Gabriel Hoosain Khan is the stream leader for inclusivity capacity building at the Office for Inclusivity and Change at the University of Cape Town.
On 3 May 2021, Phelokazi Mqathana (24) was stabbed to death in Khayelitsha for rebuffing the advances of a man. A queer womxn’s life was cut short by a deeply heteronormative and patriarchal world. Since the start of 2021, seven other queer and trans persons have been murdered, a testament to the pervasive homophobic and transphobic violence present in South Africa.
It is in this painful context that an arc of queer resistance unfurls across the city, as long and smooth as the curved sand of Bloubergstrand. An arc linking Robben Island to Camps Bay and stretching from 285 years ago to today.