#queer german culture

[lanotteviene]

anyway it's funny in an interesting way how the internet turned Kafka into the sad boy with an existentialist + romantic flavour instead of the author of seminal works about alienation & the confusing, painful contrast between what society deems normal and what Isn't. how the rules that establish that divide aren't made clear, how to the marginalized they seem ever-changing, impossible to grasp, surreal to the point of despair.

if you've ever felt overwhelmed by the absurdity of a system that seems legitimately against you instead of for you, if you've had days or months or years where language or cultural barriers have made you feel wrong to your core, if you've dealt with so much stress or mental illness or abuse that you've struggled to recognize yourself in the mirror his work talks about your struggles and would probably speak to you

#this is a very resonant theme for queer and/or young people #and for good reason -- the latter group he was downright referring to in the metamorphosis (a work ostensibly about the clash between older #generations and the younger #wounded and lost #one he was part of). Kafka wasn't merely sad per se #he was a marginalized person - both ethnically/religiously and linguistically #as a German-speaking jewish man in Czechoslovakia #he was doubly alienated; #stuck in the ghetto and forbidden from interacting with the German minority in Prague while also not part of the cultural Czech majority #and that alienation followed him in his domestic life in the form of a wounding distance from his own parents and their generation #literature #franz kafka

[tygerland]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Hanna Schygulla Berlin 1980, by Alfred Eisenstaedt.

#berlin alexanderplatz #1980s #film #rainer werner fassbinder #cinema #hanna schygulla #actress #berlin #people #movies #photos #b&w #portrait #80s #alfred eisenstaedt #director #queer #german cinema #art history #culture #🎬

[pinkvalkyri]

Weimar Germany is my Roman Empire

#weimar republic #I know it was extremely flawed and chaotic #but god it was so ahead in queer culture and they had begun a burgeoning Afro German community thanks to jazz #and it was succeeded with that bloody dragon #weimar germany

[ashintheairlikesnow]

I have two new books.

One of them has a lot more dicks than the other.

It's probably not the one you think it is.

#bookworm #weimar Berlin #weimar #berlin #history #queer history #gay history #queer culture #roaring twenties #currently reading #reading #books #bookblr #this is all for research #definitely #lgbt history #new york city #germany #german history

[schlock-luster-video]

On December 23, 1933, Victor and Victoria premiered in Berlin, Germany.

Here's some new Renate Muller art!

#victor and victoria #viktor und viktoria #reinhold schünzel #renate muller #1930s film #lgbtqia #queer cinema #queer film #queer culture #musical #musical comedy #1930s #german film #movie art #art #drawing #movie history #pop art #modern art #pop surrealism #cult movies #portrait #cult film

[lightningfilledsaber]

saw someone unironically call jjba "unproblematic" and I'm fucking screaming laughing over it. one of the main characters allied with a literal nazi. say what the fuck you want about jojos I'm not gonna pretend like there's not a lot of good things about it but uh. that's a pretty significant problem in the fucking series. just sayin

#mud rambles #I don't know a lot of the details of jojo's just as a disclaimer but that's exactly why I've avoided it #that and. the vampire thing in relation to the again. Literal nazis. don't know the details but like hello. blood libel. #stroheim literally described as dying like 'a proud german soldier' AT FUCKING STALINGRAD #dog. we can talk about how warped the word problematic has become and how consuming 'problematic' material doesn't make you an awful person #but that's not the point. you can't call a fucking media that had its main characters ally with a fucking nazi 'unproblematic' just because #it has queer characters lmfao #again. i recognize there's a lot of good shit about jojo's and i dont think anyone is awful for watching it #i don't even think it's a bad series at all and i recognize it's got huge cultural impact #but again. you cannot unironically call it 'unproblematic' like fucking hello #if you wanna enlighten me about details feel free to but do not come at me like 'WELL AKTCHUALLY' i will not be getting into discourse over #a fucking anime

[iwillfuckingdoitdarling]

Autism culture is being queer and attracted to all genders, yet specifically hyperfixating on that one man. Short or long term, that man is a comfort to you, a source of pleasure, and the best companion to stim with or to.

