Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Taylor & Francis, Ltd., Journal of Southern African Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to
digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Southern African Studies
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 34, Number 2, June 2008 t\ Routledge
South Africa arguably has the most progressive constitution in the world, one that includes
the recognition of gay rights. However, just over four decades ago, when gay rights
movements were gaining momentum worldwide, the South African government, in its
homophobia, became increasingly vigilant at cracking down on any 'homosexual* activities
within its borders. Heteropatriarchal views of sexuality in South Africa supported white male
prohibit interracial sex and to ensure that whites continued to propagate and retain political
dominance. Ideas about homosexuality, in particular, threatened the Christian-nationalist
procreative ideals of the apartheid government and increased fears about the perceived
moral degeneration of society. Scholarship about homosexuality in South Africa, has shown
how, in the 1970s and 1980s, psychiatrists in the South African Defence Force Military
Hospital partook in human rights abuses by utilising aversion therapy, hormone therapy, sex
change operations and barbiturates on young white homosexual men as a means to 'cure'
them from their homosexual 'disease'. Implicit in these studies of abuse is the notion that
psychiatric practitioners were simply corrective agents of the apartheid state. However, most
ignore the complex views of all those involved in debates about homosexuality that took
place before the 1970s and outside the military. This article argues that psychiatric
practitioners' attempts to quell the state's intensification of legislation on 'homosexuality'
of homosexuality that sometimes, but not always, supported the Nationalist government's
objectives.
Introduction
Recent scholarship about psychiatric approaches to homosexuality in South Africa has
focused on practitioners' dealings with young homosexual men in the South African Defence
Force (SADF). A joint investigation for the Medical Research Council (MRC), Gay and
Lesbian Archives (GALA), the Health and Human Rights Project and the National Coalition
for Gay and Lesbian Equality demonstrates how psychiatrists in Ward 22 of the South
African Defence Force Military Hospital at Voortrekkerhoogte partook in human rights
abuses by utilising aversion therapy, hormone therapy, sex change operations and
barbiturates in the 1970s and 1980s on young white homosexual men as a means to 'cure'
ISSN 0305-7070 print; 1465-3893 online/08/020397-14
DOI: 10.1080/03057070802038058
2008 The Editorial Board of the Journal of Southern African Studies
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
them of their homosexual 'disease'.1 Testimony by victims at the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, Gerald Kraak's recent documentary programme, Property of the State: Gay
Men in the Apartheid Military, and recent articles by Robert Kaplan have brought this illtreatment of dissident and homosexual SADF conscripts by military psychiatrists to the
public domain.2 Aubrey Levin, then Head of Ward 22 but now a professor associated with the
forensic department of the University of Calgary in Canada, was implicated in inciting such
abuses. In a newspaper interview, he admitted to the use of aversion therapy, claiming that all
patients were voluntary, although it is doubtful just how much concurrence on the part of
young conscripts was due to Levin's status as General.3
Implicit in these testimonies of abuse is the notion that psychiatric practitioners were
simply corrective agents of the apartheid state. Indeed, as Kim Phillips and Barry Reay have
noted, many scholars believe that 'in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the personnel of
science and medicine replaced the churches, ministers and priests as the custodians,
confessors and controllers of sex', with religious morality still having pervasive influence in
implicated in deeds that sought to 'correct' what was seen as the deviant sexual behaviour of
their patients.
Moreover, as Glen Elder has pointed out, 'discourses of sexuality in South Africa were
central to the creation, support and final collapse of the apartheid state'.5 Heteropatriarchal
views of sexuality supported white male power structures, promoted binary ideas of
masculinity and femininity, normalised heterosexuality and determined social roles by biological sex.6 The state's control over the sexual activities of its population was more than just
about controlling sexuality: it sought to limit the practice of inter-racial sexual intercourse and
to retain white political dominance. Ideas about homosexuality threatened the Christiannationalist procreative ideals of the apartheid government and it increased fears about the
perceived moral degeneration of society. In the words of Glen Retief , the state had 'the need to
keep the white nation sexually and morally pure so that it had the strength to resist the black
communist onslaught'.7 Psychiatric practitioners indeed played a part in supporting this
objective.
Certainly, in South Africa, abusive psychiatric practices towards sexual 'deviants' were
not limited to the military. Psychiatric practitioners played their part in enforcing the
1 G. Reid et al, 'The Aversion Project: Human Rights Abuses of Gays and Lesbians in the SADF by Health
Workers During the Apartheid Era' (unpublished paper, Cape Town, 1999).
2 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (TRC), Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South
Africa Report (Basingstoke and Oxford, Macmillan Reference Limited, 1998), Vol. 4; G. Kraak, dir. and
J. Kruger, prod., Property of the State: Gay Men in the Apartheid Military, 52 min (Cape Town, Stargate
Distribution, 2002), videocassette; and R.M. Kaplan, 'Treatment of Homosexuality during Apartheid', British
Medical Journal 329, 7,480 (2004), p. 1,415.
3 Staff at AFP, 'Apartheid Army did Sex Changes on Gays: News Report' (31 July 2000), available at http://www.
gfn.com/tools/printstory .phtml?sid = 6921, retrieved on 29 June 2004.
