist in queer social spaces. She noted that central, urbanised spaces are most frequented by white gay men while black gay men and lesbian women remain in the townships on the periphery of central Cape Town. In one of the focus groups held at a historically white university campus in Cape Town, the women used a “masculinisation of gayness” discourse to draw attention to “us/them” differences along gendered and racial categories. One participant alluded to the gendered boundaries that served to exclude lesbian women from male-dominated gay social spaces:

And LGBT4 isn’t more fluid here, it’s more gay guys. Like where do you go girl? Where do you all go? (Rose)

Rose’s questions prompted a response from Ami that appeared to reinforce the masculinist constructions of “gay” events, language and identities:

University A doesn’t have a very visible community of same-gender-loving women of colour that I can identify with and even this LGBT 4 organisation is predominantly white men and they’re very gay-centred in their events and in the language that they use. (Ami)

As Ami alluded to in the extract above, language plays an important role in keeping boundaries in place. Ami expounded on the exclusionary effects of discursive constructions around the intersections of gender and racial binaries, which functioned to keep dominant ideologies (such as gay being synonymous with white and male) in circulation and others (such as the heterogeneity and fluidity of sexually and gender diverse people), away (Mills, 2003):

I use the term “gay” to identify myself but actually, most people don’t think of me when they think gay and that’s not what you’re thinking about. You’re thinking about gay men and it’s so frustrating to like, be excluded even in the gay community. (Ami)

The discursive ambiguities demonstrated in the use of the word “gay” foregrounds how discourse itself represents modes of micro-power that maintain the dominance of certain groups through inclusionary or exclusionary practices. While the term “gay” is accepted as an inclusive umbrella term to refer to all persons in same-sex relationships, it is also commonly used to refer exclusively to homosexual men. In doing so, it serves to exclude, alienate and invisibilise lesbian women from dominant “gay” identities. Ami’s juxtaposing of the words “I” and “me” positioned her as “other” in relation to “most people” – an “other” whose subjectivity is erased and depersonalised by “most people” who “don’t think of me” [her]. The discursive constructions that are deployed in social spaces that serve to exclude black lesbian subjectivities must be considered as an extension of macro ideologies and institutional practices (Diamond & Quinby, 1988). Thus, when Ami referred to the first author through the use of the word “you”, she had positioned the first author with “most people”. We suggest that this insider/outsider status between Ami and the first author might also point to the role of psychology as an instrument of the coloniser, in its epistemic and ontological perpetuation of categorical boundaries that maintain exclusionary practices.

Ami drew further attention to the importance of group membership and belonging as part of (social and psychological) citizenship when she subsequently elaborated on the exclusionary effects of the masculinisation of gay spaces:

Truly, truly. It’s like you’re invisible because [↑] you’re a woman. You’re invisible because you’re a gay [↑] woman. You’re invisible even in the gay spaces because you’re a gay woman [↑] and then [↑] you’re invisible because you’re a black [↑] gay woman. (Ami)

In her account, the categories that marked her exclusion and sense of not belonging also marked her invisibility. Her sense of invisibility and alienation “even in gay spaces” points to social hierarchies that perpetuate multiple permutations of oppression (Collins, 2004) in post-apartheid South Africa. Ami’s account suggests that “male” and “white” represent social criteria for group membership within prime urban gay spaces, a colonial and an apartheid inheritance that appears to endure (Williams, 2008). Thus, despite the discourse of gender and race equities in contemporary South Africa, geopolitical locatedness, gender, race and sexuality continue to intersect in complex ways to construct black lesbian sexuality as different to and outside of normative masculinist constructions of same-sex sexuality.