#this about a certain German vegan daddy long legs #but kind of applies to every man I’ve ever hyperfixated on #this fixation is why my mom still thinks I’m straight lol #no I just think he’s neat #and sexy I won’t deny it #autism #autism culture #actually autistic #autism culture is #queer #queer culture #queer culture is

[iamthekarmapolice]

love that my circle of irl friends and acquaintances is currently either people getting married in 2024 or people who are decidedly single

#another friend is getting married next year so i texted my friend 'guess who's getting married' #and she said 'yeah i know' #turns out we were both talking about two different people we know getting married next year #and normally i literally wouldn't care but this News made my mom beg me to 'keep an open mind' about marriage #only good thing about this waiting for the visa nightmare is that i can wail at her to not do this rn and she will back off #also @german consulate BLEASE give me my visa i NEED to be out of the country next year i am TOO queer for straight indian marriage culture #i swear i'll pay taxes and contribute to your country's economy please just get me out of here for 2024

[tygerland]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder by Helmut Newton. 1980.

#1980s #rainer werner fassbinder #1970s #helmut newton #photos #film #icons #germany #culture #german #beer #gay #smoking #lgbtq #queer history #lifestyle #cinema #queer #director #berlin #filmmaking #berlin alexanderplatz

[ericvivianmatthews]

I have a question about queer culture in Germany and I have no idea what to look up to get the answer I need.

So in English speaking countries there's a stereotype where gay guys will call everyone pet names like "sweetie," "darling/darl" or even "babes".

Is there a similar thing in Germany at all?

I've tried doing a bit of research about queer culture over there in general but most of what I've been able to find is more history which is helpful but not exactly what I need!

#queer culture #germany #german #idk what else to tag lol

[schlock-luster-video]

#victor and victoria #viktor und viktoria #reinhold schunzel #musical comedy #german film #1930s #queer film #queer cinema #queer culture #german cinema #romantic comedy #movie art #art #drawing #movie history

[hadeantaiga]

Statements that can exist simultaneously:

Being Jewish and being trans are not comparable 1:1.

The Holocaust was not about trans people. Yes, some of the people targeted were queer. But that was an extension of Hitler's general disdain for "degeneracy" and the downfall of German culture, and he blamed all of that on the Jews.

What we are seeing in the USA right now is clearly identifiable as the build up to a genocide.

The Holocaust and the building genocide against trans people are not comparable 1:1. Both of these situations are terrible and awful, but they are terrible and awful in different ways.

Things are not as bad in the USA for trans people right now as they got for Jews during the Holocaust. This does not mean things are not bad, deadly, or traumatic. We are not playing the oppression olympics here, we are trying to bring back hope.

That's because a genocide against trans people in the USA has not yet happened and we can still stop it.

[katrafiy]

I think about this image a lot. This is an image from the Aurat March (Women's March) in Karachi, Pakistan, on International Women's Day 2018. The women in the picture are Pakistani trans women, aka khwaja siras or hijras; one is a friend of a close friend of mine.

In the eyes of the Pakistani government and anthropologists, they're a "third gender." They're denied access to many resources that are available to cis women. Trans women in Pakistan didn't decide to be third-gendered; cis people force it on them whether they like it or not.

Western anthropologists are keen on seeing non-Western trans women as culturally constructed third genders, "neither male nor female," and often contrast them (a "legitimate" third gender accepted in its culture) with Western trans women (horrific parodies of female stereotypes).

There's a lot of smoke and mirrors and jargon used to obscure the fact that while each culture's trans women are treated as a single culturally constructed identity separate from all other trans women, cis women are treated as a universal category that can just be called "women."

Even though Pakistani aurat and German Frauen and Guatemalan mujer will generally lead extraordinarily different lives due to the differences in culture, they are universally recognized as women.

The transmisogynist will say, "Yes, but we can't ignore the way gender is culturally constructed, and hijras aren't trans women, they're a third gender. Now let's worry less about trans people and more about the rights of women in Burkina Faso."

In other words, to the transmisogynist, all cis women are women, and all trans women are something else.

"But Kat, you're not Indian or Pakistani. You're not a hijra or khwaja sira, why is this so important to you?"

Have you ever heard of the Neapolitan third gender "femminiello"? It's the term my moniker "The Femme in Yellow" is derived from, and yes, I'm Neapolitan. Shut up.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about the femminielli, and I want you to see if any of this sounds familiar. Femminielli are a third gender in Neapolitan culture of people assigned male at birth who have a feminine gender expression.

They are lauded and respected in the local culture, considered to be good omens and bringers of good luck. At festivals you'd bring a femminiello with you to go gambling, and often they would be brought in to give blessings to newborns. Noticing anything familiar yet?

Oh and also they were largely relegated to begging and sex work and were not allowed to be educated and many were homeless and lived in the back alleys of Naples, but you know we don't really like to mention that part because it sounds a lot less romantic and mystical.

And if you're sitting there, asking yourself why a an accurate description of femminiello sounds almost note for note like the same way hijras get described and talked about, then you can start to understand why that picture at the start of this post has so much meaning for me.

