Claire Stephanie Westman

While South Africa formally recognises the rights of LGBTQ persons, there is ongoing marginalisation and discrimination of and violence against such individuals. What is at stake here is not simply a matter of the legal recognition of LGBTQ rights, but rather a matter of the recognition of the identities and equal dignity of LGBTQ individuals. Cornell and Murphy suggest that recognition of marginalised identities and equal dignity stem from a demand for the freedom to imagine, rework, and shape one’s own identifications—a freedom which is often not afforded to LGBTQ individuals within South Africa. Drawing on Cornell and Murphy’s notion of multiculturalism and an ethics of identification, this paper posits that despite the formal legal recognition of the rights of LGBTQ groups and individuals, without a rearticulation of the notion of identity, such groups and individuals will continue to live without equal dignity and without the social, symbolic, and material consequences associated with being ‘legitimate’ members of the nation.

Drawing primarily on the work of Judith Butler and Drucilla Cornell, this paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the position of sexual minorities in South Africa. This will be done particularly in light of the violence, discrimination, and marginalisation that is experienced by, predominantly, black gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals from poorer South African communities. In so doing, the paper also explores how the marginalisation of and violence against LGB individuals play an important role in national identity development and the upholding of a hetero-patriarchal social order. The goal is thus to create an understanding of why, despite legal and constitutional rights, LGB individuals continue to be marginalised, violated, and discriminated against in their everyday lived experiences, and further, why, because of this socio-symbolic positioning, the law cannot necessarily guarantee these rights or protections.

In 2023, a landmark ruling in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that the State of Bolivia had failed to protect and uphold the rights of a woman who had experienced ongoing sexual abuse as a child. This is the first case related to human rights violations of an adolescent victim of sexual violence brought before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It has served to highlight the ways in which ineffective and corrupt criminal justice systems can impede the rights of a citizen. The aim of this article is to explore to what extent this ruling could act as an example for cases similar to those of De Angulo Losada. In particular, the article discusses the relevance of this case in relation to sexual violence in South Africa and the role of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in upholding human rights. Overall, the article argues that the Brisa De Angulo Losada vs Bolivia case could serve as an example of how the South African government could be held accountable for its ineffective response to and prosecution of sexual violence.

Much of how sexual violence against Black lesbian women in South Africa comes to be understood is through narratives that position them as perpetual victims, as women without agency, and as disembodied beings. Their lived experiences and voices become lost in this narrative of violence. However, a counter-narrative has emerged in South Africa, particularly through visual activism. Such activism plays an important role in recognising the lived experiences of queer South African individuals, creating awareness of issues affecting queer communities, and giving voice to those who are often silenced by hegemonic narratives and discourses. Although research has and continues to be done related to visual activism, this article aims to explore the ways in which visual activism contributes to a feminist standpoint that is specifically South African and begins from the voices of those who are most marginalised. Such a standpoint has the possibility of illuminating heteropatriarchal systems of power that contribute to the oppression of and violence towards Black lesbian women, queer individuals, and women more generally. In this article, I argue that a standpoint that incorporates the voices of Black lesbian women, particularly as they emerge through visual activism, is useful for understanding knowledge of violence in South Africa and for challenging dominant ideologies and systems of power.

Research into war rape has shown that rape is not incidental to the general violence of war but is instead an integral part of war strategies. Such research makes it clear that in the context of war, rape serves to injure women on an individual level, but has the more strategic effect of fracturing communal bonds. Similarly, the growing body of research investigating the reasons for, and consequences of, the rape of lesbian women, indicates that these rapes have far-reaching consequences for lesbian communities and serves to reinforce patriarchal heteronormativity. While there is much research around both war and lesbo-phobic rape, the aim of this paper is to bring this research together in order examine lesbo-phobic rape through the lens of war rape theory. This paper aims to show how both “forms” of rape appear to hinge on the meanings assigned to women during peacetime and how both lead to the destruction of individual victims and their communities, while bolstering the subjectivities of the perpetrators and increasing the bonds of those complicit in such violence. The use of the theoretical understandings of war rape thus enriches the understandings of lesbo-phobic rape and shows that there are many continuities between the two.

Thesis --Stellenbosch University, 2019. Within post-apartheid South Africa, matters around lesbo-phobic rape, or what is more commonly referred to as corrective rape, have come into sharp focus. Lesbo-phobic rape may be understood as the rape of lesbian women with the intention of ‘curing’ them of their homosexuality or making them into ‘real’ women. The progressive, yet contentious, South African Constitution expressly protects the rights of everybody to freely express their sexual identity, when it forbids discrimination on the basis of sex, gender or sexual orientation. The prevalence of lesbo-phobic rape appears to go against the developing nation’s values of inclusion and equality. However, when examining lesbo-phobic rape through a critical lens, as this study does, it becomes clear that lesbo-phobic rape is at once both an affront to the nation’s values, while also playing an integral role in shaping the nation’s identity. This study draws on and contributes to the rich body of literature around lesbo-phobic rape, by showing that within contemporary South Africa, lesbian women are construed as a symbolic threat to the national identity which is under construction. By incorporating visual activism and the narratives of the victims of lesbo-phobic rape, this study builds on the ideas of feminist standpoint theory in order to develop a Black lesbian standpoint framework. This framework allows for the social and historical conditions which lead to lesbo-phobic rape to be explored more thoroughly and meaningfully. Consequently, this study explores the ways in which liberal and traditional ideologies simultaneously clash and coincide, the latter often within the realm of female sexuality, with the resultant effect of entrenching women’s subordination. It is within this heteronormative patriarchal social order, that lesbian women are constituted as abject. This abjection leads to lesbian women’s lives being rendered unintelligible and unreal, while at the same time it works to reconstitute and reinforce the borders which uphold patriarchal domination. This abjection is further compounded for Black lesbian women due to the lingering effects of racist and sexist colonial ideologies. Within this socio-symbolic narrative, Black lesbian women are constituted as the ultimate threat to the nation’s patriarchal identity, thus rendering them more vulnerable to rape, even as they are portrayed as ‘unrapable’. Based on this reading of Black lesbian women, this study will develop the claim that lesbo-phobic rape can be understood as an attempt to subvert the supposed threat that Black lesbian women pose to national development. As such, it is a means through which hegemonic male control is reasserted on an individual and collective level. By drawing on the understanding of lesbo-phobic rape yielded by the critical analysis afforded by a Black lesbian standpoint, this study will finally assert that lesbo-phobic rape is a power-political strategy, similar to war rape. This analogous interpretation of war and lesbo-phobic rapes helps to highlight the strategic underpinnings of rape that arise as a result of the specific symbolic meanings attached to women within a patriarchal social order. Keywords Lesbo-phobic rape, Black lesbians, homophobia, sexual violence, abject, feminist standpoint, war rape