Towards an Indecent Queer Activism: Interrogating the Relationship between Christianity, Civilised Whiteness and Queer Politics in South Africa.

The history of queer politics in South Africa has been framed by tensions between the struggle for gay rights and black freedoms. Christian and cultural beliefs and discourses underlie these past tensions and continue to inform black resistance to the plight of gay black men, and white gay activists’ ambivalence to black freedoms. These same religious influences, along with politics of power, largely exclude women and trans-persons from featuring in either side of the debate. This paper argues that contemporary gay politics has largely developed as a response to the policing of white gay men and in many ways has not developed into an intersectional queer activism. This paper adds nuance to existing critiques of gay politics of contemporary South Africa by analysing the construction of ‘civilised’ white sexuality within the political discourse of South Africa. In addition, this article draws on a queer and decolonial analytic to review literature which has explored the varied agencies of religious, African and trans queer people. In doing so, this paper argues for the development of an ‘indecent’ activism that challenges dominant narratives that frame queer activism in South Africa today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]