Following the protest at the Cape Town Pride last month, conversations in the LGBTQIA community have started about the lack of inclusivity of transgender people in the South African gender queer discourse.
Following the protest at the Cape Town Pride last month, conversations in the LGBTQIA community have started about the lack of inclusivity of transgender people in the South African gender queer discourse.
At Rhodes University, some students feel that the LGBTQIA community is not as integrated as they would like.
Cullen Maclear, a third year Drama student said, “This is subjective and everyone has different experiences but I’m seeing this
more and more, here at Rhodes.”
Maclear continues, “The thing is that the queer community is very divided. Even among gay men. Here it’s black gay men versus
white gay men, gay men who are masculine versus gay men who are feminine, muscular gay men versus non-muscular gay
men, sporty gay men versus arty gay men.”
Smangaliso Ngwenya agrees saying that masculinity and femininity play a role in a person’s acceptance in the LGBTQIA community.
“There’s always conflict. There’s definitely a hierarchy in the gay community and you can see it very easily, just like there’s a
hierarchy of how masculine you are,” Ngwenya said.
Gender binaries are performative and pervasive, particularly in the gay male community at Rhodes.
“It’s never necessarily spoken out loud but you do get the sense that anybody who is too gay or too queer is not welcome.
“Lesbians and gays don’t generally mesh, which is a very strange thing that happens,” Maclear said.
“Apart from a few instances when my transsexuality has been brought up in a negative light, I’ve been very well treated in
Grahamstown and at Rhodes,” said Danica Davis, a first-year studying Drama and Sociology at Rhodes University.
Davis started transitioning from male to female at the age of 19. “I identify as a woman first and transsexual second,” she said.
Former Rhodes University student Miles Collins began his female to male transition just over a year ago while completing his degree in Politics and Journalism and Media Studies.
Collins always managed his online profile very carefully while at Rhodes so as not to incur backlash for his transsexuality from bigoted communities at the university.
“It’s strange now when I’m read as a binary person. People are only visible when the politics are convenient,” Collins said.
His major concern is that the community only binds together when there is an issue that concerns all gay rights.
Historically the LGBTQIA movement has been inclusive but the creation of binaries along lines of masculinity and stereotypical behaviour has changed the community’s inclusiveness.
A second year BSc student, who requested to stay anonymous, is currently transitioning from female to male added that he thinks there is a lack of awareness about the issue.
“I am looking forward to seeing what kind of awareness campaigns the OUTRhodes society at Rhodes will organise this year. I think that there’s a great need for that. For society to become aware of issues pertaining to the LGBTQI community,” he said.