4 K.M. Phillips and B. Reay, 'Introduction', in K.M. Phillips and B. Reay (eds), Sexualities in History: A Reader
(London and New York, Routledge, 2002), p. 15.
5 G. Elder, 'Of Moffies, Kaffirs and Perverts: Male Homosexuality and the Discourse of Moral Order in the
Apartheid State', in D. Bell and G. Valentine (eds), Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities (London and
New York, Routledge, 1995), p. 56.
6 G. Elder, Hostels, Sexuality, and the Apartheid Legacy: Malevolent Geographies (Athens, OH, Ohio University
Press, 2003).
7 G. Retief, 'Keeping Sodom Out of the Laager', in M. Gevisser and E. Cameron (eds), Defiant Desires
(Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1994), p. 100.
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
particular time. Notions of gender, sex, madness and sexuality were often unclear and
confused.8 In South Africa, this was particularly evident in 1968 when a select government
committee, initiated by the Minister of Justice P.C. Pelser and led by S. Frank, was convened
to investigate the feasibility of amending the Immorality Amendment Act of 19579 so as better
to define homosexual acts and to legislate the behaviour of individuals.10 Interestingly, while
Die Burger had published an article a few months earlier about homosexuality, there was little
public response. It was only when the committee was established that the Afrikaans-speaking
public reacted. Previous to the investigation, it seemed that homosexuality was not a primary
concern for most Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and it was the police and the Department
of Justice, not the public that brought the issue to the forefront. The Department of Justice,
fearing an imagined spread of homosexual activity, and failing to understand fully the causes
and manifestations of 'homosexuality', asked the committee to determine the best course for
dealing with these 'deviants'. The committee turned to psychiatric practitioners for answers.
Psychiatrists' views, however, were not always clear-cut and practitioners did not always
have the definitive answers that the Department of Justice was looking for. Nor were the
majority of them simply agents of the state. Indeed, the testimony and writings of
practitioners of the 1960s reveal a much more complex scenario than suggested by the
depiction of events that took place in the SADF in the 1970s and 1980s. Their views about
homosexuality, while often adhering to state ideals, at other times directly opposed them.
Moreover, practitioners and psychiatrists were divided and irresolute about the origins,
manifestations and treatment of 'homosexuality'. The complex and at times non-compliant
views of practitioners have yet to be acknowledged.
numbers of poor, 'mad' and homeless people in England to state mental institutions. The
'great confinement', he argues, was due directly to economic and social pressures that the
state was facing and to its need to retain social control. He asserts that a new medical
discipline developed that, while couched in terms of scientific humanitarianism, 'silently
organized the world of the asylum, the methods of cure, and at the same time the concrete
8 There are many studies that in the last decade have argued that queer identity is an ever-changing and
unstructured concept. It is not my intention to recreate these debates, which have been well documented.
For further information regarding the changing nature of homosexual identity, see Phillips and Reay (eds),
Sexualities in History; M.H. Kirsch, Queer Theory and Social Change (London and New York, Routledge, 2000);
A. Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction (New York, New York University Press, 1998); and G. Isaacs and
B. McKendrick, Male Homosexuality in South Africa: Identity Formation, Culture, and Crisis (Cape Town,
Oxford University Press, 1992).
9 Immorality Amendment Act, no. 23 of 1957.
10 See D. Joubert (ed.), Tot Dieselfde Geslag: Debat oor Homoseksualiteit in 1968 (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 1974),
pp. 34-72 for a collection of articles in Die Burger.
1 1 H.L. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago, University
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
experience of madness'.12 His later work, The History of Sexuality, shows how the western
world constructed the 'science of sexuality', similar to the 'science of madness' that enabled
an unequal power relationship between sexual 'deviants' and those to whom they would
'confess'.13 Foucault's works and those adopting his arguments have therefore shown the
disciplinary role that practitioners have played both with 'madness' and in sexual 'deviance'
on behalf of the state.
Indeed, psychiatry has been strongly influenced by heteropatriarchal ideals, with notions
of mental normality based on the white heterosexual male. Psychiatrists have tended to create
an Other that is based on an interconnection between ideas of racial, sexual, economic and
mental difference. As Sander Gilman points out, worldwide the concept of 'perversion is
the basic quality ascribed to the sexuality of the Other'.14 In turn, blacks, women and those
deemed sexually 'deviant' were seen as fundamentally 'disordered' and were institutionalised
in numbers far higher than straight white men.
Studies in the United States between the 1950s and 1970s showed that practitioners
diagnosed black patients with a lower rate of affective disorders, such as depression, than
whites, and that black patients mostly were diagnosed with schizophrenia.15 South African
statistics incidentally have revealed the same trends.16 Suman Fernando argues that the
United States statistics show the inherently ethnocentric and racist nature of western
psychiatry. He suggests that because it simply ignores more holistic and spiritual ideas of
health, and promotes itself as a science free from cultural and racial bias, psychiatry acts as an
imperial force that imposes its professed superiority, not only of its presumed scientific
methods but also of the western culture that underlies it - a culture that, he argues, promotes
12 M. Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York, Random House,
1965), p. 243.
13 M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality (New York, Pantheon Books, cl978).
14 S.L. Gilman, Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness (Ithaca, NY and London,
Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 192.
