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Journal of Southern African Studies

Averting White Male (Ab)normality: Psychiatric Representations and Treatment of


'Homosexuality' in 1960s South Africa
Author(s): Tiffany F. Jones
Source: Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Jun., 2008), pp. 397-410
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 34, Number 2, June 2008 t\ Routledge

jjj^ Taylor & Francis Group

Averting White Male ( Abnormality:


Psychiatric Representations and Treatment of
'Homosexuality9 in 1960s South Africa
Tiffany F. Jones
(California State University, San Bernardino, USA)

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

power structures, promoted binary ideas of masculinity and femininity, normalised


heterosexuality, and determined social roles by biological sex. The state's control over the
sexual activities of its population was more than just about controlling sexuality: it sought to

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'

should be recognised. While many practitioners did support heteropatriarchal ideals of


sexuality and normality, practitioners held disparate ideas about the aetiology and treatment

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

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398 Journal of Southern African Studies

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

the construction of sexual norms.4 With the emergence of twentieth-century developments


in medicine such as eugenic, behaviourist and psychotherapeutic approaches and innovations
in hormone therapy and pharmacology, practitioners, many of whom were incidentally also
dedicated members of various Christian churches, were very concerned with the sexual
practices of their patients. It is therefore not surprising that South African psychiatrists were

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.

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Averting White Male (Abnormality 399

heteropatriarchal structure of apartheid. Yet worldwide concepts of sexuality and gender, as


well as ideas of mental illness, have always been based on changing ideas of social norms, and
are thus often vaguely and confusingly defined by those attempting to understand them at a

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.

Context of South African Debates about Homosexuality


Most recent historical discussions of the 'corrective' role played by psychiatrists in
controlling homosexuality have been influenced by the work of Michel Foucault, and
especially his focus on the ways in which the human sciences intersect with larger political
and social organisations of power.11 For example, in Madness and Civilisation: A History of
Insanity in the Age of Reason, he examines the mid-seventeenth century confinement of large

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

of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. xix-xxi.

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400 Journal of Southern African Studies

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

deep-seated presumptions about race.17


Similarly, since the late 1960s, feminist scholars all over the world have called attention
to and rejected the gendering and 'sexualisation' of psychiatry. Denise Russell, for example,
argues that psychiatry developed as a means to maintain a sense of morality within society
and to control the (often sexual) behaviour of women. She suggests that psychiatric practice is
inherently patriarchal and skewed against women.18 Because the main diagnostic categories
use men as the standard of normalcy, and men are seen as 'less changeable', that is, they have
less expressed emotional range than women, women are more likely to be seen as mentally
'disordered' than men.19 Thus, when women express dissatisfaction with patriarchy or
dispute social order, psychiatry articulates this behaviour as the mental symptoms of an
underlying physical disorder.20
Phyllis Chesler argues this point further. She proposes that sex roles are directly tied to
psychiatric 'disorders' in two ways. First, because society expects women to have a more
passive and less valued role in society, the rate of unhappiness among women is generally

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

Africa, 1939-1989' (Ph.D. thesis, Queen's University, 2004), p. 298.


Fernando, Mental Health, pp. 2-3, 51, 61 and 162.
D. Russell, Women, Madness and Medicine (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1995), p. 33.
Ibid., p. 38.
Ibid., p. 155.

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Averting White Male (Ab)Normality 401

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).

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402 Journal of Southern African Studies

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.

Raiding the Closet: Legislative Attempts at Defining and Criminalising


Homosexuality in the 1960s
While space does not allow for a detailed investigation into the position of government and
police officials on homosexuality, a brief discussion is necessary in order to understand the
context of psychiatrists' views. Homosexuality in South Africa, as elsewhere in the world,
had been associated with criminal activity since the beginning of the colonial period, and laws
governing sodomy and 'unnatural acts' had regulated 'deviant' sexual behaviour.26 Legal and

social ideas of homosexuality in South Africa were framed within male/female,


heterosexual/homosexual, normal/abnormal, social/anti-social and lawful/criminal dichotomies. According to the Department of Justice and police authorities of the apartheid state,
homosexual practices were psychological deviations that inevitably led to criminal and antisocial behaviour such as rape, incest, paedophilia, bestiality, interracial sex, prostitution,

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

November 2003), available at http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/26/scotus.sodomy/, retrieved on 19 July

2004.

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Averting White Male (Ab)Normality 403

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.

31 RSA, S.C. 7-'68, 38.

32 Ibid.

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404 Journal of Southern African Studies

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.

36 RSA, S.C. 7-'68, p. 71.


37 See C.E. Kaufman, 'Reproductive Control in Apartheid South Africa', Population Studies, 54 (200
pp. 105-14.

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Averting White Male (Ab)Normality 405

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.

Practitioners9 Representations and Treatment of Homosexuality


What is apparent in the above discussion was that police and government officials were
attempting to define homosexuality within specific gender and racial structures that fit within

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

medical practitioners to be appointed in psychiatric institutions or focus their work on


psychiatric health. Venter and Radford had been strong critics of government policy with
regard to mental institutions and had continually advocated for more beds for white men.

Debates, however, existed among practitioners as to how to prevent and 'cure'

homosexuality. Their discussions reveal a complex interplay between two understandings of

the aetiology of homosexuality: one suggesting that homosexuality was a biologically


inherent affliction, and a second purporting that homosexuality was brought on by social and
environmental factors. Debates as to the 'cause' of homosexuality continue today. The notion

of homosexuality as having a biological aetiology has, however, begun to be increasingly

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

Sexual Orientation', Psychoneuroendocrinology, 30, 4 (2005), 382-91; A. Camperio-Ciani, F. Corna,

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),

pp. 105-17, 144-53.

