Photo by Andreas Filla, taken at the Berlin Pride Parade 1994. CC-BY-SA

Hi my trans siblings!

I’m late writing this mega this week, I had hoped to do more research but maybe I can add stuff and re-write this as the week goes on.

This time I’d like to share some information I stumbled across about 20th century trans icon Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. She was born in the Weimar Republic in 1928 and survived Nazi Germany to make it as the most prominent trans woman that I’m aware of in the DDR (GDR or East Germany). There she ran the Gründerzeit museum, dedicated to the founding period of the German Empire and the period of its industrialization. The museum ended up becoming a popular hotspot for the gay and I presume trans and queer scene in the DDR.

She was politically active, having been an unofficial informant of the Stasi which ideally I’d love more information on. Was she helping them identify Nazis? Surely being a trans woman would’ve lured a lot of reactionaries out from behind their masks in her presence. In fact, after the DDR was taken over by the BRD (West Germany) in 1990, it only took about one year before one of the parties she threw at the museum was the target of a neo-Nazi attack, at which point she announced she was considering leaving Germany. She eventually moved to Sweden in 1997, where I believe she lived the rest of her life.

She died of natural causes at the age of 74 during a visit to Berlin in 2002.

This has been more or less a summary of the Wikipedia article on her where I did check some sources, but I really want to learn more about her. I only learned of her in the past couple days, and there is a film about her from 1992 called I Am My Own Woman, by Rosa von Praunheim.

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As a reminder, please do not discuss current struggle sessions in the mega. We want this to be a little oasis for all of us and the best way to do that is not to feed into existing conflict on the site.

Also, be sure to properly give content warnings and put sensitive subjects behind proper spoiler tags. It’s for the mental health of not just your comrades, but yourself as well.

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  • gaystyleJoker [she/her]@hexbear.netMEnglish
    3·
    28 days ago

    HELLO THIS IS THE MEGA SIGN UP POST/LIST POST

    if you have a preferred week please tell me

    Disaster_of_Passion* (5/4 - 5/10)
sodium_nitride* (5-11 - 5/17)
peanutbuttercupola* (5/18 - 5/24)
Shaleesh* (5/25 - 5/31)
GayTuckerCarlson* (6/1 - 6/7)
SwitchyandWitchy (6/8 - 6/14)

    ​ * after name denotes someone who has posted before and will be skipped by first-time posters

  • SwitchyandWitchy [she/her]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
    20·
    29 days ago

    I walked past a window today after putting on my favorite outfit and doing my hair up nice and I almost cried. It’s been 3 years of hrt almost, and 5 years of social transition. I made it y’all. I didn’t just see a woman in the reflection this time, I saw me. I had to keep glancing back, every time I thought I’d be gone, replaced by the unfamiliar image that I usually see, but no. Every time I was there, looking as familiar as when I imagine myself.

    It’s done, it feels like the hard part is over. At least for me, in this one way, I won. I think it was 10 years ago that I convinced myself I couldn’t transition because it was too late or I’d just never be happy with where I’d end up, I couldn’t even imagine a path from where I was to anything I’d want to be. Eventually I realized that I’d have to try, but the doubt always remained. But I beat it, I won against it. Not just in battle day but the whole war. I’m here to stay for as long as I’ve got left, and I’m gonna enjoy the hell out of it.

  • sodium_nitride [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    19·
    30 days ago

    Dying of natural causes at 74 despite living through nazi germany 1 (1871-1945) and nazi germany 2 (1990-now)! That’s a pretty happy ending.

    (Well ok dying at all isn’t a happy ending but immortality does not exist unfortunately)

    The wikipedia article on her has some disgusting framing:

    Her life could be described as that of an outsider who survived, no matter the ruling ideology, during the Nazi period, Communist-controlled East Germany

    Yeah cause surviving the fucking holocaust and surviving a government that let her run a whole ass museum and gave her a mansion rent-free are the same thing.

    • SwitchyandWitchy [she/her]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
      12·
      30 days ago

      Yeah NATOpedia really not beating the NATOpedia allegations. I knew it as soon as I saw this sentence in the intro with not a single citation, “The museum became a popular meeting-point for East Berlin’s gay community, to the disapproval of the East German regime (Stasi).”

      • SwitchyandWitchy [she/her]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
        13·
        30 days ago

        The “regime” disapproved so hard they did basically nothing about it. And even when they were interested in bringing it under government control, they decided otherwise due to resistance from her and community apparently. Who do they think they are listening to their citizens and respecting their wishes? /s

        • BimboChristmas [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          6·
          30 days ago

          Actually, trying to bring this museum under state control was just as bad or worse than being imprisoned for being gay. The state “disapproving” is just as bad legal repression. Anything to make East Germany just as evil as the West.

  • Azarova [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    18·
    30 days ago

    Fun fact: Charlotte von Mahlsdorf had a brief cameo as a bartender at a queer club in DEFA’s 1989 movie Coming Out, the GDR’s film aimed at destigmitizing gay relationships following the sudden reversal of queer policy in the mid 1980s. In that sense, it is a spiritual successor to Magnus Hirschfeld’s 1919 silent film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others).

  • XiaCobolt [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    16·
    30 days ago

    -be me

    -guy at work who is quiet, seems a little odd but harmless

    -surprisingly chill about my transition the whole time, no comments, corrects staff who misgender me

    -no egg vibes at all

    -much later on Facebook see you might be friends with a woman

    -shes very beautiful

    -shes very clocky

    -picture is of her at wedding to the guy at my work

    -mutual friend is a trans friend of mine (I’m not friends with him)

    -huh dudes rock

  • RION [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    16·
    25 days ago

    Came out to my brother, went very very well! Apparently his partner had noticed I’ve been referring to myself super gender neutrally so they’ve suspected something is up.

    My sister had said she expected him to be super accepting to be contrarian to my mom but he was just cool about it period. Funny that my sister would suspect such a mercenary justification for him being accepting when she herself didn’t handle it the best at first.

  • sodium_nitride [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    30 days ago
    final vacation update, mild content warnings
    depressing topic and background transphobia

    Kinda crazy how much “life advice” talk my parents have thrown at me in these past 4 days. Besides just not wanting to ever come back because of this, it’s all fucking useless cause it’s nothing more than passive discouragement and generic platitudes.

    I cannot count the amount of times I’ve been told “you can tell me anything”.

    Even though I’m a coward and a loser, no temptations of theirs will make me betray myself and the woman I have chosen to be!

    Perhaps these words are dramatic, but they are true and I stand by them till my dying breath.

  • RION [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    27 days ago

    Random thought leapt into my mind

    spoiler

    Reflexively going to open the door for a girl cause that’s how I was raised but she grabs my wrist, gives me a chiding look, and holds it open for me instead

    hyperflush