Navigating Cisheteronormativity in Military and Police Training: Experiences of Black Gay Male Soldiers and Police Officers in South Africa

Abstract

The South African historical research proves that military training camps during apartheid were sites of cisheteronormativity, which recognised cisgender heterosexual men and informed the illtreatment of gay male recruits who were exposed to harsh conversion therapies. Due to limited research, little is known about gay male soldiers and police officers’ encounters with cisheteronormative occupational cultures in their training experiences post-1994. This study explores how cisheteronormativity manifests and shapes Black gay men’s negotiation of sexual identity disclosure, agency, and belonging in the male-dominated military and police training spaces. Through qualitative in-depth interviews with 24 Black gay soldiers and police officers who underwent police and military training, the study established that Black gay male soldiers and police officers are often propelled by cisheteronormative ideologies and occupational cultures in training spaces to carefully negotiate their sexual identities. The findings reveal that acceptance and tolerance in these contexts is conditional, often dependent on concealment, silence, or conformity, while disclosure and visibility risked exclusion but also enabled resistance and redefined belonging. The findings contribute to our knowledge of how cisheteronormative occupational cultures operate as oppressive forces, especially within the South African military and police training spaces, and how Black gay men’s agency challenges and destabilises them, exposing the fragility of hegemonic heterosexual masculinities. Consequently, I argue that it is necessary to challenge cisheteronormative ideologies and heteronormative male occupational cultures in order to promote and achieve the social inclusion and integration of Black gay men, in such military and police training spaces as explored in this study.