And you can also start to understand why I get so frustrated when I see other queer people buy into this fool notion that for some reason the transes from different cultures must never mix.

That friend I mentioned earlier is a white American trans woman. She spent years living in India, and as I recal the story the family she was staying with saw her as a white, foreign hijra and she was asked to use her magic hijra powers to bless the house she was staying in.

So when it comes to various cultural trans identities there are two ways we can look at this. We can look at things from a standpoint of expressed identity, in which case we have to preferentially choose to translate one word for the local word, or to leave it untranslated.

If we translate it, people will say we're artificially imposing an outside category (so long as it's not cis people, that's fine). If we don't, what we're implying, is that this concept doesn't exist in the target language, which suggests that it's fundamentally a different thing

A concrete example is that Serena Nanda in her 1990 and 2000 books, bent over backwards to say that Hijras are categorically NOT trans women. Lots of them are!

And Don Kulick bent over backwards in his 1998 book to say that travesti are categorically NOT trans women, even though some of the ones he cited were then and are now trans women.

The other option, is to look at practice, and talk about a community of practice of people who are AMAB, who wear women's clothing, take women's names, fulfill women's social roles, use women's language and mannerisms, etc WITHIN THEIR OWN CULTURAL CONTEXT.

This community of practice, whatever we want to call it - trans woman, hijra, transfeminine, femminiello, fairy, queen, to name just a few - can then be seen to CLEARLY be trans-national and trans-cultural in a way that is not clearly evident in the other way of looking at things.

And this is important, in my mind, because it is this axis of similarity that is serving as the basis for a growing transnational transgender rights movement, particularly in South Asia. It's why you see pictures like this one taken at the 2018 Aurat March in Karachi, Pakistan.

And it also groups rather than splits, pointing out not only points of continuity in the practices of western trans women and fa'afafines, but also between trans women in South Asia outside the hijra community, and members of the hijra community both trans women and not.

To be blunt, I'm not all that interested in the word trans woman, or the word hijra. I'm not interested in the word femminiello or the word fa'afafine.

I'm interested in the fact that when I visit India, and I meet hijras (or trans women, self-expressed) and I say I'm a trans woman, we suddenly sit together, talk about life, they ask to see American hormones and compare them to Indian hormones.

There is a shared community of practice that creates a bond between us that cis people don't have. That's not to say that we all have the exact same internal sense of self, but for the most part, we belong to the same community of practice based on life histories and behavior.

I think that's something cis people have absolutely missed - largely in an effort to artificially isolate trans women. This practice of arguing about whether a particular "third gender" label = trans women or not, also tends to artificially homogenize trans women as a group.

You see this in Kulick and Nanda, where if you read them, you could be forgiven for thinking all American trans women are white, middle class, middle-aged, and college-educated, who all follow rigid codes of behavior and surgical schedules prescribed by male physicians.

There are trans women who think of themselves as separate from cis women, as literally another kind of thing, there are trans women who think of themselves as coterminous with cis women, there are trans women who think of themselves as anything under the sun you want to imagine.

The problem is that historically, cis people have gone to tremendous lengths to destroy points of continuity in the transgender community (see everything I've cited and more), and particularly this has been an exercise in transmisogyny of grotesque levels.

The question is do you want to talk about culturally different ways of being trans, or do you want to try to create as many neatly-boxed third genders as you can to prop up transphobic theoretical frameworks? To date, people have done the latter. I'm interested in the former.

I guess what I'm really trying to say with all of this is that we're all family y'all.

#transgender #third gender #hijras #femminielli #trans women are women #trans solidarity #trans rights #transmisogyny #transunity #transunitism #this is what trans unity looks like

[txttletale]

niceys positive anon!! i don't agree with you on everything but you are so clearly like well read and well rounded that you've helped me think through a lot of my own inconsistencies and hypocrises in my own political and social thought, even if i do have slightly different conclusions at times then u (mainly because i believe there's more of a place for idealism and 'mind politics' than u do). anyway this is a preamble to ask if you have recommended reading in the past and if not if you had any recommended reading? there's some obvious like Read Marx but beyond that im always a little lost wading through theory and given you seem well read and i always admire your takes, i wondered about your recs

it's been a while since i've done a big reading list post so--bearing in mind that my specific areas of 'expertise' (i say that in huge quotation marks obvsies i'm just a girlblogger) are imperialism and media studies, here are some books and essays/pamphlets i recommend. the bolded ones are ones that i consider foundational to my politics

BASICS OF MARXISM

friedrich engels, principles of commmunism

friedrich engels, socialism: utopian & scientific

karl marx, the german ideology

karl marx, wage labour & capital

mao zedong, on contradiction

nikolai bukharin, anarchy and scientific communism

rosa luxemburg, reform or revolution?

v.i lenin, left-wing communism: an infantile disorder

v.i. lenin, the state & revolution

v.i. lenin, what is to be done?

