Researphobia and the production of evidence: a reflexive perspective on researching sexual and gender minority populations in South Africa
- 1COMPRES Research Entity, School of Psychosocial Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, North-West University
Abstract
Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations in the Global South are routinely described as hard to reach, yet the conditions that make them difficult to recruit are the same structural conditions that generate their health disadvantage. This Perspective examines the production of evidence rather than its content, drawing on a doctoral mixed-methods study of substance use, perceived discrimination, and social support among SGM individuals in South Africa. I argue that recruitment friction is data. Gatekeeping organisations that declined to circulate the survey without participant compensation were advancing a defensible claim to reciprocity on behalf of over-researched communities; widespread non-response reflected research fatigue and warranted scepticism toward time-limited academic engagement rather than simple unavailability. Digital snowball recruitment substantially outperformed institutional routes, but carried a bias that is rarely stated in life-course terms: it privileges younger, urban, digitally connected, and already-disclosed participants, and systematically under-recruits the older, rural, and concealed populations about whom the least is known. I further introduce researphobia to name the institutional and epistemic hostility directed at scholarship centring lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI+) lives, expressed through funding and publication barriers and through everyday interactions that delegitimise both the work and the researcher. Read through the lens of epistemic injustice, researphobia raises the cost of entry into a field where African-generated evidence is already scarce, and so contributes directly to the gaps it is then used to justify. Alongside these constraints, the study demonstrated the value of relational ethics, sustained reflexivity, and community-rooted enquiry. I close with implications for researchers, ethics committees, and funders working with sexually and gender diverse populations in the Global South.
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BibTeX
@article{ramalepe2026researphobia,
title = {{Researphobia and the production of evidence: a reflexive perspective on researching sexual and gender minority populations in South Africa}},
author = {Lebogang Manthibe Ramalepe},
journal = {Frontiers in Public Health},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fpubh.2026.1988663},
url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1988663/full},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Researphobia and the production of evidence: a reflexive perspective on researching sexual and gender minority populations in South Africa
AU - Lebogang Manthibe Ramalepe
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - Frontiers in Public Health
DO - 10.3389/fpubh.2026.1988663
UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1988663/full
AB - Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations in the Global South are routinely described as hard to reach, yet the conditions that make them difficult to recruit are the same structural conditions that generate their health disadvantage. This Perspective examines the production of evidence rather than its content, drawing on a doctoral mixed-methods study of substance use, perceived discrimination, and social support among SGM individuals in South Africa. I argue that recruitment friction is data. Gatekeeping organisations that declined to circulate the survey without participant compensation were advancing a defensible claim to reciprocity on behalf of over-researched communities; widespread non-response reflected research fatigue and warranted scepticism toward time-limited academic engagement rather than simple unavailability. Digital snowball recruitment substantially outperformed institutional routes, but carried a bias that is rarely stated in life-course terms: it privileges younger, urban, digitally connected, and already-disclosed participants, and systematically under-recruits the older, rural, and concealed populations about whom the least is known. I further introduce researphobia to name the institutional and epistemic hostility directed at scholarship centring lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI+) lives, expressed through funding and publication barriers and through everyday interactions that delegitimise both the work and the researcher. Read through the lens of epistemic injustice, researphobia raises the cost of entry into a field where African-generated evidence is already scarce, and so contributes directly to the gaps it is then used to justify. Alongside these constraints, the study demonstrated the value of relational ethics, sustained reflexivity, and community-rooted enquiry. I close with implications for researchers, ethics committees, and funders working with sexually and gender diverse populations in the Global South.
SN - 2296-2565
ER -