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Homophobia = We're not normal?

What is Homophobia?

If you Google the word “homophobia” you’ll get 4 400 000 results and if you define that to homophobia in South Africa, you’ll get 241 000 results.
Homophobia (from Greek homós: one and the same; phóbos: fear, phobia) is an “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals”, or individuals perceived to be homosexual; it is also defined as fear or contempt for lesbians and gay men, as well as “behaviour based on such a feeling”. Some definitions lack the word “irrational”, and some focus on behavior rather than motivation.
Homophobia was first used with its modern meaning in 1971, although it was coined in the mid-1950s. Use of the word has been criticised as discriminatory against those with differing value positions, with several researchers proposing alternative words to describe prejudice and discrimination against gays and lesbians. The term “internalized homophobia” is used to describe a prejudice against one's own homosexuality.

Triangle Project responds to homophobic hate crimes

The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) recently published a global map which provides a graphic colour-coded representation on persecution, protection and the same-sex marriage rights.  This map shows South Africa as one of very few locations in the world where sexual orientation is protected under constitutional law, where homosexuality has been decriminalised and where same-sex marriages are officially recognised.  
Belying this representation, however, is an on-the-ground reality where over 80% the South African population view same-sex relations as wrong. According to the survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), more than 80% of the South African population expressed the view that homosexual conduct is always wrong consistently across five survey years from 2003 to 2007. The HSRC goes on to report that when compared to the responses from more than 40 countries to the same question, South Africa ranks alongside countries such as the Philippines and Chile, where intolerance towards homosexuals is more than five times higher than in the Netherlands, almost double that of Great Britain and about a third higher than the United States.  
Also, political leaders, such as President Jacob Zuma, routinely engage in anti-gay rhetoric, and acts of violence, ranging from hate speech to rape and murder, are being perpetrated against South Africans because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. 
Triangle Project has taken a deliberate decision to confront the violence and victimisation that is being experienced by lesbians, gay men and transgender people in South Africa.   
Violent attacks which include threats, assault, rape and murder are being perpetrated against black lesbians living in townships because they do not comply with the dominant heterosexual norm of what a woman should be or how a woman should behave. Often the rape of lesbian women is motivated and justified by the claim that rape changes a lesbian into a “real (heterosexual) women”. This form of rape has been referred to as corrective or curative rape. 
Of course the belief that rape cures lesbians or that all a lesbian needs is a good fuck is not new and circulates across cultures.
Gay men, especially gay men with a strong feminine identity, are also vulnerable to insults, assault, rape and murder (as in the case of Waldo Bester). This kind of violence is about more than homophobia as patriarchal power and a hetero-normative social order is being violently maintained and perpetuated. 
In South Africa, no official statistics are available documenting the extent of violence or hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This is due to the fact that the police make no distinction between hate crimes and crimes in general. Efforts to document experiences of homophobic incidents of violence and to assess prevalence have begun but are still in the early stages.
A context such as South Africa, where progressive legislation and extreme levels of homophobic intolerance and violence co-exist, poses particular challenges and hard questions to LGBTI and gender activists. It impels them to engage politics and activism that moves beyond simply demands for legislative reform. Their actions need to be directed towards the implementation of progressive legislation as well as broader social and cultural transformation.   
Gender-based violence and hate crimes have become a crucial aspect of the work Triangle Project does through its various programmes: health and support services; community engagement and empowerment; research, advocacy and policy; public education and training. Triangle Project is also the secretariat of the Western Cape Alliance End Hate Campaign (a campaign that seeks to draw wide-spread public attention to violence against LGBTI people and bring about both legal and policy reform, as well as transform attitudes and behaviour), and is a member of the Joint Working Group, which launched the national 070707 end hate campaign in 2007.
Triangle Project has recently undertaken research on violence (physical, sexual as well as verbal abuse and hate speech) that is perpetrated against lesbian women, gay men, transgendered and gender non-conforming people, primarily because of their sexual orientation, gender identity and location in a hetero-normative social system.  
The knowledge generated through this endeavour should enable us to move beyond assumptions and anecdotal evidence about victims, perpetrators and incidents of hate and violence against LGBT within the Western Cape. 
Violence that targets LGBT people, in itself, is not a new phenomenon in South Africa. What is new is that the term “hate crime” is being increasingly applied to name these acts of violence within the media and academia. Preventing violence against LGBT requires social and cultural transformations.
Huge challenges to the work that Triangle Project does within the framework of anti-violence, homo-prejudice and homophobic hate crimes are apathy and disinterest within the broader LGBTI community. Race, class, status, economic freedom and location still influence what issues take precedence and what issues are supported. The discourse between the freedom our progressive constitution provides and the daily realities of LGBTI persons in townships continues to drive a wedge between those who can and those who cannot access their rights.
Under-reporting of hate crimes and violence, and the lack of support and empathy from state institutions contribute to violence and intimidation escalating and spiralling out of control.
We appeal to communities to be vigilant and to break the silence that exists around gender-based violence and homophobic crimes of hate. If you wish to share your experiences or would like to have your story recorded, feel free to contact Triangle Project (021-448-3812 or endhate@triangle.org.za ).