The discourse of “us and them”: Race and class

In the absence of a gender marker, the women deployed a discourse of “us and them” to foreground how race and class perpetuate and maintain social hierarchies among lesbian women. Within this discourse, black lesbian women were constructed as invisible in lesbian spaces because they did not fit the normative identity of white lesbian women. Janice’s experience of attending a social event organised by a Cape Town-based lesbian organisation whose membership was predominantly white points to feelings of social alienation, concealment and anonymity:

Like we went to an event and we were completely cloaked, we did not belong there. …It was a braai.² Ja,³ the focus was on lesbians. They [i.e. the organisation] organise these events to get on with women, but when you get there, everyone, everything is completely white. We just did not fit in, we felt totally excluded. So I don’t know … I don’t know, I’m not comfortable with it. (Janice)

Although Janice identified as a lesbian woman and had regarded all the women at the event to be lesbians, where “the focus was on lesbians”, she deploys a discourse of “us and them” to indicate that she “just did not fit in” and “felt totally excluded”. She articulates her subjective experience as a black woman as invisible and “completely cloaked” in a space where the normative lesbian identity appeared to be “completely white”. In her description of “everyone, everything” being “completely white”, Janice signals the saliency of the relationship between (raced) subjectivity and space. Implied in her narrative is the notion of overwhelming whiteness. We suggest that this is symbolic of the dominance of white subjectivities and white racialised (lesbian) space.

While Janice foregrounded the intersections of raced subjectivity and space, Ridwana drew on a discourse of “us and them” to point to the linking of race and class in social spaces. Her experience of attending a “plush” picnic organised by the same lesbian organisation highlighted the legacy of racial, classist divides, and its continued intersections with sexual subjectivities:

When we got there, they were already eating. We just kept to ourselves. We were not used to it because we don’t go to plush parties. (Ridwana)

Ridwana lived in an area known as the Cape Flats: a residential township that was demarcated for persons racially categorised as “coloured” or “African” under the apartheid system. Many areas in black townships are portrayed for their harsh social and economic challenges, including poverty, crime, rival gang fights, substance abuse and partner violence. In the above extract, the words “plush” and “we were not used to it” hint at social privilege, luxury and a way of life that Ridwana (and her friend) did not enjoy. Ridwana suggests that black lesbian women who do not share the same class and material privileges as white lesbian women may have felt excluded in lesbian spaces that were experienced as such. The discourse of “us and them” based on classist divides suggests further that the experiences and history of oppression for lesbian women affect black women and white women differently, and their respective representations of the other (hooks, 1992).

The above extracts, in highlighting whiteness, privilege and normativity, also bring into focus “blackness, its subjective and experiential meanings” (Stevens et al., 2017, p. 461). The discourse of “us and them” that constructs black women as hidden and anonymised raced, classed and sexed subjectivities draws attention to the socio-historic power relations that underpin race relations and sexuality in neoliberal South Africa. The women’s accounts highlight the “spatio-temporal” dynamics that characterise intergroup relations in historically white places and reflect a racial codification and hierarchy that is historically specific (Durrheim, 2005, p. 445).

However, race, class and sexuality intersect in complex and nuanced ways, as Ntombi clarified below:

Let’s say you go to LGBT2 and there’s this one black girl and then you hear her speak. She doesn’t sound you know, like all the other black girls (Laughter from the group). OK, and they’re just there because they fit in a certain social class right and someone else from the townships won’t really fit in … even if I see someone with the same colour as me at LGBT2, they don’t sound like me and I’m not going to be comfortable with them. (Ntombi, FG)

Ntombi, like the participants in the study by Boonzaier and Mkhize (2018), references the powerful symbolic and assimilative function of language and accent in colonial societies, shaping what is considered to be “civilised” and intelligent and what is not (Phoenix, 2009, cited in Boonzaier & Mkhize, 2018). Her account resonates with the ways in which black queer students at a university in Cape Town have described their sense of alienation in supposedly inclusive LGBTIQ spaces as a result of their distance from “the somatic norm of white, middle/upper class, heterosexual, cisgender, English-speaking, man” (Boonzaier & Mkhize, 2018, p. 93). Similarly, even though black lesbian women drew more attention to race and class intersections than white lesbian women, Gibson and Macleod (2012) had noted, in their study, the nuanced and complex nature of sexual identity as suggested by the varied experiences of black lesbian women from different geographical locations and class.