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406 Journal of Southern African Studies

bone-age estimations, urine analysis and examinations of genitalia were conducted. In most
cases, however, practitioners found little to support physical explanations. Thus, when

practitioners came to define the aetiology of homosexuality, psycho-sociological


explanations, couched in ideas of biological difference, tended to dominate.40
One of the earliest and most outspoken practitioners promoting a psycho-sociological
approach to homosexuality was Louis F. Freed, who had an almost zealous interest in 'deviant'
behaviour within the white population. In 1954, Freed, writing one of the first articles dedicated

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

mental 'disorders', when it came to homosexuality, there were few alternatives.

These ideas of lesser psychological 'development' substantiated apartheid ideologies,


which, in an effort to ensure white (Afrikaner) supremacy, drew strongly from Christiannationalism and Social Darwinism.47 They also further explain the lack of acknowledgement

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

(1954), pp. 1,022-1,023.


42 Ibid., p. 1,023.

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.

45 Gillis, RSA, S.C. 7-'68, 152.


46 Simonz. RSA. S.C. 7-'68. 95.

47 S. Dubow, 'Afrikaner Nationalism, Apartheid and the Conceptualisation of Race', Journal of African History

(1992), pp. 209-237.

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Averting White Male (Ab)Normality 407

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

impairment of judgement and self-control'.52 Thus, homosexuality was not 'natural' to

Africans, as suggested by other practitioners. Almost 30 years later, in 1965, the


Commissioner for Mental Health, Alistair Lamont, presented a paper at the forty-fifth South

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.

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408 Journal of Southern African Studies

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.

Because many psychiatrists based their ideas of African sexuality on ethnological

studies, and indeed some practitioners, such as Laubscher, saw themselves as


ethnopsychiatrists, this debate as to whether homosexual practices existed in Africans is

not surprising, for as Marc Epprecht has pointed out, the portrayal of African
homosexuality by anthropologists and social scientists from the late eighteenth century

on was multifarious and often contradictory. Some dismissed or interpreted same-sex


relations among Africans in such a way as to help them define a dialectic between
traditional/ African/heterosexual/uncivilised and modern/European/(homosexual)/civilised,
while others acknowledged homosexuality in African culture, but often presented it as
'primitive' and 'natural'.54

Because no consensus existed about the prevalence or aetiology of homosexuality,


treatment was correspondingly varied. Aubrey Levin, who would eventually head up the
SADF's aversion therapy programme in the 1970s and 1980s, actively used aversion therapy
and argued that he had some success in the use of physical treatments of homosexuals.55
Other practitioners, such as Don, also used aversion therapy in their practice.56 Aversion
therapy could take the form of inducing vomiting or shocking individuals while they looked
at naked pictures of men.57 Don performed sex change operations as well, but only for cases
that he deemed necessary.58 Hormonal treatment was also popular among some practitioners.
G.P. Fourie, a gynaecologist and obstetrician, in testimony to the 1968 select committee,

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

Because homosexuality was predominately seen as a white 'problem' that needed to be

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,

Psychiatrists and Neurosurgeons, a body established in the early 1950s as a sub-group of


the Medical Association of South Africa (MAS A). The society was eventually renamed the

53 A. Lamont, 'Predictability of Behaviour Disturbance in Patients Presenting with Psychiatric Symptoms', South

African Medical Journal, 40, 5 (1966), pp. 87-90.


54 Epprecht, '"Bisexuality" and the Politics of Normal'.
55 Gay and Lesbian Archives (hereafter GALA), 'A. Levin to the Secretary of Parliament', 28 February 1968,
Immorality Amendment Bill of 1968 (AM2656), B106.
56 Don, 'Transvestism and Transsexualism'.
57 A satirical and comic commentary about the views of police on the Immorality Act is Tom Sharpe's novel,
Indecent Exposure, in which Kommandant van Heerden, believing that black women were being used by South
Africa's 'enemies' to seduce his officers from their duty, decides to subject his men to aversion therapy. Showing
them pictures of naked black women and administering electric shock to their genitals, he attempts to condition
his men to avoid all contact with black women. However, in an unexpected twist, the therapy ends up making his

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).

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Averting White Male (Ab)Normality 409

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

having a definitive stance on whether homosexuality was caused by genetics or social


circumstances, the SPNSA argued that homosexuality should not be criminalised. From a
biological standpoint, they argued that it was impossible to change the genetic makeup of
homosexuals and that it was therefore of no use to attempt to punish them for behaviour that

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

Truth and Reconciliation Committee by the Society of Psychiatrists of South Africa', p. 1.

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.

64 Zabow, RSA, S.C. 7-'68, 163.

65 Sakinofskv, RSA, S.C. 7-68, 147.

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.

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410 Journal of Southern African Studies

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

'illness' of homosexuality remained unchallenged. Nevertheless, the fluidity and vague


nature of practitioners' understandings of homosexuality, along with their arguments against

criminalisation did diffuse state authority somewhat.

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

Department of History, California State University, San Bernardino, 5500 University


Parkway, San Bernardino CA 92407-2393, USA. E-mail: tjones@csusb.edu

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.

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