Remembering Thomie Holtzhausen: A Stalwart of Durban’s LGBTQ+ Community and Nightlife

Thomie Holtzhausen was synonymous with LGBTQ+ nightlife in Durban for over 20 years. His death, at the age of 62, feels unfair and unreal, given the exuberance of his colorful and impactful life.

Just a few months ago, Thomie gathered a group of friends to discuss the future of the LGBTQ+ landscape in Durban. “We desperately need a center of education and entertainment for queer folks, a space where they can feel safe and supported.” Ironically, this was exactly what Thomie spent the last two decades doing – curating spaces of joy, fun, revelry, frolic, and intimacy.

Yet, he felt that this was unfinished business; he urged us to strategise fresh ideas for a new generation. With genuine concern, and faced with his own mortality, he reflected on the importance of staying true to one’s purpose in life. “I realised how short life can be and how important it is to not lose focus on one’s purpose,” he said.

Inspiring and Living Queer Creativity

Thomie was always pushing the envelope, queering Durban and contorting the city in ways that reimagined and reinvented the possibilities for the free expression of sexual and gender diversity. Sometimes serious, sometimes unapologetically debaucherous, Thomie used his career in on-stage theatre to inspire creativity. As his close friend Marshall Naidu said, “Thomie was more than a nightlife icon – he was a safe space, a mentor, a provocateur, and a true artist of life.”

Indeed, for young gay men, especially, Thomie’s kind and wise counsel helped them come out and come alive. And he did this with a single-minded and unflinching theory: that social connections, real conversations, in person, in safe spaces, was essential for the formation of healthy LGBTQ+ communities. Thomie lived – and died – with this ideal, his purpose.

Since his arrival in Durban in 2002, at age 40, Thomie become deeply invested in the well-being and social landscape of people on the fringe. As an actor and writer, he founded the Durban Gay & Lesbian Poetry Group, which thrived for two years. At the time, Durban’s gay scene was dominated by The Roman Lounge nightclub, until it moved in 2005 from its iconic Florida Road venue to nearby Stamford-Hill Road.

Rebranded as The Lounge, it dropped its euro-kitsch décor and opted for a modern look. Thomie joined the business as an entertainment consultant, a role that spanned nearly seven years. It was during this period that “Uncle Thomie” became the familiar and welcoming face of Durban’s only LGBTQ+ nightclub.

This role allowed him to become involved with local queer organisations and Thomie often said that his primary motivation became “the responsibility that the LGBTQ+ community has towards one another”. He cared deeply about this: If we cannot care for each other, why should other people care about us?

Durban’s Evolving Queer Nightlife

Over the years, the LGBTQ+ nightclub industry in Durban began changing, largely due to the growing acceptance of the queer community in mainstream party spaces and the rise of social networking apps. The writing was on the wall for the Lounge, so Thomie exited in November 2014, just a few months before the club closed down entirely. The ‘heyday’ of ‘the gay nightclub’ seemed over in the city.

However, Thomie always recognised the need for a dedicated haven for queer people and ventured onto his own by opening Club Altitude, a smaller, cozy and intimate bar, with a small dance floor and spacious verandah. Ever the optimist, the invitation for its opening night on 6 December 2014, read “Join the revolution!”

Indeed, Altitude became a revolutionary, rambunctious refuge, operating from 2014 to 2021 on Silver Avenue. What Altitude lacked in size, it made up for in punch, and Thomie hosted a fabulous range of parties, cabarets, karaoke, pantomimes, comedy nights, and shows, transforming it into a vibrant performance and dance venue.

However, the unforeseen COVID-19 pandemic forced Thomie to close the club’s doors. Undeterred, he swiftly pivoted, and began a small coffee shop to make ends meet.

Post-pandemic, in 2022, Thomie the entrepreneur relaunched Altitude twice. First, and briefly, he opened ‘Backstage’, before reincarnating once again, this time as ‘Escape’. For the first time, the queer nightlife scene moved away from central Durban to Redhill, a more industrial part of Durban North. The loyal patrons followed. The curious ones came later.

Escape was a significant upgrade that provided a larger and more open space. Thomie tried his best. He hosted the Five Films for Freedom, a global screening of queer movies; he arranged a night vigil and interfaith programme when Uganda passed its Anti-Homosexuality Act; he had an unforgettably slippery ‘foam party’ that left no dry body in the house; and it was here that Thomie celebrated his 60th birthday with friends and family.

Undaunted by Cancer

Tragedy struck in mid-2023 when Thomie’s life took a dramatic turn due to a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. He was forced to close the club. With his health as his top priority, he put all his equipment and personal belongings into storage and focused on his recovery. Thomie faced a daunting journey, including multiple treatments and four operations.

Thomie’s commitment to the LGBTQ+ community remained unshakeable. As his swan song, he staged a solo performance, Truth: The Funniest Joke, in Bellézar restaurant in Umhlanga Rocks. Touted as “a hysterical one woman show” Thomie played both himself and his alter-ego Aunty Gertie, where s/he shared personal and precious memories of their twenty-year career as Durban’s “King and Queen of Clubs”.

Poignantly, but cheekily, Thomie spilled the tea on the fragilities and fears of the queer community, including the dangers of hookup apps like Grindr. Thomie’s quip that “any attempt at litigation will be laughed at due to budgetary constraints” was perhaps a morbid reminder that despite all his efforts, and painstaking, backbreaking work, Thomie’s endurance – and activism – came at great personal and financial cost to himself.

Undeterred by his cancer, he continued to secure temporary spaces for pop-up events, including a partnership with The Origin nightclub in Glenwood. Always alternative and ‘queer’ in a broad sense, The Origin became an easy fit, and Thomie and his troops transformed the third floor of this multistory club into an unofficial LGBTQ+ venue – still the venue for a Durban pride afterparty this June.

A Life Enjoyed

With a positive attitude and the support of his family in Bloemfontein, where Thomie underwent treatment, he was in remission 20 months later. However, in early April this year, Thomie was informed that the cancer had aggressively spread again, and that it was only a matter of time. He was made comfortable in his sister Erica’s house, where he passed away peacefully on 22 April 2025. He is survived by his son Lucas, daughter Zabe, and sisters Ina and Erica.

As a post-script, in typical-Thomie style, he exited his final act on his own terms.

In fearless anticipation of the inevitable, he sent many of us texts a week before his passing, declaring “No sad affairs, please!” He shared that he did not want a memorial, slideshows, or flowers, because “I won’t be there, and what a shame to miss out a big party!” Instead, he asked that his friends and loved ones invite each other and raise a drink together and “enjoy it, just as I enjoyed my life”.

A celebration of life for Thomie Holtzhausen will be held on May 3 at Vegas Sports Café in Umhlanga, Durban, at 14h00. All are welcome.