Monday, 4 August 2025
11:00 to 13:00
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/pxRzRzXEQWe2cp83Dnh82Q
Join us for a critical conversation on the risks, gaps, and transformative potential of collecting data on LGBTQI+ lives in South Africa.
This webinar forms part of a broader project to advance research on public attitudes toward LGBTQI+ people in South Africa, considering the pivotal work done by the HSRC and other institutions in the last decade. Our dynamic line-up of panellists will provide important insights about LGBTQI+ data with the ultimate aim of charting a path toward more inclusive research.
We look forward to seeing you online!
Presenters
Melanie Judge is a queer feminist activist, scholar, and Adjunct Professor in Public Law at the University of Cape Town. She holds a PhD in Women’s and Gender Studies, a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the University of the Western Cape, and an Honours degree in Psychology from the University of Cape Town. She has worked extensively in advocacy, law and policy reform, and research on sexual and gender rights across Africa. Melanie is Senior Policy Advisor on LGBTI inclusion for the United Nations Development Programme.
Melanie has published widely in the field of sexuality and gender. She is co-editor of Unsettling Apologies: Critical Writings on Apology from South Africa (Bristol University Press, 2022); author of Blackwashing Homophobia: Violence and the Politics of Sexuality, Gender and Race (Routledge, 2018); and lead editor of To Have and to Hold: The Making of Same-Sex Marriage in South Africa (Fanele, 2008).
In recognition of her contributions to activism and scholarship in the field of sexuality, Melanie received the Social Change Award from Rhodes University in 2016. In 2024, she was honored with the international Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law for her work on LGBT rights and equality.
Sthembiso Pollen Mkhize is a first-year PhD student in Human Geography at the University of Bristol. He previously worked as a Junior Researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, where he led the Queering Social Survey Research project and supported the 2020/21 and 2023/24 Quality of Life surveys. His PhD explores the hidden history of the erasure of LGBTIQ+ populations from South Africa’s national census, asking what this absence reveals about the politics of visibility and belonging in post-apartheid South Africa – and how government practices shape whose lives are made countable, and whose are not.
Anthony Brown is based at the School of Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Studies, College of Graduate Studies, University of South Africa. As Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Research at UNISA, Anthony Brown has dedicated his career to cultivating safe, supportive, and empowering learning spaces that embrace gender and sexual diversity. With over 15 years of scholarship and practice expanding educational inclusion, Prof Brown’s pioneering work spotlights the experiences of LGBTIQ+ learners in parts of Southern African schools and promotes evidence-based strategies to nurture their academic success and socio-emotional wellbeing.
Cameron Lawrence is a researcher based in Cape Town, South Africa, with a background in research psychology. His work, currently with Gender DynamiX (GDX), contributes to ongoing efforts to document and better understand the experiences of transgender and gender-diverse communities in Southern Africa. He is particularly interested in how research can support collective advocacy and strengthen community-led responses to inequality, with a focus on making knowledge accessible and practically useful for those working on the ground.
This event is hosted with the support of The Other Foundation.
For more information contact: Annsilla Nyar Ndlovu at ANNdlovu@hsrc.ac.za.