The lesbian caucus to the fourth UN women’s conference was suddenly told that someone could address the UN for five minutes. At the time, homosexuality was still being described as a western invention, “so, in that room, we were quite clear that it cannot be somebody American or Brit. And they cannot be white.” Beverley Ditsie stepped up, telling the assembled delegates: “If the World Conference on Women is to address the concerns of all women, it must similarly recognise that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a violation of basic human rights.” The speech marked the first time the UN had been addressed on the need to enshrine LGBTQ+ rights in equality laws.

Beverley Ditsie first understood what the word “gay” meant while listening to Boy George. She was a teenager in the South African township of Soweto in the early 1980s, obsessed with the UK’s New Romantic movement. In South Africa, people were speculating about the singer’s sexuality, as they were all over the world, and when Ditsie heard that to be gay was to love someone of the same sex, she felt a shock of joy.

“I would constantly say: ‘Something else is going on here that is over and above the level of discrimination that gay men face.’ And again, I was disregarded.””

— Beverley Ditsie

“I remember this confusion that I’d always had; I’d been trying to work out how I’d get over this thing. I always thought I was the only one,” says Ditsie. “I thought: ‘I’m just gay. Oh my God! I’m just gay, everything is OK. I’m just gay.’” For a fleeting moment, Ditsie felt free – something that was almost taboo in a country in turmoil as a result of apartheid. “As a child, you grow up being told you can’t use the word ‘free’ or ‘freedom’, because then you’re a terrorist and so will be taken, beaten, arrested, killed.” In the excitement of the moment, she ran to tell her family, who were having Sunday lunch, that she, too, was gay. She expected them to be pleased. “The look on their faces kind of said: maybe not,” she says with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow.

Undeterred, Ditsie and her queer friends in the neighbourhood would dress in the most flamboyant colours, mimicking the style of Boy George’s band, Culture Club. “There was a big group of teenagers who were 13, 14, 15 years old, but you couldn’t tell what gender any of us were,” she says. In the middle of town, they would walk up and down the streets, daring people to say something. “We call those our first Pride,” she says.

This was not the first time Ditsie had found a way to escape the strict gender roles of the time. Read more via the Guardian