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Pink Week 2010 was meant to be a week-long celebration of gay pride, tolerance and gender diversity at the University of Cape Town. To kick off the week, Rainbow UCT – a gay pride organization that sponsored the events—unveiled their closet.
Located in Jamison Plaza and the heart of the UCT campus, the bubble gum pink wardrobe was supposed to represent how far the University has come in terms of accepting gender diversity and homosexuality. Inside, the wardrobe was painted black and filled with historical cases of prejudice and violence against homosexuals in South Africa. The pink exterior provided a dramatic background for students to scribble impassioned notes in defense of their sexuality.
One student wrote: “Everyone has the right to love and be loved;” while another issued a clarion call to “Embrace your sexuality.” One particularly proud lesbian scrawled in bold letters: “I am a dyke.”
It was a powerful symbol of the pride and resilience of the Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual Transgender and Intersexed community at UCT.
Until it was burned down.
“We got a call around 10:30 11-o-clock [Tuesday] night, that somebody had actually set it on fire,” said Yati Khomalo, the media liaison for Rainbow UCT and a coordinator of the closet project.
“If anything, this sort of highlights the fact that we do need to have something like this. I think we’re sort of isolated at university and we think that [homophobia is] happening way out there… so when it happens here it’s sort of an eye-opener.”
Students who gathered around the charred remains of the closet expressed feelings of disappointment and shock that such an open act of intolerance could occur on their campus.
“Its’ not just an act of arson, it is a hate crime,” said Mike Laws, a UCT student who is openly supportive of Pink Week and gay rights at UCT. Laws – wearing a white T-shirt on which he scribbled “Gay Anger” — could be seen Tuesday encouraging his fellow students to speak out against hate crimes and intolerance.
“We will protest this and we will find the people responsible….and we will do anything within our power to show that we will not be afraid to be gay and openly gay at UCT, and in Cape Town and in South Africa,” Laws said.
Laws along with his fellow students, professors and members of national LGBTQI organizations like Gender DynamiX and the Triangle Project held a protest in Jamison Plaza Thursday.
Some students laid flowers beside what little remained of the bubble-gum pink wardrobe while others chanted and sang along with members of the Triangle Project.
Professor Jane Bennett of the African Gender Institute said she feels the week’s events highlight the fact that there are “hectic gender and sexuality politics” that occur even on a university campus.
“I think it means for the university that lesbian, gay, transsexual, bisexual intersex voices have to be taken seriously when loud, when numerous, when diverse… it’s just impossible to just keep invisibalizing us in the ways that even a campus like this does,” she said.
First year student Zola Zingithwa said she was shocked that blatant instances of homophobia could occur at what she thought was a liberal institution.
It was such a shocking thing to happen but it also opened my eyes to the fact that we live in such a homophobic society and something needs to be done about it,” Zingithwa said.
“I think it’s important that such demonstrations happen to show that … this is not going to go away, and that people have to accept the fact that gay people do exist.”