@dgelessus thanks so much for the deep knowledge!
So now this whole thing is working! As it turns out a lot of this was a red herring.
In summary:
It is perfectly legal to use the python string value "UICollectionElementKindSectionHeader" directly in the registerClass_forSupplementaryViewOfKind_withReuseIdentifier_() objc method, since it is converted to an NSString object implicitly.
The value returned by ctypes.c_void_p.in_dll(objc_util.c, "UICollectionElementKindSectionHeader") works as well, I assume since that c_void_p ends up being interpreted as an NSString object.
Of course, objc_util.ObjCInstance(ctypes.c_void_p.in_dll(objc_util.c, "UICollectionElementKindSectionHeader")) works, and is probably "safest" since you get the actual value without having to guess, and it is turned into a correct type.
You cannot directly use the _FuncPtr value returned by objc_util.c.UICollectionElementKindSectionHeader but there might be some way to convert that _FuncPtr value (just doing a ctypes.cast(funcptr, ctypes.c_void_p) does not work).
Now, the reason the whole thing was a red herring: collection views won't even bother to call the collectionView_viewForSupplementaryElementOfKind_atIndexPath_() method unless the flow layout object being used to layout the items has had its headerReferenceSize property set to something other than the default CGSize(0,0)...so even when I was successfully registering the class with the method to create section headers, it wasn't being called.