15 S. Fernando, Mental Health, Race and Culture (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1991), p. 1 19. See also H.S. Gross
et al, 'The Effect of Race and Sex on the Variation of Diagnosis and Disposition in a Psychiatric Emergency Room',
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 148, 6 (1969), p. 638; B. Malzberg, The Mental Health of the Negro (New
York, Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, 1963); GJ. Warheit, C.E. Hlzer and S.A. Arey, 'Race and Mental
Illness: an Epidemiological Update', Journal of Health and Social Behavior 16 (1975), pp. 243-56.
16 See T.F. Jones, '"Dis-ordered" States: Views about Mental Disorder and the Management of the Mad in South
17
18
19
20
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
higher. Second, psychiatrists often categorise women who step outside their assigned social
role as mentally 'disordered'.21 Because mental health is often associated with morality,
women who challenge this morality, such as those who are more sexually active or who
exhibit overtly aggressive behaviour, are deemed 'mad'. For Chesler and Russell, psychiatry
merely perpetuates a patriarchal view of women and assists in their oppression. Indeed, some
feminist scholars have argued that since psychiatry and society often depict women as
'irrational' beings, women have become the very image of 'madness'.22
One can extend these arguments to include conceptions of homosexual men. Gay men
who exhibited what was perceived as 'abnormal' or 'unnatural' sexual behaviour were often
deemed 'mad'. Indeed, it was only in 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association
removed homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders
to which practitioners worldwide subscribe, and thereafter it was a 'condition' rather than an
'emotional disorder'. Many practitioners, however, remained somewhat confused as to what
this change in classification meant, and homosexuality has continued to be viewed by some as
a mental 'disorder'.23
Yet, apartheid South Africa differed from worldwide trends in institutionalisation in the
fact that it had a small proportion of women and 'non-whites' who were admitted to
psychiatric hospitals. Per capita, white men made up the majority of the patients, and beds for
women, Africans, coloureds and Indians were limited. While institutions certainly acted as
punitive spaces, mental institutions were also supposed to be rehabilitative places where
individuals could be treated and returned to their families. Thus, in South Africa where white
men were deemed necessary for the success of apartheid, mental hospitals and practitioners
focused mainly on white males and neglected to provide sufficient therapy or accommodation
for women and 'non-whites' in general.24 This is not to suggest that women, and blacks were
not seen as 'deviant' or homosexuals were not housed in institutions, for some beds and
services for them did exist. Rather, it is important to note that the preoccupation of the state,
and in turn the mandate of state practitioners, was to maintain the moral and mental
wholesomeness of white male constituents.
The low number of registered psychiatrists limited the ability of practitioners to actually
deliver on this mandate. From 1960 to 1972, registered psychiatrists working for the state
numbered from 70 to 86, respectively, and although medical practitioners often contributed
to the treatment of the 'mad', conditions in state mental hospitals were far from ideal.25
21 P. Chester, Women and Madness (New York, Avon, 1972).
22 E. Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York, Pantheon,
1985); G. Lloyd, The Man of Reason: 'Male' and Temale' in Western Philosophy (Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota Press, 1984); and S. Felman, 'Women and Madness: The Critical Phallacy', Diacritics, 5 (1975),
pp. 2-10. For further information on the connections between gender and madness, see J.M. Stoppard and
L.M. McMullen, Situating Sadness: Women and Depression in Social Context (New York, New York University
Press, 2003); J. Busfield, Men, Women and Madness: Understanding Gender and Mental Disorder (London,
Macmillan, 1996); C. Mazzoni, Saint Hysteria: Neurosis, Mysticism, and Gender in European Culture (Ithaca,
NY, Cornell University Press, 1996); J.M. Ussher, Women 's Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness? (New York,
Harvester Wheatsheaf, cl991); Y. Ripa, Women and Madness: the Incarceration of Women in NineteenthCentury France, translated by C. du Peloux Menage (Cambridge, Polity Press, cl990); and P.S. Penfold and
G.A. Walker, Women and the Psychiatric Paradox (Montreal, Eden Press, 1983).
23 R. Bayer, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis (New York, Basic Books, 1 98 1 ), p. 3 ;
G.J.M. van den Aardweg, On the Origins and Treatment of Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Reinterpretation
(New York, Praeger Publishers, 1986), p. xiii.
24 As the number of homosexual men within these institutions were not recorded and tne definition oi
homosexuality was vague and relative, the number of 'homosexuals' detained within institutions remains
unknown, yet most practitioners who wrote about homosexuality in medical journals emphasised the limited
number of such individuals institutionalised.
25 Republic of South Africa, Annual Report of the Commissioner for Mental Health, Year Ended lst December
1970 (Pretoria, Government Printer, cl972) and Union of South Africa, Annual Report of the Commissioner for
Mental Hygiene, Year Ended 31st December, 1960, R.P. No. 35 (Pretoria, Government Printer, 1962).
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Nevertheless, the state did rely on psychiatrists' 'expertise' when trying to define and deal
with what it perceived as a large influx in white male homosexual activity in the 1960s.
murder, suicide, theft, public indecency, blackmail, the spread of venereal diseases,
alcoholism, and exhibitionism.27 Even traffic violations could be blamed on homosexual
practices since it was suggested that homosexual hitchhiking men making advances towards
innocent heterosexual drivers could cause traffic accidents.
