Tuesday 1 October 2013

Sunday 29 September 2013

Call to Action

Johannesburg People's Pride March for Freedom and Justice
5 October 2013, 10:00 AM
Constitution Hill

The Peoples Pride Movement would like to invite all people with a desire for a free
and just society to join hands, feet and bodies-take to the streets of Johannesburg
and demand a safe and free South Africa for all of those who live in it.

We are calling on all people in and around the margins of what is acceptable and
good. We are calling on all people that normative society deems outlaw, all of us
who are not free. Our sexual orientation, our race, our class positions, our genders,
our geographic locations, our bodies with disabilities, our refugee status and many
other factors work together and are used as a basis to exploit and oppress us and
place us on these margins.

A proud people are a defiant people. A people that say: choice of sexual orientation, choice
of work, choice of identities can never, in our world, be a basis for discrimination. A
people that say: society is built for the materially and structurally privileged, and that
this society is not one that we wish to live in. A proud people is a people that will lift
up their hands and fists in struggle.

In reclaiming our pride, we will march together and demand:

  • Erotic justice;
  • Freedom from all forms of violence and discrimination;
  • Universal access to quality healthcare, including sexual and reproductive health services;
  • Decriminalisation of sex work;
  • Fair and just working conditions and employment opportunities;
  • Equitable redistribution of land;
  • Universal access to housing, sanitation, water, and nutrition;
  • Universal and quality education.


Placard and banner-making: 2 October, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Constitution Hill

For further information, contact: 
Kwezilomso Mbandazayo
+27 82 817 0097

Sekoetlane Jacob Phamodi
+27 76 084 8077 

Virginia Magwaza Setshedi
+27 82 379 0539

Please send messages of solidarity to jhbpeoplespride@gmail.com

Thursday 29 August 2013

"Go back to your lokshin" - Race, Class and Queerness

Last year we were told ''go back to your lokshin'' and that the route belonged to them and not us...race and class divides exist within the LGBTIAQ community, most times we choose to not see it because it is easier to pretend its not there than to face it. Join us for a discussion on race, class and queerness...what does it mean to u, to me, to us?

An in-depth panel discussion on race and class within South Africa and how these systems and ideas operate structurally and interpersonally to limit nd shape our organising for social justice.

Saturday, 31 August 2013
1oam - 3pm
Contitution Hill
11 kotze Street, Braamfontein

For more info and to RSVP
Kwezilomso Mbandazayo
jhbpeoplespride@gmail.com
082 817 0097




Friday 16 August 2013

We March Because...

JHB People’s Pride Calendar 2013


1.     “Go Back to Your Lokshin”: Race, Class and Queerness
Saturday, 31 August 2013, 10h00-15h00, Constitution Hill
An in-depth panel discussion on race and class within South Africa and how these systems and ideas operate structurally and interpersonally to limit and shape our organising for social justice.

2.     Know Your Law
    26 August – 7 September, daytime tours, Constitution Hill, dates and times TBA
A series of educational walking court tours guided by legal experts that will cover the history, the function and the relevance of the Constitution and the Constitutional Court in advancing social justice in South Africa.

3.     The Use and Abuse of the Queer Body
    Saturday, 14 September 2013, 10h00-16h00, Johannesburg Art Gallery
A participatory art exhibition and panel discussion covering the theme of homonationalism and pink washing, in which guests will creatively engage with, critique and transform artistic representations of queerness while also rethinking strategies to challenge the hijacking of queerness for narrow political ends.

         4.     Your Rights in Public Organising
   16 September, 10h00-15h00, Constitution Hill
The JPP, in partnership with the Right to Know Campaign, will host a workshop to conscientise members of the LGBTIAQ public on how to organise pickets, protests and marches, as well as help them to understand their rights with respect to the Regulation of Gatherings Act (1993).

