Nkoli, Simon
1957–1998, anti-apartheid and LGBTQ rights activist. Born in Soweto,
Nkoli (sometimes referred to as Nkodi) was an influential South African
anti-apartheid, gay
and lesbian rights, and HIV/AIDS activist. He founded the Vaal Civic
Association in 1981, and soon after he became regional secretary of the
Congress of South African Students (COSAS). Nkoli also formed the Saturday
Group, the first black LGTBQ group in Africa. In 1984, he was arrested,
along with twenty-one other activists, and faced the death penalty. The
arrest shifted public perception of both the anti-apartheid struggle and the
LGBTQ liberation movement. Nkoli was eventually acquitted and released from
prison in 1988, after which he founded the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of
the Witwatersrand (GLOW). He also helped establish Soweto's Township AIDS
Project (TAP) in 1990. Nkoli represented the African region as a member of
the International Lesbian and Gay Association board, and was the first
openly gay activist in the country to meet with Nelson Mandela in 1994. In 1996, He became one
of the first African gay men to publicly self-identify as HIV+, establishing
Positive African Men, a support group in Johannesburg. Nkoli died of an
AIDS-related illness on November 30, 1998.
See E. Cameron and M. Gevisser, eds., Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian
Lives in South Africa (1995); N. W. Hoad et al., ed.
Sex and Politics in South Africa (2005); B. M. Munro,
South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and
the Struggle for Freedom (2012); A. Carolin,
Post-Apartheid Same-Sex Sexualities (2020); K. Batra,
Worlding Postcolonial Sexualities (2021).
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