In the 1960s, rising fears among police and government officials about an increase in
public displays of homosexuality led to a debate about its origins. These fears coincided with
the relaxation of legislation on homosexual activity worldwide. For example, in 1957, the
Wolfendon Committee in England recommended that homosexuality between men older
than 21 years of age be decriminalised. In the United States, between 1961 and 1962, the state
of Illinois abandoned its sodomy laws and suggested that private sexual practices among
adults were no longer legal matters of the state. A few states gradually followed suit. In 1966,
legal officials in Germany argued that homosexuality among consenting adults should be
legalised. Three years later Germany changed its laws so that consensual homosexual acts
between men over the age of 21 were permitted. Shortly thereafter the minimum age changed
to 18.28
Although gay rights were still far from protected in these countries, South African
government and police officials were concerned that this worldwide trend of decriminalisation would enable homosexual behaviour to become widely accepted in South Africa. Indeed,
in 1966, police raided a Johannesburg party, where approximately 300 white men were in
attendance and reportedly partaking in 'homosexual activities'. This event prompted the
26 K. Botha and E. Cameron, 'South Africa', in DJ. West and R. Green (eds), Sociolegal Control of Homosexuality:
A Multi-Nation Comparison (New York and London, Plenum Press, 1997), pp. 5-42.
27 For further description of laws regulating homosexual activities before 1966, see Botha and Cameron, 'South
Africa'.
28 R. Green, The United States', and R. Hoffmann, J. Hutter and R. Lautmann, 'Germany', in Sociolegal
Control of Homosexuality, p. 145 and p. 261. Not all states repealed their sodomy laws and it was only in
November, 2003 that the American Supreme Court ruled that individuals in Texas could not be punished for
partaking in homosexual activities. Thirteen US states still have sodomy laws. According to a CNN report,
four states, 'Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples.
The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia'. 'Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Sodomy Law' (18
2004.
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
police to begin discussing their concerns about the increase of homosexuality with the
Department of Justice.29 Professing to believe that homosexuality was a mental * disorder'
that could spread to innocent white heterosexual men and women, many police and
government officials wished to prohibit all homosexual activities through regulation.30 They
argued that sodomy laws, which in any event were rarely enforced, failed to allow them to
investigate private sexual acts or acts that did not result in sexual penetration of a penis. These
acts included the use of sexual devices, lesbianism, kissing, dancing, holding hands in public
and any other sexual activity seen as abhorrent. They therefore asked that legislation be
revised so that individuals who partook in any homosexual act could be convicted.
When the government's select committee commenced its inquiry into homosexuality in
1968, police testimony and submissions were somewhat confused and at times even
ludicrous. To the police, homosexuals included hermaphrodites, paedophiles, bisexuals,
transgendered individuals, cross-dressers or any other persons with sexual or lifestyle
distinctions that varied from the heterosexual norm. In particular, police stressed the foreign,
specifically English, origins of the behaviour. When asked by the committee as to how he
could identify a homosexual male, the representative for the South African police, Major
F.A.J. van Zyl, for example, stated:
Most people regard them as being effeminate, which most of them are not. Some of them are
body-builders, and some are soccer players of repute, but they evade bodily conflict in groups.
You will never find any of them playing rugby, for instance. He will be a body-builder or a fencer,
or he will play squash, but when he speaks to a woman you know immediately. From his general
demeanour it is very simple for me to identify them.31
Van Zyl' s testimony is striking as he did not simply cite stereotypical notions of homosexual
men as effeminate but chose rather to equate homosexuals with the type of sport they
played. It is evident that his understanding of homosexuality was based on a white male
heterosexual ideal. Moreover, the suggestion that homosexuals would be body-builders,
soccer players, fencers or play squash, but never rugby, the sport so closely associated with
Afrikaner nationalism, reveals his perception that homosexuality was not intrinsic to
Afrikaner society. Indeed, the sports that he suggested homosexuals played are those that
were associated with English-speaking South Africans. Because England, a few years
earlier, had decriminalised homosexuality, this correlation is not surprising, and van Zyl' s
statements highlight the common perception among police and government offices that
homosexuality was a foreign practice. Indeed, in earlier testimony, van Zyl suggested that
'homosexual' activities during the Second World War were introduced to South Africa by
foreign homosexual soldiers arriving at the port of Durban. He added that immigrants, who
'come mainly from countries where homosexuality is rife', brought with them pornographic
material.32 In this sense, he conceptualised homosexuality as an alien threat to the Afrikaner
domain of masculinity.
What is noticeably lacking in the discussions of the committee is reference to African,
coloured or Indian homosexual practices. If homosexuality originated abroad, what influence, if
any, did it have on black men and women? Discussions about black homosexual activity in the
1960s were generally rare among apartheid planners, except when such a discussion included
29 'Submission from the South African Police', in Republic of South Africa (RSA), Report of the Select Committee
on the Immorality Amendment Bill: Original Evidence, S.C. 7-'68 (Pretoria, Government Printer, 1968),
PP. 11-12.
30 Similarly, Sander Gilman has suggested that individual perversion is seen as a proot ot the potential perversion
of the group.' Indeed, in South Africa, fears that seemingly 'normal' heterosexual men and women could be
'perverted' to becoming homosexuals were prevalent. Gilman, Difference and Pathology, p. 192.