5.     Multimedia Advocacy and Production Skills
   18 September – 2 October, every Wednesday, 10h00-15h00, venues TBA

Three skills building workshops by the Advocacy and Media Production Studio on banner-making and t-shirt and poster printing. Workshops will take place in Ekurhuleni, Soweto and Johannesburg. Each workshop will accommodate up to 20 participants per session.

         6.     Retrospective on Queer Organising
   24 September – 12 October, Constitution Hill
An exhibition that will draw on the resources housed at GALA and the queer public at large to offer a retrospective overview of the struggles and victories in queer organising in South Africa.

         7.     A People’s Panorama of Film
   25-27 September, 16h00-18h00, 1-3 October, 17h00-19h00, Constitution Hill
A film festival presenting films from the global South on queer activism, local struggles and rights to natural resources, from forests to water, the nature of the body as a political and erotic landscape, and other topics from the JPP Manifesto.

         8.     Reflections and Experiences from Continental Queer Organising
   1-4 October, 18h00-20h00, Afrikan Freedom Station
A discussion and social gathering hosted by the Coalition of African Lesbians, in which queer activists from the continent will share their experiences of organising LGBTIAQ movements and Pride events in different countries.

         9.     JHB People’s Pride March
  Saturday, 5 October 2013, 10h00-18h00, Constitution Hill



Monday 3 June 2013

Press Release May 2013

New Organising Committee to Organise a People’s Pride in Johannesburg on 5 October 2013


Johannesburg, 20 May 2013

A meeting on 18 May of the recently formed organising committee of about 30 individuals decided on a broad programme of action for the annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, and queer (LGBTIAQ) Pride in Johannesburg. Johannesburg Pride 2013 will consist of public art installations, performances, exhibitions, direct action, workshops, and debates over the months leading up to a march on October 5.

The organising committee emerges from two public meetings hosted by the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) and the One in Nine Campaign during April and May 2013 attended by a broad range of activists and other members of the Johannesburg queer public.

The meetings discussed issues concerning the manner in which Pride has been organised in Johannesburg in the recent past. They identified the ways in which previous Pride events have reinforced racial, class, gender and other social hierarchies, overlooking the problems confronting a vast majority of LGBTIAQ individuals and communities in and around Johannesburg and in South Africa as a whole, and ignoring their daily struggles for adequate housing, safety, education, and access to public services such as transportation and health.

In a society still largely stratified along racial lines, this failure translated into Pride events that catered, often explicitly, to affluent, mostly white individuals. This deliberate de-politicisation of Pride and emphasis on festivities for the affluent is a slap in the face of individuals from economically marginalised communities, particluarly black lesbians and gender non-conforming people, whose lives are characterised by high levels of structural and interpersonal violence. In privileging corporate sponsorships and promoting the market value of such events, Pride ceased to be an inclusive space that was safe and accessible to all members of LGBTIAQ communities.

The meetings also generated a “Pride manifesto” that lays out the principles and vision for a “People’s Pride,” including anti-racism, anti-capitalism, anti-sexism, anti-ableism and the positioning of LGBTIAQ struggles within broader socio-political and economic contexts and struggles in South Africa, and globally. Pride is envisioned as a widely inclusive and decidedly political movement for social justice.

The organising committee, which is mandated to organise Pride according to the manifesto, is in the process of creating a People’s Pride calendar; the events and actions will serve to:
  • Build solidarity with other politically oriented Prides in the greater Johannesburg region and beyond, such as Soweto Pride and Ekurhuleni Pride;
  • Educate and conscientise communities about the struggles that shape our experiences of being queer in South Africa;
  • Honour the contributions and resilience of queer Africans; and
  • Celebrate the hard-won legislative freedoms we have today, recognising that we are not free until we are all substantively free;
  • Articulate demands for furthering social justice for all.
The organising committee meetings are open to the public and hosted by Constitution Hill. In addition, mass meetings will be held regularly to ensure transparency and accountability.

For further information: