In the courtyard of the former Johannesburg Women’s Gaol, the girls slip into their long socks and studs. This is their improvised changing room — a few plastic chairs dragged from a nearby office and a locker crudely sprayed in red and grey, matching the bricks and corrugated iron blocks of the former prison. Once booted up, the squad jogs down Constitution Hill to a piece of wasteland between the BP petrol station on Empire Road and a car park. In the middle of this metropolis of eight million people they begin their training.
There are a dozen of them — husky, many with shaved heads. The patchwork of their miscellaneous clothes brightens against the red soil. Pinky Zulu, the captain, is sandwiched between “Feminist leader” and “Fighting against patriarchy and homophobia”. These slogans printed on their shirts offer clues to spectators.
These are the members of the Chosen Few. They are women from Alex, Hillbrow, Soweto, Katlehong and other townships; butch, dyke, femme — they are lesbians and footballers, one and all.
To be chosen for the Chosen Few candidates must “be out”, have passed the physical aptitude trials and be committed to defending homosexual and women’s rights.
The Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), an organisation for black lesbians, launched the Chosen Few in 2004. The NGO is housed next to the Constitutional Court in this notorious place that once held political prisoners and petty offenders under apartheid laws. The soccer players gather here once a week for their training.
With this team, FEW wants to promote sport activism in otherwise homophobic women’s soccer. Deekay Sibanda, who works for FEW, is the team’s manager and also plays in the midfield. She remembers how girls had to leave the female team she used to play with when the coach found out that they were lesbians. Says Sibanda: “We are still not part of the national league because of the discrimination against lesbians.”
Harassment for these girls often starts even closer to home. “Some have been raped, brutalised, chased out [by their families],” says Sibanda. “Many left school. There, they would always discriminate against you, as if you were contaminating the school. Most of them are uneducated, unemployed, facing lots and lots of crimes.”
Sibanda (26) does not say much about her own story. Today when she presents herself as “project organiser at FEW, manager of the Chosen Few”, comfortable behind her computer, she could pose for a BEE ad.
She owes her qualifications to FEW. Citizen journalism, artist advocacy and photo shoots are among the many skills workshops she’s attended. “They would see how passionate I was about activism. I started here as an assistant.”
Maki Mavis Mokone, a midfielder, is the slightest girl in the team. “Before, I had to hide, to pretend … With FEW, I found out it is okay to be a lesbian. I learned more about myself and I became tired of hiding. I decided to tell my mum and my family. And they chased me out of the house. I had no job, nowhere to go. I only had FEW.”
Mokone’s family, who live in Soweto, eventually allowed her back home — on condition that she did “her lesbian things out of the house”. Now that she has a job in a retail shop in Norwood, Mokone (24) would like to move downtown. “In the township I am not safe. I can’t trust them. I am always scared.”
The Chosen Few would probably describe themselves as activists and feminists. Supported by a mixed bag of NGOs, they have become efficient militants, experts in slogans and banners, virtuosos of advocacy songs carolled during protests.
With their songs and their posters, they stationed themselves outside the court during the trial of Eudy Simelane’s murderer. For the lesbian community, the murder of the former star of South Africa’s Banyana Banyana national football team became a symbol of hate crimes against lesbians. Simelane’s body was found on April 28 2008 in Kwa Thema. She had been gang raped, stabbed 25 times and left dead in a park. Simelane was one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.
But it’s not all activism: the Chosen Few have held their own on the field too. In 2006, just two years after forming, they brought back the bronze medal from the Gay Games in Chicago. Two years later they landed a second bronze at the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association Cup in London. This year they will compete at the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne, Germany.
Sibanda remembers the excitement of that day in 2006. “One day I got a call: ‘You are going to Chicago to play soccer.’ I couldn’t believe it. It was the first time I went abroad.”
It wasn’t easy, says team coach Leigh-Ann Naidoo. “It took us three months to get the visas for these unemployed women, with no husband, no child, no house … For some of them we had to apply three times.” Naidoo, who met the Chosen Few while she was an ambassador for the Federation of Gay Games, is a super-athlete in her own right and a former national team volleyball player.
But they got there. Says Sibanda: “On the podium we were the only ones singing. Every one wanted to see us, to buy us lunch, to spend time with us … I love this team. It is like my mother, my mentor.”
Eleven players with enough social stigma between them to resemble the cast of a reality TV show told their story to the public of Chicago. With their songs about the harsh conditions endured by lesbians in the Rainbow Nation, the team became the mascot of the event. “You had these young women putting themselves on the line. They were the highlight of the Gay Games,” says Naidoo. Two years later they enjoyed similar popularity in London.
Chicago produced two benefactors. The first — who has since died — left them $5 000 in her will. The second offered to bankroll their trip to the next Gay Games in Germany. With their $5 000 the team organised a soccer tournament in Alexandra in August 2009, not without difficulties. Like amakwerekwere, stabani (a derogatory term for gays) were not welcome there. And the girls did not expect — or receive — support from the local authorities.
“There was no way [we could] run to the police station …” says Sibanda. “If you want to report a crime to the police, they look at you like rubbish,” says Mokone.
Not all girls are treated as “black sheep” by their families. Ntombi Futhi, bulky in her black-and-red gear, praises hers.
“My mum thanks FEW for keeping her child busy. She is comfortable because she knows that here I am in a safe place.” Jobless, Futhi (25) still lives with her mother and young brother in Katlehong. When she left for London with the team her mother and brothers were at the airport to wish them luck. Says Futhi: “My aunt would go to the church with pamphlets about the Chosen Few and tell everyone: ‘This is my child, she will go to London. Pray for her.'”
Today only two players are left from the team that formed in 2004. Some have found jobs, others went back to school. Because FEW has no funds to pay the players, successful social integration means, paradoxically, the end of the game. For those who are left, their eyes are now fixed firmly on the Cologne Games. Futhi says what the girls are all thinking: “We will bring back gold.”