32 Ibid.
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
interracial acts between blacks and whites.33 Economic incentives may have played a role in the
failure of the select committee and practitioners in general to discuss homosexuality among
black men and women, particularly the absence of views on what were often wrongly perceived
as 'homosexual' activities among black men living in compounds in the gold mines. As
T. Dunbar Moodie points out, mine managers often turned a blind eye to 'homosexual' acts
among black workers. In some cases, these acts were encouraged so that black sexuality could
be contained within the walls of the compounds, making it easier for managers to retain control
over their workers.34 It is possible that the committee was instructed or felt it best not to deal
with these issues as it would interfere with the mining companies' mandates.
However, the government's concentration on white sexuality during apartheid was not
limited to discussions about homosexuality. As Meaghan Campbell has shown, other illegal
sexual activities during apartheid, such as the rape of black women in townships, were largely
ignored by the state and public. It was only when it affected white society directly that the
government and the white public took notice. She suggests that because the government
was more concerned with the encroachment of Africans on white urban spaces, concerns
regarding interracial activities outweighed any intraracial conduct. Even in the 1970s, only
the most scandalous activities were noted, and then only in the context of the increase in
township crime and African population growth.35
There is another absence in much of the testimony to the committee, namely, homosexual
women. While the committee's mandate did include a brief discussion of lesbianism - a first
in South Africa's history - the discussion remained limited and almost an afterthought. Any
mention of women's sexuality was couched within ideals about reproduction and procreation.
Lesbian behaviour threatened male dominance and the procreative ideals of the National
Party, and any form of pleasure derived from sexual interactions was seen as deviant and
sinful. In the midst of discussions about homosexuality, one of the committee members asked
J.A. Grobler, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions: 'Do
you think girls in puberty should be supplied with the pill?' Such a question in the midst of an
inquiry into homosexuality reveals the committee's perception that their investigation was
more than just a question of homosexuality, but entailed all concepts of sexual 'deviance'.
Grobler' s response, reiterated the view that conceptions of sexual deviance were seen as
foreign or alien forces from which South Africa needed to be protected:
Well you get people who are liberal, like the Swedes, who think it must be done; but they are
quite liberal. The point I want to stress is that we South Africans - thank God for it - are still
conservative in many ways. We should not be influenced by the attitude of other countries on
homosexuality. We have our own way of life, we have our own convictions, and I think we should
lay down our policy according to our way of life.36
In general, having sex for pleasure, rather than reproduction, was a foreign threat against the
ideals of the government. The failure of men and women who did not sexually reproduce
endangered white domination, especially in light of the government's pronatalist initiatives.37
33 Elder also notes that 'the bulk of the discussion [during the select committee investigation] revolved around the
control and regulation of white homosexuality exclusively.' Elder, 'Of Moffies', pp. 58, 60.
34 See T.D. Moodie, 'Mine Cultures and Miners' Identity on the South African Gold Mines', in B. Bozzoli (ed.),
Town and Countryside in the Transvaal: Capitalist Penetration and Popular Response (Johannesburg, Ravan
Press, 1983), pp. 176-97; T.D. Moodie with V. Ndatshe and British Sibuyi, 'Migrancy and Male Sexuality on the
South African Gold Mines,' Journal of Southern African Studies, 14, 2 (1988), pp. 228-56; T.D. Moodie with
V. Ndatshe, Going for Gold: Men, Mines and Migration (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1994).
35 M.E. Campbell, 'Discourse Analysis of Rape in South African Townships (1948- 1994): A Case for "Policing the
Penis'" (MA Diss.. Dalhousie Universitv. 2000. dd. 45. do. 150-51.
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The committee's discussions revealed another obscure fear, i.e. the importation and use of
dildos. If women could have sexual relations without men, sometimes using imported
instruments that were much bigger than the average male penis, then what did that say about
the overall gender roles, and in turn, the sexual roles, of women and men? Nevertheless, for
the most part, the discussions (and the absence of discussion) among committee members
thus reflected the main concerns of the state, that is, regulating and maintaining white
heteropatriarchal power and purity.
the confines of apartheid policy. Yet, as Deborah Posel has shown, apartheid policies
themselves were ill-defined and had no set monolithic plan. Rather, definitions changed,
borders moved and ideas became increasingly layered.38 Although there was a desire to
explicitly define homosexual acts, because of the contradictory nature of apartheid, ideas of
'homosexuality' in South Africa were similarly ambiguous and fluid. Nevertheless, in its
quest for definitive answers, the Department of Justice turned to mental health practitioners
whom it hoped would provide the means of defining and 'treating' such individuals. Three
medical doctors were appointed as members of the committee: E.L. Fisher, a psychiatrist and
a United Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Rosettenville, W.L.D.M. Venter, National
Party MP for Kimberley South, and A. Radford, MP for Durban-Central. Although Fisher was
the only accredited psychiatrist, Venter and Radford also worked with psychiatric patients.
Because of the limited number of psychiatrists in South Africa, it was not uncommon for
accepted in recent years.39 In the 1960s, South African practitioners were certainly
investigating biomedicai reasons for homosexuality. Upon admission to a mental hospital,
patients were usually put through thorough physical examinations. Blood count and protein
analyses, plasma and electrolytes tests, radiological examinations of the skull and chest,
38 D. Posel, The Making of Apartheid 1948-1961: Conflict and Compromise (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 5.
