Добавить новость
smi24.net
News in English
Июнь
2023

Publishing Queer Berlin

0

Berlin in the 1920s was ablaze with sexual and gender freedom. Magazines at newsstands boasted covers featuring people who were transgender and clad scantily. Their headlines touted stories on “Homosexual Women and the Upcoming Legislative Elections,” and offered, on occasion, homoerotic fiction inside its pages.

Publications like Die Freundin (The Girlfriend); Frauenliebe (Women Love, which later became Garçonne); and Das 3. Geschlecht (The Third Sex, which included writers who might identify as transgender today), found dedicated audiences who read their takes on culture and nightlife as well as the social and political issues of the day. The relaxed censorship rules under the Weimar Republic enabled gay women writers to establish themselves professionally while also giving them an opportunity to legitimize an identity that only a few years later would be under threat.

“Reading stories about other queer women was such a powerful way that women came to terms with their own queerness,” Laurie Marhoefer, a professor of history at the University of Washington, told me. “That was super important for women more than for men because men would just have more opportunities to find other queer people.” Marhoefer, who first learned of these publications as a graduate student in Berlin in the 2000s, is part of a growing group of academics focusing on this oft-forgotten moment in German history.

Such research is part of a wider interest in the Weimar Republic, bolstered by recent TV shows like Transparent (which drew connections between the 1920s and modern-day queer identity) and the gritty Babylon Berlin, whose characters include a female sex worker who spends her days as a detective. Benjamin Tallis described the appeal of these depictions in New Perspectives: “The visceral thrill of watching 1920s Berlin as a creative, decadent socio-cultural mecca, beset by suffering, and haunted by myriad ghosts yet alive with possibility, is tempered by the knowledge of the political abyss that awaits.”

Although these fictional tales tend to romanticize this interwar period, the primary source documents that miraculously survived the period of the Third Reich and subsequent and repressive Cold War years provide a richer and more complicated picture.

There were some twenty-five to thirty queer publications in Berlin between 1919 and 1933, most of which published around eight pages of articles on a bi-weekly basis. Of these, at least six were specifically oriented toward lesbians. What made them unique is the space they made for queer women, who had traditionally been marginalized on account of both gender and sexuality, to grapple with their role in a rapidly changing society. (The concept of the “new,” albeit straight, woman in the Weimar Republic has been researched broadly, including by Rüdiger Graf in Central European History, who writes that it reflected a crisis of masculinity following defeat in the First World War as well fears over the country’s future when women were putting off getting married and having children.)

An issue of German lesbian periodical Die Freundin, May 1928 via Wikimedia Commons 

In these interwar years in Germany, queer and transgender identity became more accepted, in large part thanks to the work of Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish doctor whose Institut für Sexualwissenschaft focused on issues of gender, sex, and sexuality. At the same time, women in Germany were making strides toward greater independence and equity; they gained the right to vote in 1918, and feminist organizations like Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine cultivated space for women in public spheres, encouraging their advancement in politics. As Sara Ann Sewell writes in the journal Central European History, the German Communist Party created the Red Women and Girls’ League in 1925 to attract more women and working-class people, particularly through organizing factory workers.

More generally, German women were becoming increasingly empowered. Queer people—including women—rallied around the abolishment of contemporary sodomy laws. This struggle “created a wider climate of publication, activism, and social organization that was much more embracing of different types of queer and trans lives,” according to Katie Sutton, an associate professor of German and gender studies at the Australian National University.

Like Marhoefer, Sutton came upon the Weimar-era lesbian publications in Berlin and was surprised that there wasn’t more engagement with these magazines or with the queer history of the Weimar Republic more broadly on the part of academics in the English-speaking world. Exceptions included the notable work of historian Claudia Schoppmann and her 1996 Days of Masquerade and Heike Schader’s 2004 Virile, Vamps, und wilde Veilchen (Virility, Vamps, and Wild Violets). The latter focused on the queer tropes that proliferated in lesbian magazine fiction of the time, and their creation, according to Sutton, of “codes of lesbian desire and lesbian eroticism” through color, flora, smells, and body parts, notably mouths, lips, hands, and breasts.

For its part, magazine fiction of the time challenged some of the restrictions of class and race in its love stories. A 1932 issue of Die Freundin, for instance, includes a story about a relationship between the German Töpsdrill and the Moroccan Benorina. Exoticizing of the “other” was common; Sutton points to another piece of fiction published in Ledige Frauen (Single Women) in 1928 about Helga, a German coffee importer, who falls for Nuela, a servant from Java. Notwithstanding the white, sometimes racist perspectives of the narrators, such stories offered compelling renderings of women-centered utopias.

