ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on events and texts as expressions of the ‘opening up’ of queer and lesbian subcultures in post-1994 South Africa. It shows that the cultural practices configure potent forms of affect and belonging. The intransigence of taken-for-granted notions of ‘the family’ is evident even in certain queer and queered work on lesbian gay bisexual transsexual queer intersex (LGBTQI) identities and struggles around family life. Much of the South African research on queer struggles for officially sanctioned partnerships and families pursues rights-based claims for equality and justice. At a global level, much of the current radical work on queer struggles and freedoms questions a fixation with the rights of LGBTQI people to the entitlements that straight people have. Despite feminist and queer misgivings about the family internationally, much South African research dwells on the benefits of rights activism in defending queer people’s entitlement to family life.
