Homosexuals in South Africa cite two events that represent significant moments in their beleaguered history: the indecency trials of 1939 and the raid on a private party attended by men only, in 1966. In the first case the Sunday Times and The Star carried daily articles under scandalous headlines such as ”Amazing social scandal – widespread organisation broken up by probation officers”, ”State to probe care of Rand sex perverts” and ”Further indecency arrests expected”.
A special indecency court was created to try men accused of committing acts of ”sodomy, indecency and other unnatural offences”. All of this and more was covered in a steady stream of sensationalist reporting by the two newspapers. The police set up a special unit to spy on, question and persecute homosexual men and one newspaper report carried a sombre footnote; of the 100 men being investigated, five had committed suicide. They feared the consequences of being exposed or ”outed” to such an extent that they chose the unthinkable rather than face ridicule. The courts welcomed the Sunday Times articles, which they claimed were designed to ”warn parents”.
The 1966 case was just as sensationalist. Police raided a private party in upmarket Forest Town in Johannesburg and arrested 300 men. Amongst them were doctors, lawyers and company directors. The S.A Beeld trumpeted ”Miljoener, ander hoes betrap” and published photographs of the arrested men, some of whom were in drag. The Star outed the millionaire, an action that saw the first signs of unity in the homosexual community. In a wry twist, the Rand Daily Mail reported: ”To maintain their disguise police had to conform by dancing with men at the party.”
The ruling party, ably supported by the courts and an over-eager police force, stepped up their activities and the Sunday Express carried a piece stating that homosexual activity had become ”organised” and that police were ”probing the activity of 25,000 known homosexuals on the Witwatersrand.”
Over the ensuing 30 years, random attacks on private parties and clubs continued, but press reports of these were overshadowed by the advent of HIV/Aids. The press whipped up hysteria, with the Sunday Times leading the pack. ”Gay plague: more victims”, was a header on a lead story in which the paper named two SAA stewards who had died and claimed them to be homosexual. In the one case, this was vehemently denied by the family. Anxious to protect his name they declared him to be ”straight as an arrow”.
Then The Star‘s medical reporter ran a story under the headline ”Man may have caught Aids from the green monkeys”. With such melodramatic opportunities at their fingertips, the press had no need to probe other more sinister events unfolding within the gay community. The most significant was revealed by the Mail & Guardian in 2000, concerning the manner in which gay men had been treated in the armed forces when South Africa had been waging war in neighbouring countries during the ’70s and ’80s. The reports were alarming but had unfortunately passed their sell-by date in terms of newspaper copy sales, and thus were not picked up by the rest of the media.
So the new country’s politically correct constitution includes gays and lesbians and says that we South Africans are ”united in our diversity”? That’s not so when it comes to the selling of newspapers, it would seem. A sample of the headlines appearing this year cover some of the more serious issues, such as gays in the Anglican church and same sex marriages, but it is the bizarre and scandalous that the press appears to prefer. ”Gay gigolo runs amok” in Sowetan. ”Gay men have women’s noses” in Sunday Times. ”Attacks on city gays rife” in Cape Argus.
The horde of tabloid newspapers vying for the attention and hard-earned cash of the working classes have brought renewed vigour to the art of outing gays and lesbians. The most alarming is a report carried by Son and followed up by Rapport (unbelievably) and other titles. In it they outed a NG Kerk minister and his lover, who subsequently committed suicide. Academics and journalists took issue with the editors in question. Their responses? ”This was a legitimate human interest story”, and, ”we did not cause the events that caused this tragedy, we reported on it”.
The persecution continues.
Acknowledgements: Anthony Manoim, archivist, The Gay and Lesbian Archives; Herman Manson, MarketingWeb, ”No responsibility please, we’re journalists”; Ingo Capraro, Mail & Guardian, ”Son’s shining success”.