News

The 2010 Cape Town Pride Festival is scheduled to commence on 26 February and run until 7 March 2010. RainbowUCT encourages you to get involved in the exciting events Pride 2010 has to offer – especially the Full Moon Hike, which RainbowUCT is leading, and the Pride Parade. We hope to have a float of some sort as part of the parade – but we'll send you details about that soon.
 
The annual Cape Town Pride Festival is a celebration of our wonderful diversity, and also creates awareness around issues impacting on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) communities locally and throughout Africa.

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Dear Friends

A big thank you to all those who attended the joint Coalition to End Discrimination (CoED) and Cape Town Pride protest. We had a crowd that transcended class, race, gender, age, and sexual orientation, with a united voice for equality, human rights and for the responsibility of South African society and government to work towards scrapping the Ugandan 'Anti-Homosexuality' bill.

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Dear members,

Welcome (back) to UCT! Whether you're returning from a refreshing holiday, kicking off your tertiary career at UCT, or visiting us from abroad, we look forward to a productive and fun 2010 with you!

This year, RainbowUCT is coming out (ho ho!) like never before. Our calendar is already filled with many different events throughout the year, ranging from activist and community education initiatives to a diverse array of social events.

Not only will we have a much bigger presence on campus this year, but we're also well on our way towards dominating the web! We have a totally revamped website (www.rainbowuct.org) that's updated almost daily with news on important issues facing our community, and will also feature interviews with social and political figures as well as highlighting the achievements that our own members make every day. Additionally, the website will soon have many different counselling and support resources just for you. Check the events page to stay abreast of all things Rainbow throughout the year. Registered members also have access to the chat room to allow us continued discussions online!

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Protest the appointment of Jon Qwelane as South Africa's ambassador to Uganda now. Call Department of International Relations in Tshwane (+27 12 351 1000) and Cape Town (+27 21 464 3700).

The Joint Working Group1 (JWG), a network Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) organizations throughout South Africa are deeply disturbed by reports over the weekend reportedly confirmed by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation that Jon Qwelane is to be appointed as an ambassador. We are even more disturbed by suggestions that he may be sent to Uganda where a brutally homophobic piece of legislation is being debated at this time.

Jon Qwelane has shown himself on a number of occasions to be openly and unapologetically homophobic and transphobic, not least when he wrote the article “Call me names, but Gay is not ok” in which he among other things expressed support for Robert Mugabe’s brutal and oppressive treatment of LGBTI people in Zimbabwe. There remains an open investigation and pending charges against Qwelane for hate speech at the South African Human Rights Commission in connection with this article.

Given that the South African Constitution in the Bill of Rights clearly states that people may not be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation it seems unbelievable that a person who clearly holds views contrary to those stated in the Constitution would be considered a suitable representative of the state in any role, anywhere in the world.

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We are pleased and extremely proud to announce that our very own Vice-Chairperson, Catherine Pretorius, and girlfriend Kirsty Noonan, were recently named as Cape Town Lesbians’ January 2010 Couple of the Month! Congratulations to Catherine and Kirsty!

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