In this paper, I analyze the photographic work of Zanele Muholi and examine the relationships among Muholi’s work and the sexual violences perpetuated against trans, lesbian, and queer bodies in the shifting post-apartheid, postcolonial South African state. The paper considers the increased prevalence of “corrective rape” perpetrated against trans and butch bodies in South Africa even as the country’s constitution includes protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender. I posit that this concurrent emergence of political protection and biopolitical social containment is reflective of the concepts of liveliness and animacy that harken back to colonial structures that animalized and objectified Black bodies. I note how effective Muholi’s work is in exceeding the bounds of those normative structures to make visible a community that is simultaneously protected by South Africa’s constitution and is highly susceptible to acts of “corrective” violence that function through the logic of necropolitics as it intersects with gender.