Pride and protest: How Simon Nkoli shaped SA’s democracy

Bokang Fako

It has been an eventful year, with historical highlights in our country.

This year marks 30 years since we were declared a democratic state and the same year we held our 7th general elections, the results of which produced a Government of National Unity (GNU).

October 2024 also marks 34 years since Africa’s first Gay Pride march, which took place on October 13, 1990 in Johannesburg.

The march was organised by Simon Tseko Nkoli, together with Beverly Ditsie, Edwin Cameron, and other activists who were part of the GLOW (Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand) collective. On this day, about 800 members of the LGBTQA+ community gathered to celebrate their queer identities and speak against the discrimination they continued to endure under the apartheid regime.

They highlighted their experiences as black people who were also queer who had to navigate a racist and sexist regime that continued to marginalise them.

This year’s historical events serve as a reminder of how nuanced, multiplicitous and intertwined our experiences and struggles are as a country. Yet there exists a dominant narrative that is biassed and rooted in a heterosexist mandate that essentialises a one-sided experience which distorts the complete story.

The danger of amplifying one part of history while suppressing the other parts results in the erasure of significant parts of history which make up the entire narrative. We are left with experiences that have been assumed to represent the experiences of the entire people. If we do not speak or write about South African Pride Month with the same enthusiasm as we do about other historical events, we are not telling the whole truth.

This perpetual epistemic erasure of minority groups from historical narratives is why I want to accentuate Nkoli’s intersectional activism during the apartheid regime and how his work has significantly influenced this country’s socio-political trajectory. The current narrative around apartheid and the progressive political figures who were involved in the Struggle is one that is biased, only celebrating mainstream figures who are often cis-heterosexual men, instead of black women and queer people.

Nkoli’s activism embodies the tenets of intersectional feminism, which teaches us to acknowledge the multidimensional experiences of black women in the context of how areas of class, gender, race and sexuality interact with one another and the distinct levels of discrimination these produce.

Intersectional feminism basically argues that, due to layered identities, cis-heterosexual black men experience racism far differently to how black queer women experience it. It becomes imperative for anti-discrimination interventions to centre this approach into attempts to eradicate discrimination.

At the time when black people were oppressed under the apartheid regime and the Struggle was deemed to only be between blacks and whites, Nkoli, as a black gay man with a layered existence, did not compartmentalise his identities, nor did he prioritise one over the other. Nkoli recognised that it is not possible to be black first and gay second, that both issues are intertwined and can be linked to other social issues, including sexual health.

Nkoli joined politics at a very early age. He formed part of the Congress of the South African Students (Cosas) where he served as a secretary. He was almost forced to relinquish his position due to his sexuality but was eventually retained when his comrades conceded to accept him for who he was.

In 1984, Nkoli was arrested along with 22 other political figures for protesting against the unfair increase of rents in Sebokeng. He, along with his comrades, was detained and charged with treason, the sentence for which was the death penalty. The charges were exaggerated because they were associated with the United Democratic Front (UDF) which was deemed a threat by the apartheid government.

Their trial was notoriously known as the Delmas Treason Trial, the most prolonged political trial in the history of this country. Even while in prison for this matter, Simon’s sexuality was still a matter of contention.

When he publicly declared his sexuality at the age at 20, he was met with resistance that was exacerbated by his anti-apartheid activism. The resistance was escalated by his romantic relationship with a white man, Roy Shepherd, because of the pervasive racial divisions.

He was not deterred by this, which led to the establishment of GLOW, through which he would highlight the intersections between race and sexual identity and helped highlight the existence and experiences of LGBTQIA+ people during the apartheid regime.

GLOW was formed as a deliberate deviation from the Gay and Lesbian Association (Gasa), which was predominately white-led and non-political and did not speak out against racial issues. While working alongside other queer activists through GLOW, they organised the first Gay Pride in South Africa, the first Gay Pride in Africa.

Through this organisation they raised awareness about the lives and experiences of LGBTQIA+ people. The movement ensured that the rights of the LGBTQIA+ people are recognised and fully acknowledged in the new Constitution as we transitioned into a democratic country.

“If you are black and gay in South Africa, then it really is all the same closet ... inside is darkness and oppression. Outside is freedom.”

He experienced homophobia in prison and was diagnosed with HIV there but could not access medication for some time. He spoke openly about his diagnosis to raise awareness about the pandemic and eventually helped form part of the Townships Aids Project and publicly identified as a “Positive African Man”.

His advocacy on HIV/Aids was instrumental in raising awareness about the virus, primarily because it was at a time when society was not heeding warning calls about practising safe sex. There was massive stigma around the disease and homosexuality.

Meanwhile, more people were getting infected and antiretrovirals (ARVs) were not freely available. Nkoli contextualised his blackness and sexuality in speaking about his status, access to medication and making sense of the HIV pandemic.

I believe South Africa’s historical narratives often erase Nkoli’s activism because he does not fit the conventional Struggle-icon parameters which are rooted in hetero-patriarchal standards. His queer identity places him on the margins. His work was influential and important to the Struggle, but always decentred, for similar reasons Nelson Mandela was more idolised than Winnie. Patriarchy thrives on placing black cis-gendered men on the pedestal, which is often at the expense and erasure of the minoritised groups.

Nkoli’s activism teaches an important lesson about the nuanced approach to social justice and anti-discrimination issues. I learnt from him that struggles are connected, and some inform the others or create new forms of discrimination.

He simultaneously prioritised being black, gay and living with HIV, to emphasise that our existence is not monolithic. It is because of Nkoli’s work that I recognise and speak for the Struggle of black queer people, not only in South Africa, but across the continent, particularly where the criminalisation of homosexuality is still prevalent. We may be demarcated by borders or distinguished by social identities, but it would be historical to disregard how our lives and experiences are intertwined, just as our histories of systems of violence and oppression are intertwined.

So when we theorise and discourse about South African history, when we commemorate and reflect on how far we have come, may we always remember Nkoli’s work because even in his death, he is as much of a Struggle icon as the rest of them.

* Fako is a Research Assistant at the Free State Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of the Free State

Cape Times