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Moffie (slang)

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Moffie
Homophobic slur
Part of speechnoun, adjective
Pronunciation/mɒfi/[1]
EtymologyAfrikaans
Meaninggay or effeminate man or other member of the LGBTQ community

Moffie is a South African word typically used as a slur, especially against gay men or men viewed as effeminate. It has also been used to insult or describe other members of the LGBTQ community, such as drag queens, gender-fluid people, and trans women. The word has been used to refer to members of the LGBTQ sub-culture in the Western Cape, including some who marched as drum majorettes in the annual Kaapse Klopse festival. Moffie may be derived from Afrikaans, Dutch, or English slang words for hermaphrodite. Like "faggot" and "queer", moffie has been reclaimed by some members of the LGBTQ community.

Etymology

[edit]

Moffie is a slang word associated with the queer subculture of the Cape Coloured community.[2]: 127 [3]: 93 [4]: 301  According to South African lexicographer Jean Branford, moffie may have originated from the Afrikaans or Dutch slang word mofrodiet which means hermaphrodite.[5][6] Alternatively, Branford suggests that it could come from mophy, which the dictionary Sea Slang (1929) defines as derogatory sailor slang for "delicate, well-groomed youngsters".[5][7] Mophy is likely derived from mophrodite, English slang for hermaphrodite.[5][8]

It may also come from mof, the Afrikaans word for a muff or a cross-bred animal, or the English word mauve.[6][3]: 87 

Use

[edit]

The word moffie has multiple meanings.[6][9][10] It can mean a gay man or an effeminate man.[10][6][9] It can also mean someone assigned male at birth who identifies as or is perceived to act like a woman. This can include drag queens, gender-fluid people, and trans women.[10][6][4]: 301  Lexicographer Jean Branford compared moffie to the Australian word poofter and the American word fairy.[5] It has also been compared to "faggot" and "queer".[11][2] Other forms of the word include moffiedom[5][12] and moffietaal.[13][14]

As a slur

[edit]

It is often used as a slur.[15][3]: 93 [4]: 301  Scholar Ruth Ramsden-Karelse calls it "a derogatory marker for (individuals read as) men considered lacking in characteristics associated with manliness".[16] According to journalist Mark Gevisser, it is "roughly the South African equivalent of 'faggot,' but with more breadth and bite".[15] The word is used by school bullies, regardless of their victims' actual sexual orientation or gender identity.[17] A 2023 qualitative study of 19 Black LGBTQI+ people in South Africa and Zimbabwe found that they preferred not to be called "moffie".[18]

The word has been used in hate crimes.[19] In March 2014, 21-year-old Christo Onkers stated that he was planning to "kill a moffie" and then murdered and burned David Olyne, a young gay man in Ceres.[20][21][22] In December 2015, a 30-year-old trans woman named Phoebe Titus was stabbed to death by a teen in Wolseley who called her a "dirty moffie".[23][24] In July 2016, a 21-year-old gay man was attacked by two teens in Cape Town who said "kill the moffie" to each other while beating him.[25][26]

Other use

[edit]

Moffie can also be used descriptively without any derogatory connotation.[15][3]: 93 [4]: 301  Some members of the queer community have reclaimed the words "moffie" for their own use.[2]: 127 [6][27]: 31  Scholar Ruth Ramsden-Karelse calls the reclamation "uneven".[28]: 323  A 2024 qualitative study of 8 transfeminine people in the Western Cape found that most participants describe themselves and their peers as moffies.[29]

Cape Coloured community

[edit]

The Cape Coloured community has historically had a queer subculture.[30]: 28 [31]: 114-115 [32]: 448  In the 1940s to 1960s, much of the subculture was centered in District Six in Cape Town.[33][31]: 114 [34] Some members of this sub-culture were referred to as "moffies",[35]: 5  especially those assigned male at birth who wore clothes and worked jobs traditionally associated with women, e.g. hairdressing.[31]: 114-115  Because they somewhat adhered to the gender binary, they tended to be more tolerated by mainstream society than other queer people.[31]: 114-115 [34] Some "moffies" identified as gay men while others identified as women. One popular hairdresser, Kewpie, was gender-fluid. She stated: "we weren't called as gays, we were called as moffies then. But it was beautifully said, not abruptly."[35]: 5 

A Moffie Queen during Kaapse Klopse (2001)

