Human Rights: Cape Town Pride is a celebration, but there’s still work to be done By Karabo Mafolo
The inaugural African Pride had taken place in Johannesburg in 1990. In the early 1990s, same-sex relations were criminalised and same-sex marriages were not allowed.Pride was about people’s rights,” says Cape Town Pride festival director, Matthew van As. “It was about ‘visibilising’ a minority.”wearing brown paper bags with holes in themBack then, same-sex relations were criminalised and punishable by up to seven years in jail in terms of repressive apartheid-era legislation.
Robyn-Lee Tobias, the chairperson of a campus queer organisation, UCT Rainbow, also thinks there needs to be more work done on gender and sexual orientation both on and off campus.People know you very well then when you come out they don’t want to be your friend any more,” says Richter. This interpersonal discrimination, coupled with institutional discrimination, can make life even harder for queer people.
As much as Pride is about bringing together queer communities, the festival has been accused in the past of being white and elitist.I’ve never been to Pride and I don’t think I want my first one to be the Cape Town . It’s too white,” says Ayanda Mahlaba, a queer masters student at the University of Cape Town. Tobias has never been to a Pride march, but what she has heard from people who attended that it was “dominated” by white cisgender gay men.
In its mission statement, Cape Town Pride says it’s about being “fully inclusive of all sections of the LGBT+ community”.
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