39 See for example, Q. Rahman, 'Fluctuating Asymmetry, Second to Fourth Finger Length Ratios and Human
C. Capiluppi, 'Evidence for Maternally Inherited Factors Favouring Male Homosexuality and Promoting Female
Fecundity', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences, 271, 1,554 (2004),
pp. 2,217-21; A.A. Howsepian, 'Sexual Modification Therapies: Ethical Controversies, Philosophical Disputes,
and Theological Reflections', Christian Bioethics 10, 2-3 (2004), pp. 1 17-35; W.H. James, 'The Cause(s) of the
Fraternal Birth Order Effect in Male Homosexuality' , Journal of Biosocial Science, 36, 1 (2004), pp. 5 1 -59, 6 1 62; D.F. Swaab, 'Sexual Differentiation of the Human Brain: Relevance for Gender Identity, Transsexualism and
Sexual Orientation', Gynecological Endocrinology, 19, 6 (2004), pp. 301-12; M. Yarhouse, 'Homosexuality,
Ethics and Identity Synthesis', Christian Bioethics, 10, 2-3 (2004), pp. 239-57; and V.L. Quinsey, 'The
Etiology of Anomalous Sexual Preferences in Men', Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 989 (2003),
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
bone-age estimations, urine analysis and examinations of genitalia were conducted. In most
cases, however, practitioners found little to support physical explanations. Thus, when
entirely to homosexuality for the South African Medical Journal, stated that 'homosexuality,
along with alcoholism, crime, insanity, illegitimacy, homicide, suicide, infanticide, prostitution,
divorce, etc., must be regarded as one of the indices of social disorganization'. Homosexuality,
he argued, was 'largely a sociological problem'.41 Therefore, in order to effectively treat it,
medical, judicial and social welfare agencies needed to pay more attention to 'ameliorating the
evil human environment in which affected individuals have been projected, and from which
they have to escape by the process of regressional sex behaviour, be it homosexualism or any
other form of sexual perversion'.42 Freed' s arguments reveal his belief that it was a poor,
perhaps even unchristian, upbringing that was at the root of homosexual behaviour. Six years
earlier, he had conducted an investigation into white prostitution. He argued that because
prostitutes came from the poorest part of society, and homosexual prostitutes came from the
poorest of the poor, it was necessary to address this poverty. Katie Moodie has also
demonstrated in her study of the 1950s sub-cultural masculinities in the form of 'ducktail' gang
members that Freed also showed increasing concern with the behaviour of these 'deviants'.
Freed' s standpoint on homosexuality was indicative of his general interest in the total
degeneration of white social values.43
Other practitioners speculated that sexual 'deviance' was caused by 'adverse childhood
conditions . . . such as parental rejection of the child because of its unwanted sex',44 absentee
fathers, overbearing mothers,45 'abnormal environmental circumstances'46 or a traumatic event
of some sort during childhood. These ideas were founded on Freudian notions of sexuality that
suggested that one's sexual identity was determined by one's childhood. It also suggested that
homosexuality was a normal stage of sexual development through which all children
progressed, but out of which they ultimately emerged. Thus, according to psychoanalysts,
homosexuals over the age of 21 were individuals who were less psychologically 'developed'
than their heterosexual counterparts, and had either not yet emerged from this stage of
homosexual experimentation stage, or would fail to do so on their own. While South African
practitioners for the most part steered clear of Freudian psychoanalysis in the treatment of other
40 See for example, A.M. Don, 'Transvestism and Transsexualism: A Report of 4 Cases and Problems Associated
with their Management', South African Medical Journal 37 (1963), pp. 479-85.
41 L.S. Freed, 'Medico-Sociological Data in the therapy of Homosexuality' , South African Medical Journal, 28, 48
43 L.S. Freed, 'The Summarised Findings of Medico-Sociological Investigation into the Problem of Prostitution in
Johannesburg', South African Medical Journal, 22, 2 (1948), p. 52; K. Moodie, 'Ducktails, Flick-Knives and
Pugnacity', Journal of Southern African Studies, 24, 4 (1998), p. 759.
44 Don, 'Transvestism and Transsexualism', p. 483.
47 S. Dubow, 'Afrikaner Nationalism, Apartheid and the Conceptualisation of Race', Journal of African History
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
of any African homosexual practices among state officials and practitioners. Psychoanalysis
itself was steeped in racialised ideals. As Sander Gilman has shown in his analysis of the
treatment of Jews at the beginning of the twentieth century, because Jews were seen as less
evolved than the 'white' race, and more likely to experience mental difficulties once exposed
to 'modern life', homosexuality, which was seen to be brought about by trauma, was thought
to be prominent. Thus, the 'assumption of sexologists . . . was that the Jews, too, were fixated
at an earlier stage of sexual development'.48 Similar arguments can be applied to debates
about African sexuality. If Africans were inherently or culturally less 'sexually developed',
their predilection for homosexuality was more 'natural' than that for white men, and in turn,
concern about its occurrence or spread was not as necessary as for whites. In 1943, John
F. Ritchie argued that male Africans who tended to suckle at their mother's breast for too long
never resolved their Oedipal complex, which in turn made them unable 'to investigate the
later interests' of heterosexuality.49 Twenty years later, Alexander Don, a neuropsychiatrist at
Tara Hospital, located in Johannesburg, argued that 'cultural factors play an important role in
the extent to which this condition [transvestism] comes within the surveillance of the
physician'. Using the anthropologist Margaret Mead as evidence, he argued that many
indigenous peoples embraced the idea of transvestism, while in western culture such
examples were supposedly rare.50 Similarly, in 1968, when asked by the Select Committee if
homosexuality occurred in African societies, Stephanus P. Cilliers, Professor of Sociology at
the University of Stellenbosch, answered briefly: 'Ethnographical material suggests that
homosexualism occurs in most African societies'.51
These arguments were not shared by all practitioners, however. In 1937, B.J.B.
