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Although South Africa has one of the best constitutions in world, it still is not enough to provide an equal and conducive environment for the LGBTQ+ community.
This is an assertion made by WSU researcher, social worker, and lecturer, Luvo Kasa at the university’s Multi-Inter-Transdisciplinary Conference on Africa Transformation Perspectives (MIT).
Speaking under the theme: Queer Affirmative Practice in Africa: A Social Work Practice Model For Working LGBTQIA+ People, Kasa asserted that more needed to be done in all spheres of society to break the stigmas and inhumane treatment of the queer community.
As a social worker, Kasa asserted that it was especially crucial for social workers and other practitioners who deal with queer individuals to be well placed to deal with and educate society as well as queer people themselves.
“It will take a very long time for queer people to be able to freely live as themselves in our society. This is because a lot of queer individuals themselves are not open to being queer. It will first take them to understand and recognise that they are humans who just have different sexual preferences to people who lead heteronormative lives,” said Kasa.
Having worked in a university that serves large numbers of students from rural backgrounds, Kasa found that it was even more difficult for queer students from these areas to live as themselves out of fear of victimisation.
Kasa added that these communities had no understanding of the distinctions between sex, sexual orientation, and gender, which led to them only recognising the heteronormative way of life.
This in turn called for communities, organisations, and educational institutions to adopt more consequential approaches to affirming the value and humanity of queer people.
“It will also take professionals, communities, and academics for queerness to be accepted. As academics we need to continue writing articles and ensure that we build awareness. We also need to build community projects and awareness campaigns where we address these problems,” said Kasa.
Kasa also added that queer affirmative practices needed to also form part of schools and higher education institutions’ curriculum. Furthermore he had intentions of developing a Queer Affirmative Practices model in the South African context.
By Yanga Ziwele
