Leading feminist scholars and activists have critiqued the current impact of South Africa’s provisions for gender equality and sexual rights. The country boasts one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, and its formal mechanisms for gender transformation and sexual citizenship are – at a global level – pathbreaking. At the same time, however, violence against women, gender non-conforming people and gays and lesbians or ongoing gender-based injustices in workplaces, educational institutions and many homes testify to the fact that such measures have not transformed ideological beliefs, institutional cultures and power relations in many public and domestic contexts. This article confronts the disjuncture between the formal provision of rights and actual practice, by analysing the effects of provisions devoid of transformative impact. It is argued that the country’s seemingly democratic arrangements for gender justice and sexual citizenship reproduce new forms of governmentality, biopolitics and biopower. By drawing on the work of Jasbir Puar, the article argues that South Africa’s imagining as a democratic state is based largely on its provision of rights around sexuality and gender, and in relation to peripheries that are ‘measured’ by the absence of these. In the global imagining, gender equality and sexual citizenship currently serve as tropes for definitive freedoms and democracy. The recognition of gender equality and sexual citizenship ratifies a particular international understanding of ‘democracy’, one that is congruent with global neoliberal standards, and that actively reproduces the gendered, heteronormative, classist and racist status quo.

领先的女权主义者学者和激进主义者批评了南非关于性别平等和性权利的规定的当前影响。该国拥有世界上最先进的宪法之一，其性别转型和性公民身份的正式机制在全球范围内是开拓性的。但是，与此同时，在工作场所，教育机构和许多家庭中针对妇女，性别不合格的人以及男女同性恋者的暴力行为或基于性别的不公正现象证明了这样的事实：这些措施并未改变意识形态，制度文化和在许多公共和家庭环境中的权力关系。本文通过分析没有变革性影响的条款的效果，来面对形式权利的规定与实际实践之间的脱节。有人认为，该国关于性别正义和性公民身份的看似民主的安排再现了新形式的政府，生物政治和生物权力。通过借鉴贾斯比尔·普阿尔（Jasbir Puar）的著作，文章认为，南非的民主国家构想主要是基于其围绕性和性别的权利规定，以及与没有这些权利而“衡量”的周边地区相关的权利。在全球范围内，性别平等和性公民身份目前是确定的自由与民主的比喻。对性别平等和性公民身份的认可，认可了对“民主”的一种特殊国际理解，这种理解与全球新自由主义标准相一致，并且积极地再现了性别，异规范，阶级主义和种族主义的现状。