Dr Letitia Smuts

Dr Letitia Smuts is a sociologist that does research on sexualities; gender; heteronormativity; and stigma. She is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa.

She is a Desmond Tutu scholar who completed her studies at the Vrije University in the Netherlands, with a thesis titled: ‘“Getting it ‘Straight”: (Hetero)Sexual Identities, Heteronormativity and Gender in Johannesburg, South Africa’. She is also the principal grant holder of a NIHSS-funded research project on heteronormative and gender normative views in higher education institutions called ‘FruSTRAIGTing the Norm’.

Her most recent scholarly publications include a co-authored paper that appeared in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society that explores sexual violence in the intimate relationships of Black married women in South Africa; as well as a single-authored paper entitled ‘Decently Transgressing: Expressions of Female Heterosexual Identities and the Discourse of (Hetero)Sexual Pleasure in South Africa’ in the journal, Sexualities (2021).