News and Events
Queer Dubs Leadership Announcement
The Queer Dubs Committee is pleased to announce changes to the forum's leadership structure following a recent transition process.
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Lwando Scott as the new Chairperson of QueerDubs and Lloyd Zanna-Rex Chetty as the new Deputy Chairperson.
As the University of the Western Cape's LGBTIQA+ Staff-Led Forum, QueerDubs remains committed to promoting inclusion, visibility, belonging, and solidarity across our campus community.
The forum continues to provide a space for staff, students, and allies to engage meaningfully with issues of diversity, equity, and social justice while contributing to the University's broader transformation agenda.
Scott and Chetty bring a wealth of experience, commitment, and leadership to their new roles. Together with the broader QueerDubs Committee, they will guide the forum's ongoing efforts to create welcoming and affirming spaces, strengthen institutional engagement, support advocacy initiatives, and build on the important foundations established since the launch of QueerDubs.
The Committee would also like to acknowledge and thank all those who have contributed to Queer Dubs' growth and success since its inception. Their dedication has helped establish a vibrant platform for engagement, support, and community-building at UWC.
We invite staff members, students, and allies across the University community to continue supporting QueerDubs as we work collectively towards a campus environment where every identity is valued, respected, and celebrated.
Call for Proposals: Queering Health Systems
Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters (SRHM) is launching a themed issue – in partnership with the School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, South Africa – on Queering Health Systems.
People with marginalised sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) across diverse global contexts contend with health systems that fail to recognise, affirm and respond to their lived realities.
Experiences of stigma, exclusion, criminalisation and denial of care are embedded across health policies, institutions, service delivery models and data systems.
More recently, these inequities have been intensified by rising anti-gender movements, shrinking civic space and punitive legal environments, with deleterious implications for access to SRHR, including HIV prevention, treatment and care, harm reduction, gender-affirming care and mental health support.
This themed issue positions queering health systems as both a critical analytical lens and a transformative political practice that interrogates power, labels and knowledge hierarchies.
Queering challenges the assumption that health systems are neutral by interrogating how cisnormative, heteronormative and binary frameworks shape their design, governance and delivery. It draws attention to the persistent silence on SOGIESC issues within mainstream public health and health systems discourse.
In addressing these silences and biases, it prioritises the lived experiences, knowledge and leadership of LGBTQI+ communities.
Importantly, queering health policies and systems is not a niche intervention; it highlights the importance of intersectionality, recognising how sexuality, gender identity, expression and discrimination intersect with race, class, disability, geography and other axes of marginalisation in shaping health outcomes across one’s life-course.
This themed issue seeks to advance both conceptual and empirical scholarship that critically engages with the project of queering health policies and systems across diverse contexts.
It invites contributions that document barriers and innovations, examine policy and practice, and amplify community-led approaches to transforming health systems.
By bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives and lived experiences, the issue aims to contribute to a more inclusive, accountable and rights-based SRHR agenda that leaves no-one behind.
We welcome emailed proposals for submissions to this themed issue. Following assessment of the initial proposals, selected authors will be directly invited to submit their full manuscripts to the issue.
Mentoring will be available for less-experienced authors, where required.
DEADLINE FRIDAY 3 JULY 2026
Read the full call for proposals
This themed issue will be guest edited by Humphrey Ndondo and Phoene Oware, in close collaboration with SRHM’s editorial team.
Humphrey Ndondo is a public health leader and HIV prevention expert with over 18 years of experience advancing equitable, community-centred health responses across Zimbabwe and the African region.
He holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Zimbabwe. Currently, he coordinates the Inclusive Men’s Advocacy for Rights Alliance in Africa (IMARAA).
Phoene Oware is a social scientist and public health researcher whose work focuses on gender, sexual and reproductive health, trauma-informed research and practice, social policy and social protection.
She holds an undergraduate degree in International Relations, and a Masters and PhD in Development Studies. Phoene is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape.
Join our upcoming webinar to connect directly with the editorial team
and Guest Editors and get everything you need to
submit with confidence.
In this interactive session, you will:
- Meet the editorial team and the Guest Editors for the themed issue
- Get insider insights into what makes a strong submission
- Explore the context and urgency of this topic
- Have your questions answered live
Whether you are an experienced researcher, practitioner, or emerging voice, this is your chance to contribute to a timely and important conversation.
Calling all LGBTIQAP+ Superstars
Queer Dubs is looking for bold, authentic, unstoppable performers for a 1-day live Queer Showcase Pop-Up and Pride walk at UWC.
Date: 27 February 2026
Time: 12:00
Venue: UWC, Main Campus
We want:
- Students & staff
- Singers, rappers, slam poets, dancers, movers & shakers supporters
If you’ve got moves or a voice that can not be ignored, contact us at 076 771 2066 or email: drt@uwc.ac.za; or lgbtqia-staffledforum@uwc.ac.za
If you are an Ally and want to show support for our beautiful community, we invite you to wear a Pop of Colour tee and to join our campus walk at 12:30.
Let's make HERSTORY together!
Queer Dubs Festive Greeting
Queer Dubs stands in solidarity with the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence
UWC Launches Queer Dubs
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.”
Read the full story here
Opportunity
Deadline for Submission 23 January 2026
There is an opportunity to contribute a chapter to an upcoming academic publication with Bloomsbury Publishing, titled The Bloomsbury Handbook of LGBTQIA+ Inclusion in Education. This volume will explore LGBTQIA+ inclusion across educational contexts, including both schools and universities, from a global perspective.
The editorial work on the publication began in 2024. The publication date is scheduled for May/June 2026, with the latest possible release by October 2026.
To date, there are approximately six contributions from South Africa. However, there are currently no confirmed contributors from the University of the Western Cape (UWC). This presents a valuable opportunity for UWC scholars and students to contribute to a significant international academic discourse.
Chapter Submission Details:
Focus: LGBTQIA+ inclusion in education (schools or universities)
Length: 8,000–10,000 words
Review: All chapters will undergo a peer review process coordinated by one of the editors
Submission Process: Submit a 250-word abstract for initial consideration.
Abstracts will be reviewed by the lead editors.
Feedback will be provided, and selected contributors will proceed to write their chapters.
Authors will complete Bloomsbury’s contributor forms.
Chapters will undergo peer review and revision.
Final inclusion will be subject to editorial approval.
Interested individuals are encouraged to express their interest and submit abstracts as soon as possible. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to a globally relevant and socially impactful publication.
Please email - rbalfour@uwc.ac.za for more information and to submit your abstract.
The updated listing can be viewed HERE
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