Occupying urban spaces for queer women, often shaped by implicit and explicit forms of regressive heteropatriarchy, has been understood as a challenge for queer women. As a result, queer women struggle to inhabit, live and feel safe in urban spaces. However, further scholarship is needed to consider how queer women may also find strategies to overcome such challenges. Such work can then add productively to, and right an imbalance within, existing scholarship on sexuality and urban space by exploring, acknowledging and giving voice to the lived experiences of queer women especially in urban Africa. Drawing on a PhD study that deployed in-depth interviews with 23 queer women, this intervention looks specifically at how black queer women have found creative ways to create communities with each other in challenging contexts, in the city of Johannesburg. This intervention shows how black queer women resist various forms of oppression by creating safe spaces for themselves (and others) within the city. An appreciation of these strategies by black queer women can then help further discussions as to how we come to understand how queer women occupy and make urban spaces their own through socialisation and support in ways that may also have applicability across the wider continent.

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Coming out has historically been an important yet often very challenging process for LGBTQI + individuals to no longer conceal their sexual and/or gender identity. For those who identify as bisexual, the process of coming out has proven especially complicated. In the general knowledge field of sexual identity, bisexuality continues to be a misunderstood, under-researched sexual identity, and from that negative stigmas and discrimination (even within LGBTQI + spaces) have contributed to bisexuals not coming out even within the LGBTQI + community. However, the significance and necessity of coming out itself has come to be questioned, particularly by younger LGBTQI + people. From a PhD study conducted in Johannesburg with 23 self-identifying bisexual women, this paper critically considers the different perspectives on coming out of bisexual women. Using a narrative life-history approach through interviews with a sample of eight participants from the study, this paper looks at how bisexual women understand the significance of coming out and how this process has different meanings for different age groups. Findings show that there are vastly divergent perspectives, with some participants believing it remains essential, while others argue that the fluidity of their identities no longer requires the same sort of disclosure.

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Extensive research has pointed to ongoing and increasing gender-based violence internationally and in South Africa. The rampant escalation of gender-based violence in many South African townships is of particular concern. The main focus of this study was to investigate the experiences, perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs regarding gender-based violence of a sample of men and women living in Ward 83 in the township of Umlazi, in KwaZulu-Natal. This study looked beyond the dichotomy of women as victims and men as perpetrators, with a focus on understanding how society constrains and enables individual agency around gender-based violence and decision-making and how behaviour is affected by social norms and expectations. This study identified the sources of the attitudes and beliefs expressed by the chosen sample of community members in Umlazi using a participatory action research approach and implemented a programme of action aimed at preventing and reducing the prevalence of gender-based violence in the township through behaviour and attitudinal change. Men play an active role in shaping women's identities and controlling their behaviour. For this reason, the study included men living in the area. This study is situated in the social constructionist framework since the researcher was interested in understanding the experiences, perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs of a sample of men and women as described by them. This framework allows for the interpretation of gender, culture and social factors that shape identities and actions. The choice of a small sample is based on the intention to produce rich, in-depth qualitative data. The participants consisted of seven females and five males ranging in age from twentyone to fifty years old, since this study focused on the experiences of the adult community of Umlazi. The two main research methods employed were individual semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. The results were interpreted and analysed using thematic analysis. The findings of this study revealed that gender-based violence in this community manifested itself in various forms. However, I classified the consequences of gender based violence into two broad categories: physical and psychological. Scholars of gender and violence argue that there is no single factor that causes gender-based violence but rather an array of factors that raises the likelihood that a man in a particular setting may act violently towards a woman. Significantly, it emerged in this study that the main causes of gendered violent behaviour were associated with social norms, substance abuse and constructions of masculinity. The effects of gender-based violence were acute and immediate physical injuries and psychological trauma. The women mentioned feelings of depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts. The abuse also impacted their self-worth and self-esteem. This study recommends an integrated comprehensive approach of all stakeholders in the form of community based intervention programmes towards the eradication gender-based violence.

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