Sheila Barsel, an Early South African LGBT Rights Activist, Dies at 82

Sheila Barsel, also known as Sheila Lapinsky, died in Cape Town on October 31, 2026, aged 82. She campaigned against apartheid and for LGBT rights in South Africa. The South African Communist Party, on whose central committee she served, announced her death on November 1.

Barsel was secretary-general of the National Union of South African Students. The apartheid authorities banned her from political activity in 1973, according to South African History Online’s biography. In the 1980s, Barsel, her partner Julia Nicol and other activists helped establish OLGA, an organization that advocated for gay and lesbian rights within the anti-apartheid movement.

MambaOnline reports that Barsel helped prepare Johannesburg’s first LGBT Pride march in 1990. She later served on the executive of the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality, which campaigned for constitutional protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation. That prohibition is enshrined in Section 9 of South Africa’s 1996 Constitution.

In October, Uránia reported on Soweto Pride, where former South African Constitutional Court justice Edwin Cameron recalled activist Simon Nkoli’s contribution to the campaign for constitutional equality.