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(Wits University Press, 2020), edited by
Cobus van Staden and Nicky Falkof.
Marooned: Seeking asylum as a transgender person in Johannesburg
“When I come here for me, my perspective about South Africa is that it is a gay-friendly country … when I … get in the plane I was crying because I felt relieved. I say, ‘Oh my God!’ and I cried. There was a … woman on the plane who said, ‘Why are you crying?’ I know why I am crying. I know because I was feeling, when we land to Johannesburg I will say, ‘Thank you, God, now I am safe!’”
South Africa is the only country on the African continent that recognises sexual orientation and gender – including gender identity and expression – as human rights, enshrined within the country’s Constitution (1996).
Unpacking Johannesburg’s myriad anxieties
17 Dec 2020
The dominant gaze on the CBD and working class people is that we have to fix their problems, says academic Nicky Falkof. (Delwyn Verasamy)
The flickering of electric fences when it rains is a quintessentially Jo’burg sound, as
Daily Maverick editor Branko Brkic once observed. I may be paraphrasing him, but this characterisation has stayed with me over the years.
It speaks to the city’s nervous energy, and the swirling anxiety that our systems are falling apart; that we are never quite safe in our houses or in our minds. Even during the glory of a highveld thunderstorm, we are reminded that something is not quite right, the sparking of the electric fences needles at our psyches.