Jill Henderson:
Gender-based violence research intern (research3@triangle.org.za)
Marlow Valentine:
Deputy Director (marlow@triangle.org.za / endhate@triangle.org.za)
021-4483812
 
Desmond Tutu joins the fight against homophobia

Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, lends his name to the fight against homophobia in Africa and around the world with statements like “homophobia is a crime against humanity and every bit unjust as apartheid.”
The former head of the Anglican Church in southern Africa made these statements at the recent launch of the book “Sex, Love & Homophobia”, published by Amnesty International UK, in which he wrote the foreword.
Tutu has said that he could not have fought against the discrimination of apartheid and not also fight against the discrimination which homosexuals endure. “And I am proud that in South Africa, when we won the chance to build our own new constitution, the human rights of all have been explicitly enshrined in our laws,” he said, adding that he hoped this soon would also be the case in other countries.

South Africa is so far the only country in the world where the constitution guarantees equal rights without regarding sexual orientation. This is in stark contrast to most of South Africa's neighbour countries, where homosexulality often is punished by the penal code. Only recently, a Botswana High Court ruling reaffirmed this legal practice.
Homosexuality is perceived as a new phenomenon in Africa and a taboo. It is outlawed in many African countries. Many African leaders have condemned homosexuality as being un-African. The Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe once described gays as worse than dogs and pigs. (Former) Namibia's President, Sam Nujoma, once stated that “homosexuals must be condemned and rejected in our society”.
Nigeria introduced a bill in 2007 banning same-sex marriage. The bill is the most comprehensive homophobic legislation ever proposed in the world. Early this year, homosexuals in Nigeria stormed the National Assembly seeking legislation that will guarantee the protection. Lifestyle, culture and religion have become the invisible fence to many homosexuals in Africa barring them from their freedom of sexual expression.
Tutu also spoke out about the dominant view among his church colleagues. “Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?”
Also within the Anglican Church, homosexuality is highly controversial and an ongoing conflict has threatened to split the global Anglican Communion. The current head of the Anglican Church in southern Africa, Njongonkulu Ndungane, has been an outspoken supporter of homosexuals in the church community, putting himself in a strong-worded conflict with other African church leaders.
In the book, Amnesty reports on the life stories of gay and lesbian people around the world. These include Poliyana Mangwiro who was a leading member of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe despite President Mugabe’s protestations that homosexuality is “against African traditions”.
The book also includes the story of Simon Nkoli, a South African ANC activist, who after spending four years in prison under apartheid went on to be the face of the struggle for gay rights in the new South Africa. Further, stories of hate, fear and persecution are reported from Nigeria, Egypt and other countries, in addition to reports from the states where homosexuality is punishable by death; including Sudan, Mauritania and some northern Nigerian states.
For Archbishop Desmond Tutu, these “destructive forces” of “hatred and prejudice” are an evil. “A parent who brings up a child to be a racist damages that child, damages the community in which they live, damages our hopes for a better world. A parent who teaches a child that there is only one sexual orientation and that anything else is evil denies our humanity and their own too,” Tutu concludes.

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