Posted by ulla on Friday, January 1, 2010,
In :
queer
 2010 has just emerged, foetus-like from the bloody hips of 2009 and surely South Africa is thinking about things beyond soccer? And us queers, where are we? Well, I'm guessing most of us are still in closets. Iconic lesbian website After Ellen's round up of lesbians who came out in 2009 includes a whole one South African i.e. Melanie Lowe. Whether or not you like her music, if you're one of those fabled and privileged queers with plenty of disposable income, please go buy at least one of ...
Posted by ulla on Wednesday, October 28, 2009,
In :
queer
For the first and possibly last time in my life, I bought a copy of Rooi Rose (for any non South African readers, it’s an Afrikaans women’s magazine and although it’s come a long way since apartheid days, it’s still one of those magazines that one thinks of as safely mainstream i.e. hardly relevant to me, as part of the LGBTQI spectrum). I bought it for the story about Robert Hamblin, the artist formerly known as Adele Hamblin; photographer extraordinaire.
Robert’s physical transiti... Continue reading ...
Posted by ulla on Sunday, October 18, 2009,
In :
queer
 There are people in my life and on the periphery of it, who will never ever truly accept me, because I am queer. Sure, some people have altered their thinking enough to embrace me without saying, "If only ..." but at least one close family member, some friends and a whole bunch more acquaintances do their best not to be homophobic, but are nonetheless. It's probably painful on both sides and I have grown past that youthful fervour that is convinced that some form of universal justice will p...
Posted by ulla on Wednesday, October 7, 2009,
In :
queer
 So I went to Joburg Pride this year - yay me! Is there anything better than thousands of queers all together? Alright, that probably sounds a bit separatist, but hey, it's really nice not to be outnumbered for once. The sun was out and so were we - most of the boys looking fabulous and most of us lesbians looking ... well, wearing jeans and t-shirts really; myself included. I contemplated a pink grim reaper outfit, but just didn't get it together. Anyway, my girlfriend I scored QueerLife...
Posted by ulla on Friday, September 11, 2009,
In :
queer
Driving through the city the other day, one of the newspaper headline posters yelled, "TV'S GAY KISS!" from the side of the road. My rantometer just blew up instantly. It's not as if it was the first such headline, it certainly won't be the last. Every time there's a gay kiss on TV (here and in the UK, at least), the media has a field day.
Why?
Gay marriage is legal now. And surely it isn't news that queers kiss? Well obviously it is. For all the irritating heterosexuals who go around pon... Continue reading ...
Posted by ulla on Wednesday, September 9, 2009,
In :
queer
 "as soon as you're out of the cocoon you're juggling euphoria and vertigo" Continue reading ...
Posted by ulla on Sunday, June 28, 2009,
In :
queer
 Partner. Is it just me, or did that word once signify a subtle way of not specifying the gender of one's lover? And didn't more queer than straight people use it, or have I been fooling myself? In my often muddled mind, when I lived in the United Kingdom in the nineties, "partner" was a useful signal that you were in fact talking to a queer person, because straight people just said girlfriend or boyfriend without fear of being discriminated against for it and of course, in those days, only...
Posted by ulla on Wednesday, June 3, 2009,
In :
queer
I love photographing drag kings and queens - my only complaint is that there aren't nearly enough drag kings in South Africa. If I had the (ho ho) bollocks to perform, I'd start doing it myself. Anyway, while photographing a gay beauty pageant and cabaret in East London the other night, I thought about the last time I photographed lots of drag queens - which was Johannesburg Pride 2008. It gave me a lot of great photographs and some new Facebook friends ... there was one particularly nasty... Continue reading ...
Posted by ulla on Sunday, May 17, 2009,
In :
queer
 I was sitting on the beach yesterday talking to one of my favourite straight women about sexuality. We both agreed that things would be better if everybody on earth thought they were bisexual and then just did whatever and whoever they wanted from that point. She was astonished when I told her how prejudiced the gay (not queer!) community is towards bisexuals. Now, I don't conside myself bisexual at all. I tried a few times, to have sex with men who I loved so much that really, all that w...
Posted by ulla on Monday, April 6, 2009,
In :
queer
 Arcadia is an industrial suburb of East London, in the Eastern Cape - a "city" which is pretty much ignored by the world and certainly by the gay media, because it's little and rather faded around the edges and entirely lacking in glamour. All of those things are also what make it an incredibly cool place to be.
If you came to visit, I'd take you to Club Eden; down a dark back street (that euphemism may even appeal to some) and only very gently signposted and through the bars of its security ...
Posted by ulla on Wednesday, March 18, 2009,
In :
queer
It's very freaking disheartening that people seem so incapable of changing their minds at times. I was watching The Ellen Show - an episode which was made before the USA elections (it must have travelled Africa overland) and the gorgeous Ellen Degeneres was talking to John McCain about gay marriage being overturned in California. In his usual smooth way, he referred, more than once, to their "respectful disagreement" about gay marriage, because "I believe marriage to be a unique institution... Continue reading ...
Posted by ulla on Friday, March 6, 2009,
In :
queer
But why do gay people have to go on about it so much?
People say that so rationally, so calmly that it almost seems reasonable to me too. And then I think. I think about pink triangles and black ones in concentration camps and Michael Causer and Matthew Shepherd and the two murdered Soweto lesbians and all the victims we'll never even hear about. That's why – that's it. The rest of us cannot shut up until those people are safe, until kids aren't getting bullied for it in schools, until l... Continue reading ...
Posted by ulla on Tuesday, March 3, 2009,
In :
queer
Posted by ulla on Monday, March 2, 2009,
In :
queer
I’d been ignoring Facebook, because it’s bloated and buggy and doesn’t generate income – I hadn’t even bothered to go and turn email notifications off again after it decided to restore them all to my account without my consent. Emails would arrive, I’d delete them unless they were really interesting. Six friend requests came in and I ignored those too, because I assumed they were more of you lot i.e. groupies. I jest, I jest! To cut a tedious story short, when I got a message ... Continue reading ...
Posted by ulla on Saturday, February 28, 2009,
In :
queer
(Orig. published by QueerLife)
LGBTQI. I’ve seen the acronym ordered differently, but bear with me,
I’m something of a dinosaur and never even got used to LGBT or whatever
it used to be. I’m one of those fuckwits who thinks ‘bacon, lettuce,
tomato’ every single time.
Lesbian
Gay
Bisexual
Transgender
Queer
Intersex
What about asexual. pansexual. polysexual, pomosexual? LGBTQIAPPP! Who
else did I miss out? And if we’re mixing sexualities and genders into
the acronym, there are even... Continue reading ...
| All over the internet ... like Marmite. Only tastier.
iDyke
| Ulla Kelly |
| Eastern Cape, South Africa |
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Weekly columnist for Q back when it was owned by the Mail & Guardian, regular columnist for Queerlife in 2008, as well as contributing to MambaGirl, Cherrygrrl, Gayspeak and other websites, I decided it was about time I collected it all in one place, so I can see what I've done and hopefully keep doing new stuff.
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