Finding joy amid persecution in queer histories
Thoughts on a recent CNN op-ed and one of Germany's most famous trans women
I have several Google News alerts for various queer or LGBTQ+ topics, including “Germany AND queer OR LGBTQ OR trans” –– much of my research is historical, but I also need to stay updated on current events and issues impacting queer folks both here and in the U.S. Many of the recent articles tagged “Germany” have originated in the U.S., comparing the current anti-trans laws to the history of trans persecution by Nazis, but this week, Samuel Clowes Huneke’s article on Charlotte von Mahlsdorf and queer joy caught my eye.
In the CNN op-ed, Huneke argues that we should look to the past not only for lessons on LGBTQ+ activist movements or overcoming persecution but also for joy and happiness:
But the relentless focus on queer persecution — while politically necessary — often has the unfortunate effect of shunting to the side an equally important history of queer joy. After all, queer culture is a culture of play.
Huneke uses Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, arguably one of the most well-known trans women in German history, as an example; Mahlsdorf ran a museum out in the neighborhood of Mahlsdorf (about an hour east of where I am in Berlin), and the museum later became a meeting site for LGBTQ+ people to organize and play alike.
Mahlsdorf loved to collect (a passion to which I can relate, as the child of antiques auctioneers and collectors), and she had collected furniture and other household wares since she was a child. She opened a museum, exhibiting her own collection and even saving and recreating an entire pub (the Mulackritze, which was a gay and lesbian bar before its closure in the 1950s). According to Exberliner, she also worked to clear old furniture out of homes during and after the war, saving pieces for her collection.
And in the 1970s, when an East German homosexual liberation group (the Homosexual Interest Group Berlin) needed a space to meet, Mahlsdorf offered her space. The HIB met at her museum and villa, organizing politically but also throwing parties and enjoying music, company, and their own queerness, as Huneke points out in his op-ed. She later stopped offering the museum as a gathering place out of safety concerns, but for the time that it was open, the HIB gathered there.
I think of Charlotte often in my work, not necessarily because her name comes up frequently but because I admire her deeply. Charlotte lived her life boldly, proudly, and authentically –– her autobiography and two films about her are on my to-be-read list –– and not only that, but she created a space where LGBTQ+ people in East Germany could do the same. At a time when the homosexual emancipation movement was under heavy Stasi surveillance, this space must have been invaluable.
I want to leave you with Huneke’s closing words from the op-ed piece. I think that he covers this much more eloquently than I could. Happy Pride, and here are Huneke’s thoughts:
Without joy, it can be all too easy to slip into defeatism, to become militant ideologues or even to forget what it is we are struggling for. Too many queer activists and academics seem to forget that sex, happiness and desire are crucial to queer liberation.
At the end of the day, we hope for a world liberated from capricious and stultifying norms, a world where all humans are free to seek happiness. That is to say, we need more joy in our lives.
Unless we can experience pleasure in the here and now, those who want to eradicate queerness from public life will have already won. Finding joy in sex, dancing, flirting and loving is not just a matter of pleasure but also its own form of resistance against anti-LGBTQ hate.
Further reading:
Historians are learning more about how the Nazis targeted trans people
Opinion: What Germany’s most famous trans woman could teach us about queer joy
States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany
Hidden in the “Far East”, the museum built by Berlin’s most famous trans woman
Die Mulackritze wurde vor 50 Jahren gerettet
The Charlotte von Mahlsdorf Collection - A Treasure
"History isn't something you look back at and say it was inevitable, it happens because people make decisions that are sometimes very impulsive and of the moment, but those moments are cumulative realities." - Marsha P. Johnson