Beverley Ditsie, a pioneering queer activist who was one of the founders of the first Pride March in Hillbrow shared a poignant letter on Facebook about the state of Pride in Johannesburg. This was shared prior an interview with Iranti Director Jabulani Pereira on Eusebius Mckaiser’s 702 talk show about the history of pride in the country. 

Jabu was joined by Keval Harie, the Director of GALA Queer Archive and Sharon Cooper who is the previous chair of Pride 1997. During the discussion, Jabu raised that Pride was an act of protest. “Pride, in fact, is a march, it’s an act of protest, it’s an action about the need for visibility and what are the consequences for visibility and I think it should always remain that. I think we should always remember what our intersectional struggles are.

Listen to the full interview here.

He went on to say that we needed to question the intersectional realities being confronted by the queer community.  

“What we are challenged by now is how the current Joburg Pride usurps itself within a gay consumerist culture and what is the danger of making Pride a consumer culture narritive versus the strugle for safety, for dignity, for the right to have employement, to not face discrimination? We are sitting within that and we are also sitting with the immense challenge of what homonormativity looks like and what it looks like right now is this consumerist culture which is the dominant narrative and so how do we deal with that and what do I mean by homonormativity is who gets marginalised out of Pride? And those who get marginalised out of Pride are the very people who started Pride, ” he said. 

With almost 30 years gone by since the first pride event was held in the country, Ditsie wrote about the years gone by since that first march and the changes it has gone through.

On the Eusebius show, Keval explained the importance of the historical context in which Pride in South African takes place. “It’s critical that the liberation of gay and lesbian people was critical to the broader liberation struggle,” he said. 

An important clip of audio was played on the show from the first Pride March where the late Simon Nkoli is heard saying: 

“I am black and I am gay. I cannot separate the two parts of me into secondary or primary struggles.”

Read Ditsie’s full letter here.

In her letter, Ditsie said, to ensure inclusion that queer people didn’t feel in their every day lives, they made sure that the Pride March was an inclusive space. Some of the ways they did this was by making the event free and having it in the centre of Johannesburg. 

“Everyone at GLOW [Gay and Lesbian Coilition of Johannesburg] knew we were fighting an intersectional fight. New word, I know, but we understood we were waging a struggle that recognised all our struggles. Across gender, race, social standing or economic status,” she wrote.”

Despite the recognition of queer people in the constitution, Ditsie said the violence and intimidation of queer people continued unabate, especially for those living in townships, rural areas and for those in homophobic homes and communities. And so every year the Pride Marches continued until the mid 90’s when the Pride committee – mostly made up of white men – said the March should be turned into a Parade because queer people were now and that they no longer needed to protest. By the mid 90’s Pride become a Parade, changed their routes to the safety of suburbs and began to charge entrance fees. 

Ditsie also raised that the continued insistence that Pride could not be both a celebration and political held its roots in racists elitist privilege. She went on to say that White gay and middle class queer people have everything to celebrate and we should let them do so but also added: “I am just sad for all the black queers that have not and might never experience the feeling of community, of belonging, the feeling of Pride in its fullness,” she wrote.