This weekend The Independent published a story about black lesbians in South Africa who have been raped, gang raped, murdered by men who claim this violence as a means for making women “straight.” Sexual violence is often presented as some kind of “punishment.” In these cases, the “punishment” takes the form and intensity of a lynching. Football often appears in these news stories, as gender non-normative women are found on the pitch, coming home from training, or in the stands – and assaulted. (See, for example, this 2009 Guardian story.) The above image is a photograph of the football stadium in Gauteng where Mvulina Fana was “left for dead” by her attackers. It is part of the artist Claire Carter’s series documenting the community targeted in these assaults. (The artist Zanele Muholi has produced a large and very moving body of work on this subject; there is, South Africa, an community of artists responding to this terrible crisis.)

The opening of “Crisis in South Africa”:

Mvuleni Fana was walking down a quiet alleyway in Springs – 30 miles east of Johannesburg – on her way home from football practice one evening when four men surrounded her and dragged her back to the football stadium. She recognised her attackers. One by one, the men raped her, beating her unconscious and leaving her for dead.

The next morning, Mvuleni came round, bleeding, battered, in shock, and taunted by one overriding memory – the last thing they said to her before she passed out: “After everything we’re going to do to you, you’re going to be a real woman, and you’re never going to act like this again”. (Patrick Strudwick, “Crisis in South Africa“)

To learn more, see, for example, Inkanyiso.org, a blog established by Zanele Muholi as a platform for people affected by this violence.