In the 1950s-1970s, national newspapers published articles about the moffie subculture in Cape Town, including moffie drag queens and their performances, competitions, and balls.[36][31]: 116 [4]: 307  One article notes that the winner of the annual Cape Moffie Queen beauty pageant in 1968 was "the exotic, sari-shrouded 'Farah Dibah'" who beat almost 50 other "sex non-conformists".[4]: 308 [35]: 29  "Moffie concerts" were held throughout District Six, and Kewpie performed dances and strip-teases at these events.[35]: 32 [35]: 32 [34] Other performers named themselves after female celebrities, such as Betty Grable, Patti LaBelle, Piper Laurie, Greta Garbo, Diana Ross, Brigitte Bardot, and Miriam Makeba.[16]

Around the same time, the Cape Coloured LGBTQ community developed their own secret language called moffietaal (now called Gayle). Various words have been adopted throughout the rest of the LGBTQ community and by wider South African culture.[13][14][30]: 28  Many of the words are female names, such as Hilda which means "ugly" and Beulah which means "beautiful".[27]: 19 

The annual Kaapse Klopse festival in Cape Town features troupes of people parading and performing in the street in colorful outfits. Until the 1970s, troupe members were mostly men, though some men cross-dressed as women.[31]: 116-119  Members of the moffie subculture began participating openly in unofficial Kaapse Klopse events in the 1930s and were included in troupes as drum majorettes in official events by the 1950s.[31]: 119-122 [37][38] Scholar Lindy-Lee Prince points to this participation in Kaapse Klopse as a forerunner to the drag culture in Cape Town.[39] Moffies are often the subject of moppies, comic songs sung at festivals like Kaapse Klopse.[40]

Literature and film

[edit]

Defiant Desire

[edit]

The word moffie is used throughout Defiant Desire (1995), an anthology of non-fiction essays by members of the LGBTQ community in South Africa.[41][6][42] The book is a key source of information about the "moffie" subculture in the Western Cape and has been referenced by various scholars.[28]: 327-328 

In his essay about growing up in Salt River, Zackie Achmat writes about unisex hair salons run by moffies, where men sometimes went for oral sex. Achmat states: "Moffies were men who dressed like women, or who dressed in high style. Moffies were men who were really women in spirit. They spoke like women, flirted openly with men and kept men."[43] He also writes about his political awakening: "I discovered that sex is political and that, as moffies and letties, we had to be part of a revolution to change everything."[41][44]

Gay anti-apartheid activist Simon Nkoli writes about a police interrogation where he is told that the African National Congress will never accept him because he is a "moffie".[45]

Dhianaraj R Chetty writes about moffie culture in Cape Town in the 1950s-1960s.[32]: 448  He describes the Kaapse Klopse festival:[2]: 115 

Leading the annual December Coon Carnival through the streets of Cape Town, the Moffie Queens present an image of fantasy, hilarity and desire. Image is all-important– artifice used in defiance of the natural body's limits. The real Carmen Miranda would be proud of such a tradition. Heels, frills, fish-net stockings, hairy armpits, trashy jewels: they say something about the world the queens (and perhaps their audience) wish to inhabit...For their audiences they are part of a line-up of freakish spectacles. They are almost inhuman, representing a kind of humanity and desire that is grotesque, unspeakable, and titillating.

Other

[edit]

Simon Nkoli's time in prison as an anti-apartheid activist is depicted in A Moffie Called Simon (1986), a short film created by John Greyson.[46][47]

The novel Thirteen Cents (2000) is about Azure, a homeless mixed-race 12-year-old orphan who engages in sex work with men he refers to as "moffies" in Cape Town. He states: "I'm not a moffie".[48]

Marc Lottering, a gay comedian, performs in musicals as a character named Aunty Merle. Scholar Megan Robertson has pointed to the influence of Cape Town's "moffie" drag culture in these performances.[49]

