The Fairy Godmother Community Project was founded in Cape Town, South Africa by Sandra Lentoor, also known as Cape Town drag queen, Sandra Dee, and was officially registered on the 29th of October 2014. Interview with Sandra Dee: From District…
In 2009 the first Miss Woubi beauty pageant was held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire / Ivory Coast. The event takes its name from an Ivorian slang word (‘Woubi’) meaning ‘effeminate’ — the more feminine partner in a relationship, or as…
On 2 June 2008, Daisy Dube, a gender-variant person, and four friends who self-identified as drag queens, went out clubbing in the evening in Yeoville, Johannesburg. Men outside the club called them izitabane,* referring to their gender identity. In resistance,…
Featured in international film festivals in 1998, the documentary, Woubi Chéri, directed by Laurent Bocahut and Philip Brooks, focused on the lives of Woubis*, Yossis**, and other members of the Branché*** community in Ivory Coast. The award-winning documentary was featured…
In the Ivory Coast, the Travesti* was a prominent group, recognised and documented from the early 1990s, but they were most likely active before the 90s**. They formed L’association des Travestis de Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast Transvestites Association), under the…
South Africa’s first gender-focused group, the Phoenix Society, was established in 1982 in the Apartheid era in South Africa. The Society was an underground network of transvestites, transsexuals, crossdressers and trans women. The Society was founded by Marlene, a white…
In the early 1970s, Mozambique was still under colonial rule. In April 1974, political upheaval in Lisbon, Portugal resulted in a coup within the Portuguese military and the dictatorship in Portugal was overthrown. This had a ripple effect on the…
While cross-dressing, queerness, homosexuality, and all forms of LGBTIQ+ identities as known today were not widely accepted in day-to-day life in Mozambique, during the 1950s through to the mid-1970s, the annual Carnival provided an opportunity for ‘male’ femininity, cross-dressing, and…