Outside of fantasy, these publications also created a space for readers to assert themselves in the real world through personal ads and event listings. There included cream puff eating contests, ladies and trans balls, and lake excursions on paddle steamers. In fact, aspects of lesbian culture also seeped into the mainstream, particularly when it came to fashion, with a rise in the popularity of short haircuts, straight skirts, and pantsuits. There was little difference between the imagery in mainstream fashion magazines and the masculinized aesthetic eroticized in the queer ones. The “hint of queerness” in the mainstream, Sutton said, was “sexy and fascinating, but also a bit scary and potentially off putting.” A popular element in lesbian publications, the monocle was similarly charged, and, Sutton says, “a queerly coded, quite masculine symbol of owning the gaze.”

From the lesbian magazine Liebende Frauen, Berlin, 1928 via Wikimedia Commons 

Such sartorial choices were in keeping with debates in the lesbian magazines of the time around the “extent that masculinity might be seen as hierarchically superior to that of the feminine lesbian women,” according to Sutton. Moreover, these debates foreshadowed the butch/femme debates of the 1980s and 1990s and the border wars of the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

Style was particularly significant for trans women and men who in the Weimar Republic defined themselves with a variety of terms: both as transvestites and masculine women who wore men’s clothes but identified as women. Trans people were given space in both their own magazines and even in some of the lesbian ones, highlighting a sense of cross-identity camaraderie. Die Freundin had a regular trans supplement highlighting these voices.

In a 1929 issue, a writer named Elly R criticized the treatment of trans people in mainstream media, referencing sensational coverage of men wearing their wives’ wedding dresses. “Everywhere in nature we find transitional forms, in the physical and chemical bodies, in the plants and the animals,” she wrote. “Everywhere one form passes into another, and everywhere there is a connection. Nowhere in nature is there a delimited, fixed type. Is it only in man that this transition should be missing? As there is no fixed form in nature, a strict separation between the sexes is also impossible.”

From the lesbian magazine Liebende Frauen, Berlin, 1928 via Wikimedia Commons 

These magazines were resilient, a testament to the strength of the communities they served. Still, they faced challenges. The 1926 Harmful Publications Act was intended to impose moral censorship on the widespread pulp literature sold at kiosks and newsstands, including the queer publications, which often featured nude photographs.

The Catholic and Protestant Churches as well as public morality organizations and conservative politicians led the fight against what they called “trash and filth literature.” As Klaus Petersen explains in a German Studies Review article, the list of materials, which included at least seventy works on sexology and “filth literature,” could still be sold, just not to those under age eighteen. While “the instrument was blunt and [its] impact minimal,” the restriction was boosted by members of religious and youth groups that checked up on newsstands to see what material was visible or advertised to children. (This is not a far cry from the Nazi book burnings that would occur just a few years later.) But the law also spurred a counter-campaign by writers, publishers, intellectuals, and leftist political activists who objected to these limitations, as Petersen explains.

“This coalition of protest groups against infringements of the freedom of expression considered the Index a simplistic and entirely ineffective means to avoid an honest discussion of the fast change in social attitudes and moral values and campaigned against it as an unconstitutional instrument of suppression.”

Despite their relative progressivism, these publications also represented a rather narrow, bourgeois segment of the German population. Even if women had greater access to education and publishing opportunities, the women who enjoyed this greater access were largely urban elites. Little if no space was given to proletarian struggles. “Middle-class values of respectability and citizenship shaped the political agenda, with contributors drawing on the powerful language of national inclusion in formulating their demands of legal and social acceptance,” wrote Sutton in an article in German Studies Review.

It’s also important to note that whatever sexual liberation the LGBTQ+ community enjoyed was at the discretion of the state, whose goal was to control its members. This was seen in the Transvestitenscheine (“transvestite certificates”) handed out by the German police to protect against the arrest of those cross-dressing in public. Between 1908-1933, dozens of such passes were distributed. They also guarded against arrests for sodomy law violations and played a role in a 1927 battle over legalizing prostitution, largely aimed at preventing the spread of venereal diseases.

That said, the plight of sex workers was largely excluded from consideration in the publications in question, and mentions of their readers’ privilege were few and far between. Still, a 1929 Die Freunden article cautioned readers: “Don’t go to your entertainments while thousands of our sisters mourn their lives in gloomy despair.”

