Dismantling Assumptions: Interrogating “Lesbian” Struggles for Identity and Survival in India and South Africa

Coming Out as a Lesbian in Johannesburg, South Africa: Considering Intersecting Identities and Social Spaces

“…In a sense, the middle-class suburbs in which they reside provide them with a areas in which most of the white participants in this study live. As a result she does not Similar to the argument that Swarr and Nagar (2004) made, it can be argued that class is…”

“…Along with their modes of transport and their insecure housing, the degree to which some are known to be lesbians in their communities makes them vulnerable to attack. Swarr and Nagar's (2004) study brings to the fore the notion that identities are linked to social space or place, and that social to black lesbian women.…”

Am I That Name? Middle-class lesbian motherhood in post-apartheid South Africa

“…They strategically deployed a more conservative language of human rights, and did not focus on identity politics (See Cameron, 2005;Massoud, 2003;Oswin, 2007;. Furthermore, the Coalition itself, South African as it was, was not without its internal politics of exclusion, revolving around race, class, and gender (Swarr andNagar, 2003, Gunkel, 2010). The successful 'respectability' of the rallying cry for human rights is thus intertwined with the middle-class, white 'respectability' of a then-largely-Anglo-American oriented movement.…”

Representing Gender and Sexual Dissidence in Southern Africa

“…Some scholars urge caution about using western gender and sexual identity terminology in the global south (Blackwood 2010;King 2002;Swarr and Nagar 2003). For some Black Namibians and South Africans, identity terms like "lesbian" and "gay" are offensive; they crystallize sexuality in a way that is at odds with local social conventions that prohibit discussing sexual desires and sexualities publicly (Kendall 1999;Swarr and Nagar 2003). Translation difficulties sometimes accompany western gender and sexual identity terminology such that these terms may not correspond with terms in indigenous African languages (Epprecht 2004(Epprecht , 2008.…”