Moffie is the name of a 2019 film adaptation of André Carl van der Merwe's eponymous book about a closeted conscript in the South African Defence Force (SADF) during apartheid.[50] The word is used throughout the film.[15] In one scene, two soldiers are accused of having sex with each other and the other soldiers yell "moffies" at them.[50][51] According to director Oliver Hermanus, the word represents "a man who does not embody the qualities of the strong hypermasculine dominator".[50]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ "moffie". Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 2026-06-19.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Chetty, Dhiannaraj (1995). "A drag at Madame Costello's: Cape moffie life and the popular press in the 1950s and 1960s". In Cameron, Edwin; Gevisser, Mark (eds.). Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-65595-1.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Isaacs, Gordon; McKendrick, Brian (1992). Male Homosexuality in South Africa: Identity Formation, Culture, and Crisis. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-570715-1.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Goldblatt, Cullen (2024). "Queens of the Mother City: A Queer Investigation into the Roots of Cape Town's Royals" (PDF). The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry. 11 (3): 298–316. doi:10.1017/pli.2024.19.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Branford, Jean (1980). A Dictionary of South African English. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. p. 180. ISBN 0-19-570177-1.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 de Waal, Shaun (1995). "Etymological note: On 'moffie'". In Cameron, Edwin; Gevisser, Mark (eds.). Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. Routledge. p. x. ISBN 978-1-136-65595-1.
  7. ↑ Bowen, Frank Charles (1929). Sea Slang: A Dictionary of the Old-timers' Expressions and Epithets. London: S. Low, Marston & Company, Limited. p. 92.
  8. ↑ Partridge, Eric (1984). A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (8th ed.). Taylor & Francis Routledge. p. 753.
  9. 1 2 Andrews, Grant (2018). "The boundaries of desire and intimacy in post-apartheid South African queer film: Oliver Hermanus's Skoonheid". Image & Text (31): 30–47. ISSN 1021-1497.
  10. 1 2 3 Klein, Thamar (2009). "Intersex and transgender activism in South Africa" (PDF). Liminalis (3): 25.
  11. ↑ Bradshaw, Peter (2020-04-23). "Moffie review – swooning eroticism in apartheid South Africa". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  12. ↑ Gray, Stephen (1990). "Richard Rive: A Memoir" (PDF). Staffrider. 9 (1): 54.
  13. 1 2 Olckers, Tanya (2023-03-22). "Gayle: South Africa's Secret Queer Language". MambaOnline - LGBTQ South Africa online. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  14. 1 2 McCormick, T. L. (2019-05-21). "How Cape Town's "Gayle" has endured – and been adopted by straight people". The Conversation. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Gevisser, Mark (2021-05-03). "'Moffie' and Me". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  16. 1 2 Ramsden-Karelse, Ruth (2020). "Moving and Moved: Reading Kewpie's District Six". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 26 (3). doi:10.1215/10642684-8311772.
  17. ↑ Mkhize, Nonhlanhla (2010). The country we want to live in. Cape Town: HSRC Press. pp. 11–12.
  18. ↑ Mavhandu-Mudzusi, Azwihangwisi Helen; Ndou, Anza; Mamabolo, Lucas; Netshapapame, Tshifhiwa; Ngwenya, Thembinkosi; Marebane, Tlhomaro; Mthombeni, Andile; Mgolozeli, Siyabulela Eric (April 2023). "Terms which LGBTQI+ individuals prefer or hate to be called by". Heliyon. 9 (4) e14990. Bibcode:2023Heliy...914990M. doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14990. ISSN 2405-8440. PMC 10121610. PMID 37095935.
  19. ↑ Igual, Roberto (2020-03-21). "AKA apologises for moffie comments. Admits he's an idiot". MambaOnline - LGBTQ South Africa online. Retrieved 2026-06-19.
  20. ↑ Sunnivie, Sunnivie (2014-03-31). "Gay South African Brutally Murdered". Advocate. Retrieved 2026-06-19.
  21. ↑ Igual, Roberto (2016-10-12). "Judge admits unfinished justice as David Olyne's gay hate killer gets 17 years". MambaOnline - LGBTQ South Africa online. Retrieved 2026-06-19.
  22. ↑ Nombembe, Philani (2016-10-12). "'Intellectually challenged' murderer jailed for gay hate crime". TimesLIVE. Retrieved 2026-06-19.
  23. ↑ Igual, Roberto (2017-09-01). "Our lives are cheap: Transgender woman's killer goes free". MambaOnline - LGBTQ South Africa online. Retrieved 2026-06-19.
  24. ↑ GroundUp (2016-06-15). "GroundUp: Hopes and fears about hate crime legislation". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2026-06-19.
  25. ↑ Igual, Roberto (2016-07-07). ""Kill the moffie," said attackers in Cape Town gay hate crime". MambaOnline - LGBTQ South Africa online. Retrieved 2026-06-19.
  26. ↑ February, Saaafia (2017). "'No justice for gays'". Daily Voice. Retrieved 2026-06-19.
