The increased visibility of black lesbian identities in South Africa has been met with a severe
backlash in the form of what activists term corrective rape. South African newspapers started
to report on the incidence of this phenomenon in 2003 with black lesbians emerging in
newspaper discourse as particularly vulnerable victims. The term corrective rape has been
used to define rape that is perpetrated by heterosexual males against lesbian women in order
to ‘correct’ or ‘cure’ them of their lesbian sexuality. The increased recognition of lesbian,
gay, transgender and intersex rights in post-apartheid South Africa has meant increased
visibility for sexual minorities but has simultaneously been marked by an increase in
homophobic discourse and violence. Newspapers have reported on the brutal nature of
corrective rape and have given sensationalised accounts of these rapes and violence. Black
lesbian women have thus entered into the public sphere in post-apartheid South Africa as
victims of homophobic rape and violence.