Julia Nicol (1956 – 3 April 2019) was a South African activist and

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...

. Nicol worked with LGBT groups in South Africa and was a co-founder and leader of the Organisation of Lesbian and Gay Activists (OLGA).

Biography

Nicol was born in 1956 in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

. She went to school at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

and worked as a

until her retirement in 1997. Nicol started working as an

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

activist in the beginning of the 1980s. She started the first organisation for

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

s in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, called Lesbians in Love and Compromising Situations (LILACS). As an activist, Nicol was also involved with The Gay Association of South Africa (GASA) and was a founding member of Lesbians and Gays Against Oppression (LAGO). Later, LAGO became the Organisation of Lesbian and Gay Activists (OLGA) with Nicol and her partner, Sheila Lapinsky, the only lesbian members of the group and served in leadership roles. Lapinsky and Nicol were both directly responsible for ensuring that LGBT rights were part of the wider

anti-apartheid movement The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), was a British organisation that was at the centre of the international movement opposing the South African apartheid system and supporting South Africa's non-White population who were persecuted by the policie ...

. Nicol died on 3 April 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicol, Julia 1956 births 2019 deaths South African LGBT rights activists People from Johannesburg South African librarians University of Cape Town alumni South African LGBT people South African women activists Women librarians Lesbians Women civil rights activists