Laubscher, a psychiatrist who worked for the Juvenile, Criminal and Supreme courts,
published the results of a brief survey of sexual offences among magistrates in rural areas. His
work was highly regarded among practitioners for many years thereafter. He specifically
asked questions regarding homosexuality, transvestism, cross-dressing, rape, sodomy and
paedophilia. His findings suggested that homosexual acts, transvestism, and paedophilia were
extremely rare among individuals living in the reserves, while bestiality did occur more
frequently. Where transgressions did occur, he argued that it was caused by 'some insecure
and immature individuals, as well as those suffering from brain changes involving
African Medical Congress that cross-listed diagnosis, race and crime of State Decision
patients, i.e. patients held under State President warrants, usually for criminal charges.
Echoing the sentiments of Laubscher, Lamont argued that sexual crimes were most
commonly associated with Defective Mental Development, a diagnosis mostly applied
to white patients, while murder was more associated with schizophrenia, a diagnosis
48 S.L. Gilman, Freud, Race, and Gender (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 135-6.
49 J.F. Ritchie, The African as Suckling and as Adult: A Psychological Study (Livingstone, Rhodes-Livingstone
Institute, 1943), p. 42. See M. Epprecht, '"Bisexuality" and the Politics of Normal in African Ethnography',
Anthropoloeica, 48, 2 (2006), pp. 187-201, for further discussion of Ritchie's arguments.
50 Don, 'Transvestism and Transsexualism', p. 482.
51 Cilliers, RSA, S.C. 7- '68, 225. These views contradict those of many prominent African leaders, such as Robert
Mugabe, who, like van Zyl, has suggested that homosexuality was an imported perversion from Europe. Indeed,
as Marc Epprecht has shown, '[m]any black Zimbabweans believe that homosexuality was introduced to the
country by white settlers and is now mainly propagated by "the West".' M. Epprecht, 'The "Unsaying" of
Indigenous Homosexualities in Zimbabwe: Mapping a Blindspot in an African Masculinity', Journal of Southern
African Studies, 24, 4 (1998), p. 631.
52 B.J.B. Laubscher, Sex, Custom and Psychopathology: A Study of South African Pagan Natives (London,
Routledge, 1937), p. 271.
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
predominantly applied to black patients.53 What Laubscher and Lamont were suggesting was
that sexual deviance was the monopoly of the white population, and Africans, while
predisposed to more serious crimes, rarely partook in homosexual activities.
not surprising, for as Marc Epprecht has pointed out, the portrayal of African
homosexuality by anthropologists and social scientists from the late eighteenth century
argued that he 'had miraculous successes with hormonal treatment in all cases where
hormones are important'.59 Psychoanalysis, however, became the main choice among
practitioners to treat their patients.60
addressed, and most practitioners believed that it had to be dealt with at the psychosociological level, it is not surprising that, in 1968, when the government initiated the inquiry
into homosexuality, that practitioners were opposed to its criminalisation. The main
representative body of psychiatrists, the Society of Psychiatrists and Neurosurgeons of South
Africa (SPNSA) played a particularly prominent role in opposing the legislation. The SPNSA
was officially established in 1966 when neurosurgeons left the Society of Neurologists,
53 A. Lamont, 'Predictability of Behaviour Disturbance in Patients Presenting with Psychiatric Symptoms', South
officers gay. Tom Sharpe, Indecent Exposure (London, Seeker & Warburg, 1973), pp. 78-120, 162.
58 Don, 'Transvestism and Transsexualism'.
59 Fourie, RSA, S.C. 7-'68, 294.
60 Psychoanalysis today has been rejected by many practitioners as a viable treatment option for homosexuality, yet
many continue to use it to treat their patients. For a detailed assessment of the relationship between
psychoanalysis and homosexuality, see C. Lane and T. Dean (eds), Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis (Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 2001).
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Society of Psychiatrists of South Africa (SPSA).61 While the MASA had a membership of
over 10,000 doctors, the SPNSA's membership averaged from only 100 to 150 psychiatrists,
about half of whom worked in the private sector.
The SPNSA argued that homosexuality was a mental 'disease', not a criminal activity and
it campaigned against what it perceived as harsh policies towards mentally 'ill' individuals. It
was concerned that the imprisonment of white homosexuals would set a precedent for the
imprisonment of other white 'mentally ill' individuals and that consenting adults would be
unfairly imprisoned. Representatives thus testified against the proposed legislation. Not
was essentially non-violent and unalterable. They contended that because homosexual
experimentation was a normal stage of sexual development through which all children
progressed, the law would ultimately require all young (white) boys to be imprisoned.
