Lesbian activist Beverly Palesa Ditsie

Lesbian activist Beverly Palesa Ditsie at the first gay liberation march in Africa
Unidentified photographer, Oct. 13, 1990
Courtesy Braxton University, Pretoria, South Africa

Beverly Palesa Ditsie
b. 1971, Soweto, South Africa
Works in Johannesburg
, South Africa
Simon Tseko Nkoli
1957
–
1998, b. Soweto, South Africa
Worked in Johannesburg, South Africa
Anyone who is truly committed to women’s human rights must recognize that every woman has
the right to determine her sexuality free of discrimination and oppression.
—
Beverley Palesa Ditsie, Beijing Women’s Conference, 1995
I am Black and I am gay. I cannot separate the two into secondary or primary struggles.
—
Simon Nkoli

Ditsie and Nkoli are activists who had an important role in creating legal and cultural
space for LGBT people in South Africa in the early 1990s. They were among the activists
who founded GLOW (Gay and Lesbian Organization of the Witwatersrand), the first
national Black LGBT organization in South Africa.

A committed activist, Ditsie was the first out lesbian to address the United Nations on
LGBT rights, speaking at the Beijing Women’sConference in 1995.

Arrested as an anti-apartheid activist, Nkoli came out while in prison. He used the
moment to try to change the attitude of the African National Congress (ANC) toward gay
rights.

Nkoli met with President Mandela and campaigned for including protections for LGBT
people in the new constitution. In 1996, South Africa became the first country to
constitutionally protect individuals from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Ditsie and Nkoli organized the first Pride March in Africa (held in Johannesburg) in 1990.