A cursory search of LGBTI rights – particularly in Africa – delivers glowing reports of the progressive South African Constitution. But the lyrical travel features and inadequate Wikipedia entries belie the nuances experienced by those living here.

“One of the greatest challenges we have is with filtering down,” Sochayile Khanyile, Chairperson of the Community Safety Portfolio Committee at Gauteng Provincial Legislature, told Daily Maverick on Wednesday. “There is not agreement between everybody on the most pressing issues. But there are two main viewpoints: one is that government has done good work but that it has not been implemented, and another that government can be doing more; but that, too, will still have implementation challenges.”

Khanyile was one of those gathered at the Sector Parliament session hosted by the Gauteng Provincial Legislature on Tuesday. Its purpose was not only to engage on policy issues with the public representatives of the Gauteng government (and ultimately to draft recommendations that would be submitted). It was also to create awareness of ongoing challenges facing the LGBTI community, said spokesperson Pfano Bulasigobo on Monday.

“Over 20 years into democracy, South Africa still faces challenges of heightened violent and sexual attacks against the LGBTI community, which have resulted in the community being outcast from broader society. Each year’s Sector Parliament focuses on themes informed by consultation with the sector,” she explained in an earlier statement.

The more violent of these challenges are to some extent documented. There are no verified statistics for “corrective” rape at present. Non-profit Luleki Sizwe estimates as many as 10 incidents per week, but poor reporting – and the fact that there is currently no separate legal category for such rapes – makes accurate measurement difficult.

Yet there is some evidence suggesting cause for concern: ongoing reports of violence, as well as data indicating hardening attitudes. Earlier this month, an Mpumalanga couple described their ordeal when they were gang-raped by men who told them they were going to teach them how it felt to be women. This year’s Gauteng Quality of Life Survey revealed a spike in homophobia, with 1.6-million Gautengers saying they supported anti-gay violence and discrimination.

The Other Foundation conducted a recent survey which found that an estimated 450,000 South Africans admitted to physically harming women who “dress[ed] and behave[ed] like men in public” in the previous 12 months. A further 700,000 had verbally abused gender nonconforming people in the same period.

And according to a 2004 study earlier cited by Daily Maverick, just 41% of incidents of rape and sexual abuse against lesbian and gay people in Gauteng were reported to police, nearly three-quarters of respondents did not report victimisation because they did not expect to be taken seriously, 43% said they feared victimisation, and a third said they were afraid to disclose their sexual orientation to the authorities.

It’s not only violence and immediate physical harm that threatens LGBTI people, either. The Home Affairs Ministry has threatened to come down hard on staff who continue to discriminate against same-sex marriage applicants, and trans* activists have been engaged in a longstanding battle over simplifying ID applications, which remain a giant headache for gender-nonconforming people. The justice system, policing and clinics also do not favour the LGBTI community, whose struggles range from not being taken seriously to life-threatening abuses.

“From the session we had today, it appears it is primarily a question of communities being more aware of the issues LGBTI people are facing, and being able to fully understand that like all other South African citizens, they do have rights and must be protected, in practice, by the Constitution,” said Khanyile. “But we must also be sure that the policymakers understand them and are working with them.”

This may be easier said than done. South Africa plays an “important but inconsistent” role in advancing the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, according to Human Rights Watch – and, if the country’s increasingly limp approach towards protecting LGBTI rights on international platforms is anything to go by, its stance is leaning towards ever greater conservatism.

“Lesbians, gay men, and transgender people in South Africa continue to face hostility and violence. Social attitudes lag: recent social surveys demonstrate a wide gap between the ideals of the Constitution and public attitudes toward such individuals,” explains the HRW report, We’ll Show You You’re a Woman – Violence and Discrimination against Black Lesbians and Transgender Men in South Africa.

“Negative public attitudes towards homosexuality go hand in hand with a broader pattern of discrimination, violence, hatred, and extreme prejudice against people known or assumed to be lesbian, gay, and transgender, or those who violate gender and sexual norms in appearance or conduct (such as women playing soccer, dressing in a masculine manner, and refusing to date men). And constitutional protections are greatly weakened by the state’s failure to adequately enforce them.”

The draft Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill, which was announced earlier this month, may go some distance to addressing the problem – but again, this occurs at a legislative level first and foremost, and at present it is still unclear what its final form will be. Newsdeeply reports that it may be years before hate crimes against LGBTI people are adequately covered in legislation – if that is achieved.

And then, once more, there is the issue of implementation.

But perhaps the interventions proposed at provincial level will go some way towards building confidence. Bulasigobo says one of the primary purposes of the Sector Parliament is to measure the effectiveness of the existing legislation. Orders (topics) are debated, and at the end of the debate, the resolutions are forwarded to the relevant authorities for processing. This year, the themes that were up for discussion were healthcare; education, hate crime and violence; economic opportunities; and the National Department of Home Affairs.

From an education perspective, says Khanyile, a key recommendation coming from the session was to move towards a more positive and supportive use of education. This could begin with parents, so that support can begin from an early age. “It was suggested that government must come with programmes to educate even parents, so that parents themselves can understand,” he said. “One representative was saying it would be wrong to think that parents can decide [on gender or sexual identity] for children that are very young, even six or seven, and education programmes can offer support to the family where it is needed.”

Intersectional support was another crucial point, said Khanyile. A number of the representatives present were living with disabilities or chronic illnesses or HIV/Aids, and access to medical facilities was a problem. Where there was access, there were frequently reports of homophobic attitudes among medical staff or fears among the patients that their care would be compromised if they disclosed their sexual orientation. “Some were saying that the way the nurses treat them requires intervention,” said Khanyile. A number of interventions were proposed, he said, which would then be finalised, forwarded and processed.

Overall, said Khanyile, legislation was “efficient”, but interventions were required to ensure that LGBTI people enjoyed the same basic rights and services that other citizens may access in a number of areas.

Charity, as they say, begins at home. And perhaps justice does, too. South Africa may have abstained on the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution to appoint an Independent Expert on the protection against violence and discrimination against LGBTI people; it may be quietly letting some of its senior officials say some very questionable things. But maybe if the right attitudes filter upwards, lives will still change. DM

Photo by Marcha Patriótica via Flickr.