Independent of the SPNSA testimony, practitioners also argued against criminalisation. Freed
published an article in the South African Medical Journal arguing that criminalisation would
do little to alleviate what he saw as the main cause of homosexuality, namely, poverty and
improper socialisation.62 Even Levin argued that criminalisation would not be an effective
course of action.63
When asked about alternatives to imprisonment, the SPNSA argued that practitioners
could essentially prevent homosexuality 'through a system of public education [that would]
help people to bring up their children with sound attitudes towards sexual behaviour'. This,
they suggested, would be 'far better than any immorality legislation'.64 But they were less
clear about whether or not they could 'cure' homosexuality. The SPNSA officially rejected
the validity of aversion and hormone therapies. Yet they also admitted that some of their
members believed they could effectively cure individuals of homosexuality through such
therapies.65 The SPNSA argued that it was more important to offer some psychological
assistance to homosexuals to enable them to 'adapt' or 'contain' their sexual impulses, and if
young enough, help them live 'normal' heterosexual lives.66 While psychoanalysis in the
1960s was problematic in that it was based on a heterosexual norm, and, as Barbara Tholfsen
points out, it emphasised binary and rigid stereotypes of men and women, its practice was
at least physically less harmful.67
In large part due to the SPNSA's testimony, the legislation that ensued, although not
fully in accordance with the association's stance, was less severe than initially proposed
by police and government officials. While homosexual activities between men at parties
61 Zabow suggests that the Society of Neurologists, Psychiatrists and Neurosurgeons became the SPSA in 1966.
However, neurologists were still part of the organisation in 1968. It is unclear as to exactly when neurologists left
the group and the SPNSA was renamed as the SPSA. Department of Justice Archives (hereafter DJ A), Pretoria,
Truth and Reconciliation Commission Records (hereafter TRC), T. Zabow, 'Submission to Health Sector of
62 L.S. Freed, 'Homosexuality and the Bill', South African Medical Journal, 42, 22, (1968), p. 567.
63 GALA, Levin to the Secretary of Parliament, 28 February 1968.
66 GALA, Society of Psychiatrists and Neurologists of South Africa, 'Memorandum to the Select Parliamentary
Committee Enquiring into the Immorality Amendment Bill', 28 March 1968, AM2656, B180.
67 B. Tholfsen, 'Cross Gendered Longings and the Demand for Categorization: Enacting Gender within the
Transference-Countertransference Relationship', Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy, 4, 2 (2000),
pp. 27-46.
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
were banned and the legal age for consent of homosexual acts was raised from 16 to
19, private homosexual activities between consenting adults remained the domain of
psychiatrists.68
It must be noted that the relaxation of policies was also partly due to pressures by anticriminalisation gay rights activists who ensured that witnesses made representations against
the proposed legislation.69 Nevertheless, practitioners played a central part in shaping the
outcome of the investigation and they did hold more unautocratic views towards
homosexuality than their police counterparts.
This is not to suggest that psychiatry did not play a part in promoting the procreative
heterosexual ideals of the apartheid state. Rather, like those of the government, practitioners'
views were somewhat indefinite. They held differing opinions as to the aetiology and
treatment of mental 'disorder', and at times, their ideas may have both supported and
challenged apartheid ideologies. While some genuinely attempted to offer better treatment
through less physically invasive practices, their endeavours were also constrained by their
own heteropatriarchalism and even their desires for higher professional status. The SPNSA
mandate was to promote and protect the standing of the psychiatric discipline within South
Africa, and its intention may have been to ensure that the domain of psychiatry over the
Kaplan has called for a 'full and open investigation of medical abuses in the South
African Defence Force'. Anything less, he argues will mean that 'psychiatry in South Africa
will remain compromised'.70 It is true that further research needs to be completed about
practitioners' involvement in human rights abuse, and I would argue that the investigation
should extend beyond the confines of the SADF. Yet it is also important to note that the
history of psychiatric handling of homosexuality is much more complex than has thus far
been depicted. If we are fully to understand and move beyond the discriminatory practices
concerning homosexuality that still exist within South African psychiatry, and indeed
worldwide, we need to recognise that not only have notions of homosexuality long been
constructed along heteropatriarchal and racialistic ideals that have been embedded in the
system, these notions were often less overt than previously depicted. Moreover, those very
practitioners that were conducting aversion therapy, hormone treatments and sex-change
operations were often the same ones who were advocating against the criminalisation of
homosexuality. Only when we begin to acknowledge the complex position of all involved in
constructing notions of homosexuality, will we begin to know just how to create a strategy
that will remove the misunderstandings about 'deviant' behaviour that continue to pervade
psychiatric practice today.
Tiffany F. Jones
68 As Glen Retief points out, there has been limited investigation into the effects of the amendments to the
Immorality Act, although there are indications that the police raided parties and clubs in the 1970s. Immorality
Amendment Bill of 1969 and Retief, 'Keeping Sodom Out of the Laager', p. 103.
69 Ibid., p. 102.
70 Kaplan, 'Treatment of Homosexuality during Apartheid', p. 1,416.
This content downloaded from 132.174.250.76 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:02:28 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms