Hope and Defiance Mark Opening of ILGA World Conference

Powerful speakers from South Africa and around the world opened the ILGA World Conference amidst growing global repression against LGBTIQ+ communities.

Following two days of pre-conference events, the 31st ILGA World Conference officially launched on Wednesday in Cape Town, South Africa, uniting more than 1,400 LGBTIQ+ activists and allies. The event, themed “Kwa Umoja” or “We Rise,” emphasises solidarity and resilience.

The ceremony was opened by a trio of indigenous leaders who blessed the conference and its goals for the days ahead, acknowledging the South African context and location.

Noting that the last ILGA World Conference in Africa was held in 1999 in Johannesburg, Liberty Matthyse, Executive Director of local organisation Gender DynamiX, which is co-hosting the event with Iranti, expressed hope that the continent would not wait another 25 years for the conference to return to the continent.

Matthyse highlighted the purpose of hosting the conference in South Africa: “to bring attention to the issues that impact LGBTIQ+ people and communities in South Africa and Africa, and to facilitate the participation of the Africa region, which is often underrepresented in these spaces.”

South Africa’s Deputy Minister in The Presidency for Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities, Mmapaseka Steve Letsike, welcomed the participants on behalf of President Cyril Ramaphosa and underscored the intersectional nature of the fight for equality.

“The advancement of LGBTIQ rights is not restricted to one group of people but is a fight that concerns all of society, in all its iterations,” said Letsike. “It is the fight for justice, it is the fight for dignity, it is the recognition of the inherent worth of every individual, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, geographic location, political affiliation, race, education, income, or class.”

Reverend and activist Mpho Tutu van Furth, who was stripped of her licence as a priest by the South African Anglican Church in 2016 after marrying her wife, delivered a message of inclusivity in spirituality and faith.

Van Furth criticised the South African Anglican Church for embracing “the fiction that we can legislate love” and questioning “the compatibility of my sexuality with my faith.”

She argued, “The LGBTIQ+ community has, in many instances, ceded the territory of spirituality to the right. We’ve allowed them to remake God in their image—a pint-sized God who fits into their back pocket.”

Van Furth continued, “Just look at the world that God has created. Tell me, how many shades of green do you need to paint a tree? Thousands of leaves, each one different. Why make each snowflake or stone unique? Why create so many shades of blue in the sky? Do you think the God who created a universe so wildly, wonderfully beautiful, and diverse would shrink to fit into the pinched joylessness of preservative religion?”

Julia Ehrt, the Executive Director of ILGA World, warned that while anti-LGBTIQ movements were united in their goals, the LGBTIQ+ community often allowed internal divisions to weaken their collective efforts.

“We often have a tendency to hone in on our disagreements, to focus on what divides us, instead of elevating the goals that we have in common. And that is a problem,” she said.

“Anti-rights and anti-gender actors, diverse as they may be, share one common goal—to oppose gender equality, to oppose the right to abortion, to oppose SOGIESC [sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics] issues. And that is enough for them to unite with force… to fight a common enemy: us!”

Ehrt urged the LGBTIQ+ community to come together with a shared purpose to secure their future. “That’s why we say today, Kwa Umoja—We Rise, in unity we rise!”

The ILGA World Conference continues until Friday.

 

*MambaOnline is an official media partner of the ILGA World Conference.