IMPERIALISM

aijaz ahmed, iraq, afghanistan, and the imperialism of our time

albert memmi, the colonizer and the colonized

che guevara, on socialism and internationalism (ed. aijaz ahmad)

eduardo galeano, the open veins of latin america

edward said, orientalism

fernando cardoso, dependency and development in latin america

frantz fanon, black skin, white masks

frantz fanon, the wretched of the earth

greg grandin, empire's workshop

kwame nkrumah, neocolonialism, the last stage of imperialism

michael parenti, against empire

naomi klein, the shock doctrine

ruy mauro marini, the dialectics of dependency

v.i. lenin, imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism

vijay prashad, red star over the third world

vincent bevins, the jakarta method

walter rodney, how europe underdeveloped africa

william blum, killing hope

zak cope, divided world divided class

zak cope, the wealth of (some) nations

MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES

antonio gramsci, the prison notebooks

ed. mick gidley, representing others: white views of indigenous peoples

ed. stuart hall, representation: cultural representations and signifying pratices

gilles deleuze & felix guattari, capitalism & schizophrenia

jacques derrida, margins of philosophy

jacques derrida, speech and phenomena

michael parenti, inventing reality

michel foucault, disicipline and punish

michel foucault, the archeology of knowledge

natasha schull, addiction by design

nick snricek, platform capitalism

noam chomsky and edward herman, manufacturing consent

regis tove stella, imagining the other

richard sennett and jonathan cobb, the hidden injuries of class

safiya umoja noble, algoriths of oppression

stuart hall, cultural studies 1983: a theoretical history

theodor adorno and max horkheimer, the culture industry

walter benjamin, the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction

OTHER

angela davis, women, race, and class

anna louise strong, cash and violence in laos and vietnam

anna louise strong, the soviets expected it

anna louise strong, when serfs stood up in tibet

carrie hamilton, sexual revolutions in cuba

chris chitty, sexual hegemony

christian fuchs, theorizing and analysing digital labor

eds. jules joanne gleeson and elle o'rourke, transgender marxism

elaine scarry, the body in pain

jules joanne gleeson, this infamous proposal

michael parenti, blackshirts & reds

paulo freire, pedagogy of the oppressed

peter drucker, warped: gay normality and queer anticapitalism

rosemary hennessy, profit and pleasure

sophie lewis, abolish the family

suzy kim, everyday life in the north korean revolution

walter rodney, the russian revolution: a view from the third world

#ask #avowed inframaterialist reading group #i obviously do not 100% agree with all the points made by and conclusions reached by these works #but i think they are valuable and useful to read

[saintjosie]

i’m gonna cave and say one more thing about demilypyro because it irritates me to no end that people are accusing me of lacking reading comprehension when imo the actual issue is a tremendous lack of historical context and how out of touch people are with how absofuckinglutely devastating christianity has been to the modern world, especially for people of color.

But sure, some christians and weirdos online think trans people are icky so it's not real, probably. lol.

THIS is the part of her post i have tremendous issue with. it’s not her coping with humor. and i hope it’s obvious that i think transphobia is bad.

christians have done SO so much more harm than just thinking that queer people are icky. because before colonization happened, queerness was common and accepted, and in many cultures, even revered.

but then guess what, the roman empire happened. and then after the byzantine empire happened.

and then after that the still very much alive institutionalized catholic church rooted it’s cancer in the world.

and then after that, the british, french, spanish, portugese, german, italian, and yes, dutch (being particularly relevant, demilypyro supposedly being from the netherlands) empires happened.

and of course, we now have america.

and thus through conquest, bloodshed, and genocide, white people spread christianity to literally every corner of the world and with it, christian values of homophobia and transphobia.

as a second generation korean immigrant, first generation american, and the eldest child of a pastor, i am directly impacted and incredibly traumatized from white colonialism.

so yeah, it pissed me off more than a little bit how quick people are to accuse me of lacking reading comprehension and jumping to defend someone who made at best, a carelessly offensive and at worst, horrendously privileged comment.

if you don't have to think at least a little bit everyday how horrendously fucked up things are because of christianity, then that is an immense privilege.

i stand by what i said and i hope that more people seek to actively decolonize themselves instead of reveling in passive ignorance.

#josierants #tw christianity #demilypyro #zero tolerance policy for white people shit