Much of social science literature about SouthAfrican cities fails to represent its complex spectrum of sexual practices and associated identities. The unintended effects of such representations are that a compulsory heterosexuality is naturalised in, and reiterative with, dominant constructions of blackness in townships. In this paper, we argue that the assertion of discreet lesbian and gay identities in black townships of a South African city such as Cape Town is influenced by the historical racial and socio-economic divides that have marked urban landscape. In their efforts to recoup a positive sense of gendered personhood, residents have constructed a moral economy anchored in reproductive heterosexuality. We draw upon ethnographic data to show how sexual minorities live their lives vicariously in spaces they have prised open within the extant sex/gender binary. They are able to assert the identities of moffie and man-vrou (mannish woman) without threatening the dominant ideology of heterosexuality.

O objetivo deste artigo é refletir sobre um conjunto de questões relativas ao racismo, à sexualidade e ao contato intercultural na África do Sul, mais especificamente em Cape Town. Esta cidade, que já foi reconhecida como democrática, com expressiva população coloured e gay friendly se apresenta atualmente como uma das mais desiguais da África do Sul pós- apartheid. Percorremos trajetórias de homens e mulheres homo e heterossexuais, de diferentes raças e regiões, no sentido de abrir a escuta para suas experiências, dar inteligibilidade a seus campos de negociação e qualificar formas ressemantizadas de exclusão. Objetiva-se analisar uma nova e relativamente recente sensibilidade social advinda com a "rainbow"nation" - a experiência de mistura em sua articulação com marcadores sociais da diferença.

This article examines the shifts in young men's and women's racial and gendered identities in Manenberg, a predominantly coloured, Afrikaans-speaking township in Cape Town, South Africa. It explores how male and female youth destabilizes, renovates and transforms local racial and gendered identities in relation to the local histories, repertoires and ideals of masculinity and femininity and in relation to global cultural forces such as soap operas, rap music and international brand name clothes. Youth obtains access to these global features through electronic media such as television, radio or visits to trendy city nightspots and cosmopolitan beachfront neighbourhoods. This study challenges the idea that cultural flows from the North necessarily lead to cultural hegemonization and homogenization in the South. Instead it suggests that the meanings that these cultural forms assume in this non-western context are shaped by specific local histories and cultural practices.

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