After his release in 1988, he founded the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW) and organized South Africa's first pride parade.

[3][4] After his parents separated, Nkoli lived with his grandparents who were tenant farmers to a white landlord in the Orange Free State.

[4] When his grandparents and landlord tried to convince him to work with them full time, he ran away to Johannesburg to go to school and lived with his mother in Sebokeng.

[5] His mother disapproved of this relationship and took him to multiple sangomas (traditional healers) and a psychologist in an attempt to change his sexual orientation.

[10] Twenty one other political leaders were also charged, including Terror Lekota, Popo Molefe, Tom Manthata, Gcina Malindi and Moss Chikane.

[9][5] Following Nkoli's acquittal and release from prison in 1988, he co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW) with Beverley Palesa Ditsie and Linda Ngcobo.

Between July and September 1989, Nkoli travelled to 26 cities throughout Europe and North America raising money for TAP and speaking about apartheid, gay rights, and AIDS in South Africa.

He began his trip at the ILGA conference in Vienna and ended it at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York City.

The tour was coordinated in part by the Simon Nkoli Anti-Apartheid Committee and James Credle from the National Association of Black and White Men Together.

[26][27] In July 1990, Nkoli reported that the police had raided the Glowbar, the only Black gay bar in Soweto and the meeting place for GLOW.

[28] Along with fellow activist, Beverley Palesa Ditsie, Nkoli organised the first pride parade in South Africa in October 1990.

[31][33][34] The following year, an NCGLE delegation, including Nkoli and Ian McKellan, met with the newly elected President Nelson Mandela to discuss the ANC's commitment to gay rights.

[34][4][35] The campaign was successful, making South Africa, in 1996, the first country in the world to explicitly prohibit discrimination against gay people in its constitution.

His coffin was draped in a rainbow flag and flowers, and many people spoke in tribute of him, including AIDS activist Prudence Mabele and his Delmas Treason Trial co-defendants Terror Lekota, Popo Molefe, and Gcina Malinde.

[48][49] Nkoli's imprisonment and subsequent coming out have been called "a watershed in gay politics" in South Africa: it challenged notions of anti-apartheid activists as exclusively heterosexual men and required "anti-apartheid activists to consider the place that gay rights would hold within an ANC-led government".

[7][4] His co-defendant, Terror Lekota, later stated: "How could we say that men and women like Simon, who had put their shoulders to the wheel to end apartheid, should now be discriminated against?”[50][3] Nkoli is credited with influencing the attitude of the African National Congress towards being more supportive of gay rights.

"[51][7] Through his work with GLOW, he helped to ensure that gay rights were explicitly protected in the South African Constitution.

[4][52][1] As one of the first openly HIV-positive African gay men,[4] Nkoli has been credited with influencing later AIDS activists to also disclose their status in an effort to fight HIV-related stigma.

[41][53][35][50] In his obituary of Nkoli, Achmat wrote: "the Delmas Treason Trial shows that lesbian and gay equality is integrally linked to struggles for bread, condoms and freedom around the world!

[56][57] Greyson's 2009 film Fig Trees, a hybrid documentary-opera about Zackie Achmat and Tim McCaskell, includes references to Nkoli's activism.

[64] Developed as GLOW: The Life and Trials of Simon Nkoli, the production began in 2020 as a workshopped collaboration between South African composer Phillip Miller, the cast members, and various consultants who had known Nkoli (including his mother, fellow activist Beverly Ditsie, and defence lawyer Caroline Heaton-Nicholls).

[65] The final product incorporated opera, voguing and other aspects of Ballroom culture, hip-hop, rap, anti-Apartheid protest songs, and other elements.