If you were born after 1994 in South Africa, it’s easy to forget that being gay used to be a crime. 🏳️🌈🚫 While the racism of #apartheid is well-documented, the regime's extreme homophobia is often overlooked.
Under the National Party, it wasn't just "frowned upon", it was illegal and severely punished. Police raided homes, meeting others were unsafe, and the military treated homosexuality as a sickness to be "cured" through torture.
The Horror of the "Aversion Project"
This is the darkest chapter of gay history in South Africa. Since all white males were conscripted into the military or South African Defense Force (SADF), gay men could not escape the state's grip. The SADF viewed homosexuality as a "sickness" that weakened the army.
Gay conscripts were often sent to Ward 22 at 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria. "Curing" homosexuality under the direction of psychiatrists like Dr. Aubrey Levin, gay soldiers were subjected to electric shock therapy. They were shown homoerotic images and shocked until they associated same-sex attraction with pain.
When shock therapy failed, some men were chemically castrated.
And then there was forced sex changes: Perhaps most shockingly, it is estimated that up to 900 gay men (mostly young conscripts aged 16–24) were coerced into gender reassignment surgery to "turn" them into women, because the regime’s logic was that it was better to be a woman than a gay man. They were often then discharged with no support.
From Darkness to Light
While the old regime was using science and violence to try and erase queer identity, a fight for their existence was beginning in the most unlikely place: a prison cell.
The reason South Africa have one of the most progressive Constitutions in the world today isn't an accident. It’s because of a man named Simon Nkoli.
When arrested for treason against the apartheid state, he refused to hide who he was. He famously did the unthinkable, he came out and told his fellow activists in prison:
"I am black and I am gay. I cannot separate the two parts of me... So when I fight for my freedom I must fight against both oppressors."
His bravery forced the liberation movements to recognise that you cannot fight for freedom while discriminating against your own. Because of him, South Africa became the first country in the world to write #lgbtq rights into its Constitution. 🇿🇦📜
