La representación del nuevo sujeto: Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray

Behind the Mask (BTM) publishes a website with information about the cultural and political status of sexual and gender minorities throughout Africa, including Namibia and South Africa. The name “Behind the Mask” referred to the cloak of social, cultural, political, and legal invisibility that African LGBT persons don every day. Launched in 2000, Behind the Mask described its goals of linking sexual and gender minority SMOs and LGBT persons as proceeding from South Africa’s progressive constitution in the hope that “African gays and lesbians, whatever class or ethnicity, or those supporting the rising GLBT-movement on the African continent” will embrace equal rights for sexual minorities (Alexander 2002:229). Reporting on LGBT issues and providing a forum for LGBT persons to express their concerns online comprised Behind the Mask’s efforts to peel back such masks. In particular, Behind the Mask addressed issues of interest to black LGBT persons, such as hate crimes, poverty, HIV/AIDS, and unemployment (Interview, BTM staff member, 13 January 2006). On its website, Behind the Mask stresses its efforts to offer “a platform for exchange and debate for LGBTI groups, activists, individuals and allies” through online chat rooms and frequently

25

Dirsuweit (2006:330) attributes the Coalition’s transformation into the Equality Project to the “unsustainability” of inclusion. The Coalition had 80 member organizations at the height of its existence and could not cope with the “resource drain” of so many groups that needed funding and bureaucratic support, not all of which were SMOs or even LGBT in focus (Dirsuweit 2006:330). The Coalition dismantled its coalitional form and became a “‘network’ that [would] be the channel of communication for people on the street and [would] work at grass roots level to ensure that everyone [would] have access to the law reforms secured” by the Equality Project (“Change of Face” 2000:10).

updated stories about organizing, state repression of sexual and gender minorities, what it is like to be LGBT in different African countries (http://www.mask.org.za/).26 Some stories focused on the negative consequences of being LGBT in repressive countries like Uganda or Zimbabwe, but many stories illuminated the benefits of coming out as a LGBT person. Behind the Mask’s website design allowed for “anonymous” viewing. A staff member distinguished the SMO’s website from other gay-themed websites. “It’s not a gay site with pictures of naked men or pictures of women with [bare] breasts. . . . Our strength is we’re able to give people information without it . . . blaring on the screen” (Interview, 31 October 2005). In this sense, Behind the Mask eschewed prurient visual content, such as nude pictures, to distinguish itself from commercial LGBT websites in South Africa.

Due in part to its financial and geographical base in Johannesburg, South Africa, Behind the Mask dedicated most of its journalistic resources to reporting on LGBT issues in the country, although it was developing a network of correspondents throughout Africa. The organization also worked to strengthen bonds with and among other southern African LGBT SMOs. In its early years, Behind the Mask was housed in the Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa. The organization itself served as an incubator for the Forum for the Empowerment of Women. Behind the Mask sponsored and supported another organization, the South African Youth Liberation Organisation, a grassroots effort based in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces linking young black LGBT youth to one another by providing them with access to computers and the Internet and by cultivating leadership among LGBT youth.

Eleven people staffed the organization when I observed Behind the Mask from October 2005 to March 2006: the Dutch founder who served as a part-time paid consultant,27 the director,

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Although Behind the Mask and other South African LGBT SMOs included intersexed persons in their definition of LGBT persons, I gathered only a few stories on the BTM website that addressed issues specific to intersexed persons. In addition, some activists had not incorporated the “I” in their use of the LGBT acronym, as they admitted that they do not understand intersexed persons’ issues yet. As such, I use the LGBT acronym in keeping with South African LGBT activists’ vocabulary.

27

In 2000, a Dutch investigative journalist, Bart Luirink (2000), launched Behind the Mask to supplement the paucity of Internet reporting on LGBT organizing in southern Africa. After confirming that no other Internet magazine fulfilled this purpose, Luirink secured a small grant from a Dutch donor, Hivos, to design a website. Luirink’s experience combining antiapartheid and LGBT activism is reflected in Behind the Mask’s commitment to antiracism, antisexism, and anti-homophobia. On the surface, a foreigner’s founding of an African LGBT SMO might smack of paternalism, and one could claim that Behind the Mask’s origins are not African. It is not my goal to prove whether the website and SMO are truly African. However, it is necessary to acknowledge debates that encircle foreign funding of African LGBT SMOs, which I address later. Over the years, Luirink made a concerted effort to ensure that black African staff guided Behind the Mask. Though he retained a leadership position throughout Behind

the managing editor, the office administrator, the housekeeper,28 the webmaster, the part-time French translator, the junior reporter, the human rights researcher, and two temporary, unpaid interns from Germany and Uganda.29 Eight staff identified as black, and three staff identified as white. All staff members sometimes wrote stories for the website, although the reporter and managing editor wrote regular feature stories as their primary duties. Apart from the Dutch founder, American office administrator, Burundian French translator, and German and Ugandan interns, the rest of the staff were South African. Reporters wrote in English, and some stories were translated into French. Behind the Mask also recruited correspondents living in other African nations to report on LGBT social issues, increasing the organization’s ability to gather firsthand information about what was happening in other African countries.

Most Behind the Mask staff members were, by definition, amateur journalists or “journalistic activis[ts]” (http://www.mask.org.za, Accessed 23 January 2006, see also Atton 2003). Apart from the founder and the managing editor, both of whom were trained journalists, no staff member staff had formal journalism training, though the junior reporter was pursuing a degree in communication at a South African university. Behind the Mask provided compulsory training and writing workshops for staff and foreign correspondents who wrote for the website. To address the lack of formally trained journalists, Behind the Mask overhauled its hiring policies to ensure that it recruited staff with professional journalism experience.30

Amateur journalism has been a valuable tool for African LGBT activists in generating a network capable of disseminating the movement’s claims and demands around the world. Aware of the widespread hostility to homosexuality, Behind the Mask framed its stories to show LGBT

the Mask’s early years, he actively recruited qualified black staff to fill journalist and director positions. Luirink retired to a role as consultant, occasionally meeting with staff to offer guidance. My field observations supported this latter description of Luirink’s role at Behind the Mask.

28

All four SMOs I observed employed a housekeeper on a full- or part-time basis. With the exception of Sister Namibia, the housekeepers at Behind the Mask, the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, and The Rainbow Project were treated as staff members. Housekeepers at Behind the Mask and FEW participated in staff meetings and gave updates about their work. TRP’s housekeeper worked on a part-time basis; staff meetings occurred on the days that the housekeeper was not present. All four SMOs were keen on employing members of the constituencies they represented and helping them to gain professional skills that would enable them to work elsewhere. Part of the insistence of retaining housekeepers might stem from Namibia and South Africa’s colonial past and colonialists’ demand for cleanliness (Burke 1996; McClintock 1995).

29

While I observed Behind the Mask, the position of senior reporter remained vacant because the organization’s hiring committee found that applicants were over- or under-qualified.

30

I was unable to verify the exact number of foreign correspondents Behind the Mask claimed, as the organization was unsure which correspondents to classify as active.

persons that they were not alone and LGBT SMOs what groups in other African countries were doing to fight social and political repression.