2023
- ‘LGBTI+ migrants and asylum seekers in South Africa: A diverse community with complex needs’.The Conversation. New findings from 381 respondents reached via Whatsapp survey tools suggests the geographical spread, number, diversity and needs of the LGBTI+ migrant community in South Africa may be far greater than we currently understand. Camminga, de Gruchy and Marnell unpack crucial data that points to an under-researched and largely invisible population.
2022
- ‘Bodies at the Border: reflections on LGBT+ Ugandan refugees in Kenya’.16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence Blogathon. Through their research project ‘Bodies at the Border’ funded by the British Academy, Bompani, Camminga, and Marnell reflect on the different forms of care, religious experiences, and support that are needed by Ugandan LGBT+ displaced communities in Kenya.
The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality.
What kinds of queer politics become possible in the aftermath of colonialism? Rahul Rao addresses this and other questions in this lecture. B Camminga as discussant.
We need a follow-up of the promises that have been made such as legal gender recognition and intersex genital mutilation, says Dr B Camminga from ACMS. “The Constitution applies to everyone in this country. That means we should be acknowledging LGBT people from across the continent that are living here.”
Governing Intimacies: Queer and Trans African Mobilities.
How should we conceptualise queer and trans movement on and from Africa? This panel showcases exciting new research from a forthcoming collection, Queer and Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Asylum and Diaspora (ZED Books).
2021
- ‘When stereotypes, misconceptions and Wikipedia decide the fate of LGBTQI+ asylum seekers’. Daily Maverick. A review of the South African Department of Home Affairs refugee status denial letters validates what LGBTQI+ asylum seekers have been saying for years — it suggests that these individuals are being denied administrative justice, be it due to direct discrimination or procedural errors. Our study indicates that the South African state is falling short of its domestic and international obligations.
- ‘Dismantling the Single Story of Being Trans in Africa’. The New Yorker Radio Hour. Dissecting the viewpoints of women they identify as TERFs—trans-exclusionary radical feminists—from an African-feminist lens, The Radio Hour producer Ngofeen Mputubwele speaks with Camminga about the problem of a “single story” of trans experience being applied to a wide range of circumstances.
- ‘Call for Home Affairs to make a third ‘unspecified’ option for recording gender available to anyone’. Daily Maverick. The Department of Home Affairs’ identity management policy is soon to change to include a third option for gender: ‘Unspecified’. Activists, academics and attorneys welcomed the department’s proposed policy, but urged that people be given the agency to choose that option and not have it forced upon them by the state or the medical fraternity.
New legislation and policy for trans and intersex persons in South Africa
B Camminga takes us through a brief history of the legal gender recognition laws in South Africa and outlines the asks from government in crafting new legislation that is inclusive of all gender identities and category of persons.
Protection Issues and Solutions for LGBTIQ+ People in Contexts of Forced Displacement.
Presentation by Dr B Camminga on LGBT asylum seekers in South Africa.
2020
- ‘Seeking asylum in Joburg’. New Frame. In their essay in Anxious Joburg, a collection edited by Cobus van Staden and Nicky Falkof, B Camminga considers what it means to find refuge as a transgender person in the city.
- ‘Encamped within a camp: transgender refugees and Kakuma Refugee Camp (Kenya)’. Ammodi. In the wake of the 2014 Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Uganda, and by extension Ugandans, have become synonymous, in the global media, with two interlinked concepts on the African continent. First, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and state-sponsored homophobia and second, LGBTQI+ people and vice. Those most targeted were those most visible and, by extension, those ‘most hated’: transgender people.
- ‘LGBTQIA+ Covid-funds project rooted in community’. New Frame. Multiple organisations have come together to raise funds to help LGBTQIA+ migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who have been shunned by the state during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Amplifying Trans and Gender Diverse Voices
Gender DynamiX. An in-depth online conversation about the impact of COVID-19 and Understanding the needs of Trans and Gender Diverse persons through the lens of Migration.
An video archive designed and produced by the Cátedra Libre de Estudios Trans* (The Chair of Trans Studies), University of Buenos Aires, Argentina of invited trans* intellectuals from around the world.
2019
- ‘At home in your skin’. Curiosity. Ulfrieda Ho of Wits Curiosity interviews Dr B Camminga about their work and transformation at Wits University.
- ‘B Camminga talks transgender refugees in South Africa’. TimesLIVE. “Transgender people often cannot afford the luxury of invisibility” – B Camminga discusses their book ‘Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa with Carla Lever.
2017
- ‘The Colonial Conundrum of Transsexuality in South Africa’. Notches: Transgender Histories (2017). In 1974, for the first time in South Africa’s history, a law recognising the rights of transsexuals was passed. The discussion in the country’s parliament was marked by the kind of informed dialogue that many countries today have yet to cultivate. I suggest that we need to consider the presence of a ‘colonial artefact’—mentioned by Parliamentarians as having informed some of their understanding—Jan Morris’s international bestseller, Conundrum.
- ‘Gender Refugees and Border Lines: An Interview with Dr. B Camminga’.Social Science Research Council. B Camminga, a 2016-17 Next Generation Social Sciences Completion Fellow, studies transgender refugees establishing a new life in South Africa. SSRC staff, Francesca Freeman and Natalie Reinhart, interviewed B at a workshop in Nairobi, and B shared reflections on their dissertation research.