The University of the Western Cape (UWC) is leading the way toward inclusivity and social justice with the launch of Queer Dubs, a staff-led forum for LGBTIQA+ members and allies. After months of planning, the forum was launched on 24 October 2025.
UWC Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Robert Balfour, showed his support for Queer Dubs and emphasised that leadership within the LGBTIQA+ community often emerges not from authority, but from lived experience saying, “we are not only about affirming the history of what it has meant to be outside of inner circles, but we are about creating the new inner circle in which everybody is welcome.” The rector added, “We are creating that space where visibility leads to understanding, and we will make sure that the understanding leads to change.” He encouraged members of Queer Dubs to positively contribute to making UWC an even safer space for staff and students, stating, “we are invited by being together (in this forum) to talk through the worlds we have yet to win rather than the world we’re in.”
Dr Fikile Vilakazi, Director of UWC’s Gender Equity Unit (GEU) and Chairperson of Queer Dubs, delivered a stirring address that traced the historical and emotional lineage of queer activism at UWC. “This is a revolution of love and healing” she declared and added, “because all we are really about is making love visible.” Speaking as a proud Black lesbian woman and UWC alumna, Dr Vilakazi emphasised the importance of Queer Dubs as a continuation of UWC’s legacy of justice and inclusion. “We are the people that we are talking about,” she said, and “it is not people out there. We are the people.” She paid tribute to the generations of queer students, staff and alumni who paved the way – many of whom paid the ultimate price. “This work is about life and death,” she said, remembering, amongst others, Imam Muhsin Hendricks, Dr Susan Holland-Muter and Adrian Haynes. “Let their blood speak through this work. Let their sweat speak through this work. Let their spirit speak through this work,” Dr Vilakazi added.
Kenyan writer, podcaster, queer activist and journalist, Kevin Mwachiro, also attended the launch and encouraged the Queer Dubs members to make a positive impact. “The freedom that we want as queer Africans, I think, will be rooted here in South Africa,” he said. He urged UWC and Queer Dubs to position themselves not only as local changemakers, but also as allies within the Pan-African movement for equality: “Be in spaces that we cannot be yet and encourage us to dream as well.”
The launch of Queer Dubs is a call to action that will echo beyond the lecture halls of UWC. It is a call to reimagine learning and working within Higher Education, not as an ideal already achieved, but as a space still being built, especially by those historically excluded from it.
By Nathan Adams/Institutional Advancement
