Gabi Mkhize - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Gabi Mkhize

The ‘normative’ of sex and gender differentiates the bodies it controls to consolidate a heterosexual imperative: A cause of homophobic sexual violence in Africa, 2020

Heteronormativity is the way in which social institutions reinforce a socially contracted ‘normat... more Heteronormativity is the way in which social institutions reinforce a socially contracted ‘normative’ belief that
human beings fall into two distinct binaries of sex and gender: male/man and female/woman. This ideology
produces the idea that those sexes/genders exist to fulfil reproductive roles and hence that all intimate
relationships ought to exist only between males/men and females/women. Heteronormative institutions block
access to legal, political, economic, educational, and social participation for individuals who do not fit in these
binary sex/gender categories. The authors’ claim in this Focus piece is that a heteronormative imperative is
faulty. The normative of sex and gender functions as a regulatory practice whose power is to produce,
demarcate and control bodies to consolidate a heterosexual imperative. In order to realise the meaning of nonheteronormativity, hegemonic heteronormativity has to be confronted through a postcolonial queer feminist
lens because it is through a hetero-colonial imperative that some citizens in Africa continue to be violated with
impunity on the grounds of their sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). The boundaries of analysis
otherwise limit a discursively conditioned experience within the terms of a hegemonic, cultural, colonial and
heteronormative discourse. The binary structures on which this is predicated appear as the language of
universal rationality whereby nonconformity is perceived as irrational and punished. Postcolonial African queer
feminism suggests that we evoke for ourselves a sense of double consciousness or multiple consciousnesses,
where we notice how we constantly see ourselves through the eyes of the other (former colonisers in the
context of this paper), with multiple identities in one body e.g. a colonial LGBTIQ subject versus an African
LGBTIQ subject, among others. It is recommended that through “coloniality of power” LGBTIQ activists and
allies identify and describe the living legacy of colonialism in contemporary Africa in the form of social
discrimination that has outlived formal colonialism and become integrated in succeeding social orders, as it
has in many of our laws. The coloniality of power as a practice assists to identify and expose the racial,
political, sexual, gendered and social hierarchical orders imposed by European colonialism that prescribed
value to certain peoples/societies while disenfranchising others.

The ‘normative’ of sex and gender differentiates the bodies it controls to consolidate a heterosexual imperative: A cause of homophobic sexual violence in Africa, 2020

Heteronormativity is the way in which social institutions reinforce a socially contracted ‘normat... more Heteronormativity is the way in which social institutions reinforce a socially contracted ‘normative’ belief that
human beings fall into two distinct binaries of sex and gender: male/man and female/woman. This ideology
produces the idea that those sexes/genders exist to fulfil reproductive roles and hence that all intimate
relationships ought to exist only between males/men and females/women. Heteronormative institutions block
access to legal, political, economic, educational, and social participation for individuals who do not fit in these
binary sex/gender categories. The authors’ claim in this Focus piece is that a heteronormative imperative is
faulty. The normative of sex and gender functions as a regulatory practice whose power is to produce,
demarcate and control bodies to consolidate a heterosexual imperative. In order to realise the meaning of nonheteronormativity, hegemonic heteronormativity has to be confronted through a postcolonial queer feminist
lens because it is through a hetero-colonial imperative that some citizens in Africa continue to be violated with
impunity on the grounds of their sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). The boundaries of analysis
otherwise limit a discursively conditioned experience within the terms of a hegemonic, cultural, colonial and
heteronormative discourse. The binary structures on which this is predicated appear as the language of
universal rationality whereby nonconformity is perceived as irrational and punished. Postcolonial African queer
feminism suggests that we evoke for ourselves a sense of double consciousness or multiple consciousnesses,
where we notice how we constantly see ourselves through the eyes of the other (former colonisers in the
context of this paper), with multiple identities in one body e.g. a colonial LGBTIQ subject versus an African
LGBTIQ subject, among others. It is recommended that through “coloniality of power” LGBTIQ activists and
allies identify and describe the living legacy of colonialism in contemporary Africa in the form of social
discrimination that has outlived formal colonialism and become integrated in succeeding social orders, as it
has in many of our laws. The coloniality of power as a practice assists to identify and expose the racial,
political, sexual, gendered and social hierarchical orders imposed by European colonialism that prescribed
value to certain peoples/societies while disenfranchising others.