Additionally, the discourse of “us and them” is linked to the intersections of race and culture. Social and cultural isolation and alienation are argued to be closely interwoven with the discourse and subjective experiences of belonging and citizenship in South Africa (Mkhize et al., 2010; Moreau, 2015). Another participant, Zonke, pointed out further that cultural and class intersections are also shaped by the respective histories of black oppression and white privilege:

As much work as I’ve done in terms of coming to terms with my sexuality and my identity, it’s just sort of very hard being so removed from people who understand what it means to be an African woman who identifies as a lesbian. I don’t feel any unity among lesbian women or just women period at University A which I think is a huge loss … and like it’s potential because I think, in my life experience, the organisation of women does a lot, especially when we’re coming together on the basis of a shared understanding that women matter to us. (Zonke)

In the above narrative, Zonke describes a deep cultural and political disconnect with lesbian women who do not share and understand her experiences and history as “an African woman who identifies as a lesbian”. Implied in her narrative is the history and experience of intersecting oppressions (Collins, 2004). This disconnect was evident in their talk around political activism in NGO and community spaces. We explore this further in the following section.

The discourse of “us and them”: Political history and activism

The above “us/them” divide was reinforced when the women spoke further of the differences between black and white lesbian organising. Their talk pointed to the intersections of race and class, which constructed black lesbian/gay activism as being different from white lesbian/gay activism in historical and political positioning. “White” organisations were described as having social agendas rooted in classist and material privilege while “black” organisations were understood to have political agendas that were rooted in their experiences of class and race oppression.

The tensions that exist between “black” and “white” lesbian (LGBTIQ) organisations in South Africa that Ridwana’s experience at the “plush” picnic alluded to earlier were accentuated in the 2013 hosting of the Soweto and Johannesburg Pride marches. The scheduling of the Soweto Pride by predominantly black organisations and the Johannesburg Pride by a predominantly white organisation, referred to as “a black pride and a white pride” (Mambaonline, 27 May 2013), on the same day had set into motion a furore of exchanges between both organisations that pointed to racial and political divisions in the LGBTQI constituencies that supported the respective marches. Dikeledi Deekay Sibanda from the organisation Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), in reporting on discussions with the Johannesburg Pride organisers, stated that “they don’t want to engage with our issues as black queer people who are affected by hate crimes and other social issues” (Mambaonline, 27 May 2013; author emphasis). The differences in the political/activist agendas around social justice associated with black LGBTQI organisations and the social agendas of white LGBTQI organisations were elucidated in similar comments from the membership:

Also, having to ‘choose’ one pride to attend that day is about what we value more. Do we go to Soweto and protest against rape and murder or do we go to Joburg to party? The pride we attend that day will say what we as a community value more. (Mambaonline, 27 May 2013)

Sophie echoed this sense of belonging and group membership based on history and political positioning:

Yeah, well I mean … umm you have a history you know and some kind of an understanding. I identify as a feminist and I am aware of the struggle that I am subjected to growing up as a woman in a patriarchal society. Being black adds to that struggle and then you are also a lesbian. So somehow when you are in a group with other black lesbian women, there is this … almost … almost like an unspoken acknowledgement of this shared struggle … umm that binds you somehow. Well yeah, it is … you have others you can turn to, go out with, share your life with. (Sophie)

In the above extract, Sophie’s sense of belonging and her sense of political and psychological citizenship is defined by the history of struggle that she shares with other black lesbian women. This sense of shared identity and belonging, and the boundaries that define group membership, was also expressed by Rose:

Yeah, well in City A I think, I mean I think anywhere you go, at least in my experience, communities of black lesbians tend to be very insular. …And there’s this sense of shared identity because you’re black and you’re lesbian … you could do things together. (Rose)

However, while the shared histories and “sense of shared identity” might lend to the creation of an intimate bond (“share your life”, “you could do things together”) among black lesbian women, the long-standing legacy of hierarchical categories along racial, classist and gendered lines has had the effect of essentialising and othering black women and sexualities which establish particular subject positionings. In the current study, the contradictory positioning of black lesbian women implied that they often felt a sense of alienation in both “black” and “white” contexts. Kazyak (2011) argues that urban and rural spaces influence the construction of sexual identities in different ways as persons draw upon interpretations of that space in their identity constructions. When talking about black and white lesbian organisations, Promise stated that she had felt excluded from black organisations as well:

I think these organisations (i.e. the LGBTIQ organisations located in the townships) are like societies that focus on abused women. It is still thought to exclude us. (Promise)

Under the apartheid system, townships were located on the periphery of urban areas and demarcated for persons racially categorised as “coloured”, “African” or Indian. In comparison to affluent urban residential areas demarcated for whites, black townships were characterised by cheap housing and poor infrastructure. The legacy of othering has meant that black people in particular geographical spaces and lower socio-economic circumstances have become associated with essentialist constructions of black people and the discourse of risk (Boonzaier, 2017). Promise’s comments about the focus of black lesbian organisations and its exclusionary effects point to the discourse of risk, stigmatisation and marginalisation of black women, which positions them as inferior and as victims.

