CLOSETS ARE FOR CLOTHES NOT PEOPLE (front)
GLOS GAY AND LESBIAN ORGANISATION OF STUDENTS (back)


Though the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of Students (GLOS) has been associated in academic papers with the University of Natal, there is very little information available about the organisation's origins. This seems illustrative of the primacy of the contemporary histories of Johannesburg and Cape Town at the expense of South Africa's other cities and towns.

Louise Mina, in Questioning Heterosexism (1991), offers insight into the experiences of GLO's members:

University of Natal gay and lesbian students, in describing their experience of homophobia (the active fear and/or hatred of homosexuals) and heterosexism, report the following: 'The most vivid example is gay bashing. Other examples are graffiti on toilet doors declaring that all lesbians must be killed, Muslim groups calling for all homosexual and lesbian people to be stoned to death, friends finding out about our sexuality and changing their places in lecture theatres, family finding out and refusing to touch, speak to us, the defacing of the GLOS (Gay and Lesbian Organisation of Students) graffiti wall with 'AIDS' in big red letters, concerned friends suggesting psychotherapy as a positive cure, Christians condemning us to hell for eternity, the church refusing us entry, heterosexual friends not allowing us to be with their children, losing jobs, accommodation, BEING IN CONSTANT FEAR THAT ANY OR ALL OF THE ABOVE WILL OCCUR AS SOON AS THE CLOSET DOOR BEGINS TO OPEN.