{"id":1299,"date":"2026-04-29T09:10:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T07:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/nali-themba-there-is-hope-in-south-africa\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T15:57:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:57:44","slug":"nali-themba-there-is-hope-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/nali-themba-there-is-hope-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Nali\u2019 Themba: There is hope in South Africa."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cSocial stigma, discrimination, and violence have always been a deterrent for me and many trans people who are asserting their identity and claiming their place in society. So for me, it took quite a while before I could assert myself as the woman I am today. I came out to my family at age 16 and experienced firsthand the stigma and oppression within the family.\u201d Speaking is Liberty Matthyse, director of Gender Dynamics, a non-governmental organization based in Cape Town founded in 2005 to promote trans rights in Southern Africa. Across Southern Africa, LGBTQIA+ people remain vulnerable to homophobia, persecution, and discrimination due to their actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. In Malawi, Eswatini, and Zimbabwe, laws criminalize same-sex relationships, with severe legal penalties and documented arrests occurring even in the past three years. These laws, stigma, and discrimination expose LGBTQIA+ people to violence and abuse at all levels, with rates in Africa even higher than those experienced by LGBTQIA+ people in North America or Europe. Furthermore, stigma, violence, social and economic exclusion, and discrimination hinder HIV prevention and treatment in a region with the highest infection rates in the world. GDX is a partner of COSPE in the project, Nali Themba, which means \u201cThere is hope\u201d in Zulu, and will be a guest at the <\/strong>Reclaim Festival<\/strong> with a large delegation. We spoke with her in 2021 for the Babel issue \u201cAlways Rebels\u201d<\/a> when she described the situation of trans people at that historic moment\u2014the post-pandemic era\u2014and we spoke with her again in 2025, in the aftermath of Trump\u2019s inaugural address at the White House. A transphobic, obscurantist speech that announced heavy cuts in the area of cooperation, especially in healthcare. In that interview for the Babel issue \u201cNon-Conformists<\/a>,\u201d Liberty spoke to us of a setback but not a defeat for organizations like hers. \u201cGender Dynamix\u201d is a transgender and trans-specific organization, meaning that at both the governance and operational levels, the organization is composed of approximately 60% trans people and others of different genders. With a team of about 13 members, the organization has grown over the years and has become a point of reference for other associations throughout the Southern region, which are supported and strengthened through networking. <\/p>\n\n

GDX will be in Bologna (Friday, May 22, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM) for a forum organized as part of another COSPE project, DREAM, which brings together activists from around the world, and will then participate in the panel \u201cQueer Resistances\u201d (Bologna, May 22, 5:00 PM \u2013 7:00 PM)<\/a><\/strong>: dedicated to the stories and struggles of LGBTQIA+ communities. During the event, two 2026 documentaries directed by Carl Collison will be screened. The first, \u201cStill My Child,\u201d chronicles the journey of three South African fathers toward unconditional acceptance of their transgender children, overcoming community prejudices. The second, \u201cI am She\/Her,\u201d analyzes the reality experienced by trans women in South Africa thirty years after the historic 1996 Constitution, exploring the gap between rights on paper and daily life; it was produced as part of the Nali Themba project. During the Bologna panel, a live video link will be established with the GDX headquarters in Cape Town to engage in dialogue with activists and members of civil society who will be watching the two documentaries simultaneously. This virtual bridge and connection will serve to share the challenges, struggles, and hopes of activists from different parts of the world, and will provide a space for discussion among activists, scholars, and civil society to reflect on the challenges and possibilities for transformation. <\/p>\n\n

Another event exploring this theme is the meeting on Saturday, May 23, at 10:00 a.m. in Florence: \u201cMappamondi Live: South Africa, the Rainbow Nation.\u201d<\/a><\/strong> Journalists Giammarco Sicuro and Veronica Fernandes will speak with Paolo Israel (University of Cape Town) about social transformations and inequalities in the region. <\/p>\n\n

<\/div>\n\n

COSPE in Southern Africa: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

COSPE\u2019s work in Southern Africa reflects a presence that, over the past two decades, has become firmly established by adapting to the political and social changes in the region. <\/em>This story has its roots in Eswatini, where the organization has been operating on a permanent basis since 2000<\/em>, and then expanded to Angola (2011), Mozambique (2014), and Zimbabwe (2019). The latest addition is South Africa, where in 2024 <\/em>The Nali\u2019Themba project (which means \u201cThere is hope\u201d in Zulu) is launched,<\/em><\/strong> in partnership with the local association <\/em>Gender Dynamics (GDX).<\/em><\/strong> However, this expansion is taking place against the backdrop of an increasingly challenging global context from an economic, political, and social standpoint: according to the Freedom House report, <\/em>38% of the world\u2019s population currently lives in \u201cnon-free\u201d countries,<\/em><\/strong> a sign of a broader erosion of civil rights. South Africa is a prime example of this contradiction: a progressive legal framework coexists with persistent structural violence. Inequalities linked to religion, culture, and sexual orientation are reflected in high levels of sexual violence and an increase in attacks against the LGBTQIA+ community, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic. Incidents such as the killing of Imam Muhsin Hendricks in 2025 highlight the growing influence of fundamentalism. It is within this context that <\/em>Nali\u2019Themba,<\/em><\/strong> which strengthens the leadership of local organizations advocating for the rights of queer people through training, monitoring violations, and advocating for the legal recognition of gender identity based on self-determination.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n

The project promotes awareness campaigns, documentary productions, and dialogue with the media and religious authorities to combat stigma. However, the freeze on international funding has had immediate consequences: in South Africa, 12 clinics that provided hormone therapy and HIV services to approximately 3,000 transgender people were forced to close, depriving thousands of individuals of life-saving care and pushing them toward the dangerous black market. In Eswatini as well, where COSPE<\/strong> works on projects addressing gender-based violence, the impact is severe: thousands of gay people, sex workers, transgender individuals, and people with substance use disorders no longer have access to sexual health treatments and services, in a context already marked by extreme poverty (38%) and youth unemployment (41.2%). Alongside these initiatives, COSPE promotes regional programs that intertwine civil rights, development, and environmental justice.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSocial stigma, discrimination, and violence have always been a deterrent for me and many trans people who are asserting their identity and claiming their place in society. So for me, it took quite a while before I could assert myself as the woman I am today. I came out to my family at age 16 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1447,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions\/1447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}