Concluding remarks

This paper explored the notion of citizenship for black lesbian women in contemporary South Africa. In their narratives of their experiences in various public spaces, the women drew on a strong discourse of “us and them” in which categories of difference centred on race, gender, class, and political history and activism. Their sense of alienation and erasure and their constructions of black lesbian sexuality as invisible and anonymous suggest that the embodiment of full citizenship among black lesbian women in contemporary, neoliberal South Africa is constrained. As the women had articulated, geographical location and language are imbued with socio-historical and political struggles associated with race and class, the intersections of which shape black lesbian sexuality and citizenship (Stephens, 2018).

Cognisant of the narrative of race that permeated much of the women’s talk, we argue that the neoliberalist, rights-based post-apartheid South African context presents fertile ground for the coloniality of power (Quijano, 2007). We contend that the rights-based discourse of egalitarianism has established a protective veil that obscures the raced, classed “us/them” hierarchical divides that continue to reproduce and maintain existing dominant discourses of masculinity and whiteness as privileged and entitled. McIntosh (2015) asserts that a key feature of privilege is that it goes unnoticed. Within the South African context, privilege is closely linked to class and material privilege. Ironically, the current focus on human rights detracts attention from practices that are sustained by historical privilege. While the brutal rape and murder of black lesbian women may be argued to evoke the colonial violence on the black body (Gqola, 2008; Tamale, 2011), other forms of violence against black lesbian women go unnoticed. We argue that the construction of black lesbian women as lesser citizens represents one such form of violence.

The women’s accounts highlighted how experiences of belonging and disconnect are shifting in different contexts. We argue that this draws attention to the heterogeneity of sexually and gender diverse identities (Irwin, 2008). Furthermore, their accounts disrupt the dominant cultural constructions of the gay white male identity. In pointing to differences in subjectivities, the women allude to the ways in which black subjectivity may be deployed in an “infra-political” way, that is, as an expression of resistant/active subjectivity and agency (Lugones, 2010). Agency marks an important decolonial turn (Lugones, 2010) that disrupts “colonial epistemes that confine groups to sameness and anonymity” (Gqola, 2010, p. 11). Decolonisation is about praxis (Kessi & Boonzaier, 2018). Thus, the lived experiences of black lesbian women and the resistances that they offer to coloniality provide new ways to think about black subjectivity and agency (Rutherford, 2018) as they actively subvert dominant ideologies and cultural practices that position black lesbian women as lesser citizens.

We argue that current conceptualisations of full citizenship in contemporary South Africa require a reframing that recognises the coloniality of power and the heterogeneity of marginalised and invisibilised subjectivities as a way of decolonising everyday praxis. We suggest that a decolonial feminist approach to the intersections of (black) sexuality and citizenship offers an appropriate starting point to critique the extent of constitutional reform in the context of globalisation and internationalisation. Such a critique is envisioned as one that disrupts the uncomfortable silence around race and class and seeks to bring to the fore, marginalised and “othered” subjectivities and identities.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank the women who participated in the larger study on which this paper is based for sharing their lived experiences. We are also grateful to the reviewers for their constructive feedback which informed the drafting of this paper.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

ORCID iD

Angeline Stephens

Notes

Author Biographies

Angeline Stephens is a psychologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cape Town. Her research interests include sexuality, gender, race, class, as well as decolonial feminist and social psychologies.

Floretta Boonzaier is a Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa at the University of Cape Town. She works in the areas of feminist, critical and decolonial psychologies, with special interests in intersectional subjectivities, participatory methodologies and gendered and sexual violence.

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