#Didn't help. I chose to empathize the way he seemed to have lived everyday and that apparently he even felt safe enough to out himself?

[doppelnatur]

My speech for TDOV 2023 shortened to the part about Hetzeldorfer:

This year's trans* day of visibility’s theme is "We have Always been here". It is something that we, as trans* inter* and non-binary people, have to emphasize over and over again because our history has often either been destroyed, as in the example of the book burnings, or not even recognized as trans* history in the first place.

We are made invisible and then accused of being an entirely new trend. This narrative is used over and over again to attack the rights of trans* children and youths in particular. But even though it has always been difficult to live openly as trans, there have always been people like us. That's why today I want to talk about the lives of two people who exemplify the lives of many everywhere.

The first person is Katharina Hezteldorfer from Nürnberg, whose story we unfortunately only know because of his execution in 1477 in Speyer. We do not have anything written by him on the records, so we don't know how he would have viewed and labeld himself, and even if we did, it wouldn't be the same terms we use today. We do know from court documents, however, that some women always saw him as a man, even after he was outed in court.

He came to Speyer with a nobleman's daughter, whom he refered to as his sister, but who was most likely a partner. He himself also probably belonged to an upper class and presented himself as a man throughout his time in Speyer, and was accepted as such in his social circles until he felt safe to talk to acquaintances about the nature of the relationship with his "sister".

In the late Middle Ages in Speyer there was significant fear mongering about people who dressed in the clothing of the opposite sex and laws were first passed against women dressing as men, then men dressing as women. Laws and fears that would hardly have existed had persons like Hetzeldorfer been rare, individual cases. Katharina Hetzeldorfer's conviction stands in the context of these fears of crossing gender boundaries.

For us today, however, his death also stands for the survival of many other butch, trans, and non-binary persons at the time, as their punishment was indeed a rare one; court documents are just, unfortunately, one of the rare sources about the lives of trans* and queer persons in the 15th century.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31477757_Female_Sodomy_The_Trial_of_Katherina_Hetzeldorfer_1477 Helmut Puff „The Trial of Katharina Hetzeldorfer“ Im verlinkten Dokument kann sowohl die Analyse und Kontextuelle Betrachtung Puffs gelesen werden, als auch die Original Gerichtsdokumente auf alt Hochdeutsch und in englischer Übersetzung.

it's me and my two sources on medieval strap-ons against the world