On 31 October 2006, Alexandra Rubera was granted asylum in South Africa. Rubera, a trans woman from Burundi, faced arrest and death threats from private citizens and the police in her native country on an ongoing basis. Alexandra moved between…
On 25 February 2006, Kenyan-born Biko Beauttah arrived in Canada to seek asylum because being considered homosexual is a criminal offence in her home country. Biko left Kenya a few years prior to attend college in the USA. Having come…
July 2005 — Trans and LGBTQIA+ Activist, Victor Mukasa, Sues Government, Uganda On 20 July 2005, trans man and LGBTQIA+ activist Victor Mukasa’s house was raided by the police without a search warrant. They were looking for documents relating to…
In May 2005, Liesl Theron, then a member of the Good Hope Metropolitan Community Church (GHMCC), coordinated a full-day workshop for its members under the title, “Gender Diversity Awareness”. This came about due to Liesl’s personal involvement with trans and…
The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, Act 4 of 2000 (PEPUDA), which is sometimes referred to as The Equality Act, was passed by the South African government in 2000 to protect its citizens from discrimination, hate…
Following on from the parliamentary hearings on 9 September 2003, the Sex Description and Sex Status Act, Act 49 of 2003 was altered, signed by the President of South Africa and circulated in the Government Gazette, on 15 March 2004. The Act was…
On the 9th of September 2003, a group of organisations and interested individuals, including Sally Gross, Simone Heradien, Estian Smit, members of the Cape Town Transsexual/Transgender Support Group, the South African Human Rights Commission, and the Commission on Gender Equality,…
South Africa hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup, and on 9 February 2003. During the Parade of Nations and as part of the opening ceremony, the event’s organisers appointed models to walk in the parade, holding banners to represent each…
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…
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…