More notably, these magazines gave precious little foresight into what was to come in Germany: the attempted extermination of all who did not fit the Aryan ideal. That, of course, included lesbians, some of whom perhaps took steps to save their own skin. Ruth Roellig, who wrote for Frauenliebe and published Berlins lesbische Frauen (Berlin’s Lesbian Women) in 1928, a first-of-its-kind travel guide to queer Berlin, published a second book in 1937. Soldaten, Tod, Tänzerin (Soldiers, Death, Dancer), an anti-Semitic screed, proved to be Roellig’s last book, though she lived until 1969. Selli Engler, a lesbian editor who founded the magazine Die BIF – Blätter Idealer Frauenfreundschaften (Papers on Ideal Women Friendships), wrote Heil Hitler, a play she sent directly to the führer.

As feminist and queer activism grew in Germany in the 1970s, so too did interest in the Weimar period. In 1973, Homosexual Action West Berlin began to collect flyers, posters, and press releases in an effort to create a comprehensive archive of lesbian history. The group eventually morphed into Spinnboden, Europe’s largest and oldest lesbian archive, with more than 50 thousand items in its holdings, magazines among them. Katja Koblitz, who runs the archive, says the existence of these lesbian periodicals is invaluable.

“These magazines were in one part a sign of the blossoming and of the richness of the lesbian subculture in these days,” she said. “Reading these magazines was a form of reassurance: Here we are, we exist.”


Support JSTOR Daily! Join our new membership program on Patreon today.

The post Publishing Queer Berlin appeared first on JSTOR Daily.








В депо «Чита» будет установлен первый цифровой весоизмерительный комплекс системы подачи песка под колесные пары локомотива

В мэрии назвали условия присвоения Элджею звания почётного жителя

Лермонтовские места: не только Кавказ

Виниры для исправления прикуса


UFC Abu Dhabi live blog: Shara Bullet vs. Marc-Andre Barriault

Kolo Muani: Juventus prepare new offer but face Man United and Chelsea threat

The Great Indian Kapil Show: Raghav Chadha reveals telling Parineeti Chopra to manifest he will never become the PM; says ‘Yeh jo bolti hai wo ulta hota hai’

Juventus and Roma weigh up McKennie & Cristante swap


Utrace запускает услугу по валидации IT-систем для фармацевтического рынка

В Орловской области в реке утонула женщина

стела Освободителям Ростова

«Деловые Линии» сократили сроки авиаперевозок по более чем 4400 направлений по России


Первый трейлер Battlefield 6

Brütal Legend is free in honor of Ozzy Osbourne, but only for 666 minutes

Ninja Party можно предзаказать в мобильных маркетах с релизом в конце июля

«Если бы у Наруто и AC Shadows был ребёнок»: Разбор англоязычной версии Where Winds Meet



Потерянная библиотека, подземный город и бункер Сталина: какие секреты хранит Кремль

Возобновлены прямые рейсы из Москвы в Пхеньян

Адвокат Гаврилова раскрыла, чего добивается семья Тиммы после его смерти

Остался только страх. Пашинян хочет ударить по Москве, но "удавка" сдерживает


В Санкт-Петербурге обсудили внедрение ИИ в разработку и оптимальные корпоративные архитектуры

Пловец из Москвы погиб во время заплыва на Волге

На МКАД авария затруднила движение авто

Что известно о задержках рейсов в аэропортах РФ 28 июля 2025 года


Мария Багреева: павильон «Экономика Москвы» откроется в «Музеоне»

Подельники террористов из "Крокуса" планировали взрыв: Следователи установили время и место

Сергей Семак оценил игру Мирлинда Даку в матче с «Зенитом»

Уважили чиновников и военнослужащих: в Госдуме рассказали об осеннем повышении зарплат


Боузкова одержала победу на теннисном турнире в Праге

Рахимова обыграла Шарму и вышла в основную сетку турнира WTA в Монреале

Калинская повысила свои позиции на 17 мест в рейтинге WTA

Калинская достигла финала турнира в Вашингтоне


Пока вы спали:. Для снижения американских пошлин с 30% до 15 % Еврокомиссия пообещала США полностью заместить нефть и газ из России на американский СПГ и ядерное топливо, заявила глава ЕК фон дер Ляйен

Что известно о задержках рейсов в аэропортах РФ 28 июля 2025 года

Прогноз погоды на сегодня, 28 июля

Анатолий Гарбузов: Сезон отпусков: московские ...


Музыкальные новости

Актер Калягин назвал работу с Высоцким одним из счастливейших периодов жизни

Концерт Валерия Гергиева предложили провести в Вероне

Певица Татьяна Тесля возвращается из Чехии в Россию

В мэрии назвали условия присвоения Элджею звания почётного жителя


Семь воздушных судов 28 июля прилетают во Владивосток вне расписания

Остался только страх. Пашинян хочет ударить по Москве, но "удавка" сдерживает

Возобновлены прямые рейсы из Москвы в Пхеньян

Адвокат Гаврилова раскрыла, чего добивается семья Тиммы после его смерти


"Локомотив" победил "Краснодар" в российском чемпионате.