  27. 1 2 Cage, Ken (2003). Gayle: The Language of Kinks and Queens: a History and Dictionary of Gay Language in South Africa. Jacana Media. ISBN 978-1-919931-49-4.
  28. 1 2 Ramsden-Karelse, Ruth (2025). "Towards a Genealogy of Moffie: Troubling the Binary Model of Understanding either Homosexuality or Homophobia as Un-African". In Holzhey, Christoph F. E. (ed.). Breaking and Making Models. ICI Berlin Press. doi:10.37050/ci-33_13.
  29. ↑ de Villiers, Laing; Swartz, Leslie; Bock, Peter; Seeley, Janet; Stangl, Anne L.; Bond, Virginia; Hargreaves, James; Hoddinott, Graeme (2024-07-06). "HIV and gender identity expression among transfeminine people in the Western Cape, South Africa - a thematic analysis of data from the HPTN 071 (PopART) trial". BMC Public Health. 24 (1): 1807. doi:10.1186/s12889-024-19215-0. ISSN 1471-2458. PMC 11227193. PMID 38971729.
  30. 1 2 Gevisser, Mark (2013-09-13). "A different fight for freedom". In Cameron, Edwin; Gevisser, Mark (eds.). Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. Routledge. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-136-65595-1.
  31. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pacey, Bett (31 Jan 2014). "The emergence and recognition of moffies as popular entertainers in the Cape Minstrel Carnival". South African Theatre Journal. 27 (2): 111–124. doi:10.1080/10137548.2014.876823.
  32. 1 2 Mafe, Diana Adesola (2008-09-26). "A Portrait of the (Tortured) Artist as a Young (Coloured) Man: Reading Arthur Nortje". Safundi. 9 (4): 427–455. doi:10.1080/17533170802349556.
  33. ↑ "A gay lifestyle is okay, but being gay is not". The New Humanitarian. 2010-04-08. Retrieved 2026-05-01.
  34. 1 2 3 Tonisi, Lelethu (2019-05-27). "Kewpie in District Six: A celebration of resistance". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
  35. 1 2 3 4 5 "Kewpie: Daughter of District Six" (PDF). GALA Queer Archive. 2019.
  36. ↑ "A long mince to freedom". Mail & Guardian. 1999-09-23. Retrieved 2026-06-18.
  37. ↑ Jeppie, Shamil (February 1990). "The Class, Colour and Gender of Carnival: Aspects of a cultural form in inner Cape Town, c.1939 - c.1959". University Ofthewitwatersrand, Johannesburg History Workshop: 5.
  38. ↑ Matebeni, Zethu (2016). "Contesting Beauty: Black Lesbians on the Stage". Feminist Africa (21): 23–36. ISSN 1726-4596. JSTOR 48725769.
  39. ↑ Prince, Lindy-Lee (2023-09-28). "Queer Femme Drag Futures". Nordic Journal of African Studies. 32 (3): 206–228. doi:10.53228/njas.v32i3.1086. ISSN 1459-9465.
  40. ↑ Armelle, Gaulier; Denis-Constant, Martin (2017-07-19). Cape Town Harmonies: Memory, Humour and Resilience. African Minds. pp. vii, 188–192. ISBN 978-1-928331-50-6.
  41. 1 2 Bauer, Charlotte (1994-02-25). "Confessions of a moffie kid". The Mail & Guardian. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  42. ↑ Maynard, Steven (1997-05-01). "Mark Gevisser and Edwin Cameron, eds. — Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa". Histoire sociale / Social History. ISSN 1918-6576.
  43. ↑ Murray, Stephen O.; Roscoe, Will (2021-04-01). Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African Homosexualities. State University of New York Press. p. 244. ISBN 978-1-4384-8411-2.
  44. ↑ Sinha, Aman (2025-10-06). "The Dialectics of Self and Space in Zackie Achmat's "My Childhood as an Adult Molester: A Salt River Moffie" (1995) and Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (1912)". Journal of Literary Studies. 41 (1): 1–14. doi:10.25159/1753-5387/19889. ISSN 1753-5387.
  45. ↑ Martin, Yasmina (2 Jul 2020). "'Now I Am Not Afraid': Simon Nkoli, Queer Utopias and Transnational Solidarity". Journal of Southern African Studies. 46 (4): 673–687. Bibcode:2020JSAfS..46..673M. doi:10.1080/03057070.2020.1780022.
  46. ↑ Fung, Richard (2013). The Perils of Pedagogy: The Works of John Greyson. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-7735-4143-6. JSTOR j.ctt24hnc5.
  47. ↑ Thomas, Kevin (1991-02-18). "Black Gay Issues Theme of Filmforum Series at LACE". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-10-15.
  48. ↑ Munro, Brenna M. (2012). South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle for Freedom. U of Minnesota Press. pp. 199–205. ISBN 978-0-8166-7768-9.
  49. ↑ Robertson, Megan (2024). "'I'm just a vessel': Sex and the sacred in South African Cape Flats theatre.". Blasphemous Art? Religion, Gender and Sexuality in Arts and Popular Culture. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781032623887. ISBN 978-1-032-62388-7.
  50. 1 2 3 Sulcas, Roslyn (2021-04-07). "From a South African Slur to a Scathing Drama About Toxic Masculinity". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2021-04-07. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  51. ↑ Mondello, Bob (2021-04-06). "Basic Training Proves Anything-But-Basic In The Powerful South African Drama 'Moffie'". NPR. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
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