ИИ в Подмосковье резко снизил количество жалоб на незаконную торговлю

Состав тамбовского ФК "Спартак" пополнился двумя новыми игроками

«Деловые Линии» сократили сроки авиаперевозок по более чем 4400 направлений по России


Канал, о котором мечтали несколько веков...

На МКАД движение транспорта затруднено из-за ДТП

В Кот-д'Ивуаре в результате аварии с участием автобуса и самосвала погибли 16 человек.

Движение в поселке Восточный ограничили из-за пожара


Путин поздравил Жапарова с юбилеем подписания декларации о союзничестве.

Путин в День ВМФ прибыл на территорию Главного Адмиралтейства в Санкт-Петербурге

СМИ: Путин на этой неделе отправил США ominous сигнал.

«Подводная лодка, демонтрированная Путину, произвела шок на Западе»


Приговор экс-руководителю компании по производству вакцин против ковида был смягчен.



Подозреваемый в деле бывшего руководителя вакцинного производства подписал контракт с Министерством обороны.

Кот-массажист получает 80 тысяч рублей: какую работу доверяют животным

Приговор экс-руководителю компании по производству вакцин против ковида был смягчен.

Пьяный сантехник устроил дебош в столичной студии косметологии из-за жалобы


Киевский режим применил все 18 пакетов санкций ЕС

Зеленский настаивает: встреча с Путиным до конца августа с участием Европы

Запад ударил Зеленского по самому больному месту – кошельку: Киев показательно лишили 1,5 миллиардов помощи


Росгвардейцы обеспечили безопасность футбольных матчей в Москве

27 июля 2012 года открылись XXX летние Олимпийские игры в Лондоне

Канал, о котором мечтали несколько веков...

В САРАТОВЕ ПРОДОЛЖАЕТСЯ МАСШТАБНАЯ ВСЕРОССИЙСКАЯ ВЕДОМСТВЕННАЯ АКЦИЯ «КАНИКУЛЫ С РОСГВАРДИЕЙ»


«Беларусь-1»: Лукашенко дал интервью одному из американских СМИ

Лукашенко получил приглашения от стран Латинской Америки и Азии для визитов.

Лукашенко дал интервью одному из американских СМИ


Собянин поздравил работников центров госуслуг с профессиональным праздником

Собянин в День работника МФЦ поздравил сотрудников центров госуслуг Москвы

Собянин: На территории промзоны «Кирпичные улицы» будет создана социнфраструктура

Сергей Собянин. Главное за день


Сняла скальп и утопила на глазах зрителей: как и почему косатка Тиликум начала убивать

Канал, о котором мечтали несколько веков...

Самолёт совершил первый прямой авиарейс из Москвы в Пхеньян

В Феодосии ликвидировали пожар на площади


Пока вы спали:. Для снижения американских пошлин с 30% до 15 % Еврокомиссия пообещала США полностью заместить нефть и газ из России на американский СПГ и ядерное топливо, заявила глава ЕК фон дер Ляйен

«Не планировал». В Петрозаводске судят экс-полицейского, который задушил и сжег женщину

Прикрыл срам бородой. Голый мигрант бегал и кидался на москвичей: подробности инцидента

Прогноз погоды на сегодня, 28 июля


70 участников СВО в Архангельске показали мотивацию выше госслужащих — Цыбульский

В Архангельске представили киноальманах «Север, я люблю тебя!» по произведениям современных писателей

В Архангельске началось обучение бойцов СВО, сообщил Цыбульский.

Путин дал указание рассмотреть проблемы онкологии в Архангельской области.


Сколько пассажиров прибывают в Крым летом на поездах ежедневно

Прогноз погоды в Крыму на 27 июля

В Крыму из-за дыма от пожара столкнулись девять автомобилей

К парню с костылем подошли трое с требованием уступить. Он был готов, но заступилась бабушка по соседству


Уважили чиновников и военнослужащих: в Госдуме рассказали об осеннем повышении зарплат

Этот российский бренд автозвука работает с 1900 года

Сергей Собянин назвал инновационные разработки, которые внедрили в Москве

Николай Стариков: 453 года назад произошла Битва при Молодях














СМИ24.net — правдивые новости, непрерывно 24/7 на русском языке с ежеминутным обновлением *