#charlotte von mahlsdorf

[celluloidrainbow]

ICH BIN MEINE EIGENE FRAU (1992) dir. Rosa von Praunheim Half dramatization, half documentary, Berlin native and trans activist Charlotte von Mahlsdorf recounts incidents from her eventful life, from surviving the Nazi reign, to enduring the repression in East Germany, to helping start the German queer liberation movement. (link in title)

[allweknewisdead]

Ich bin meine eigene Frau | I Am My Own Woman (1992) - Rosa von Praunheim

[variousqueerthings]

watched the documentary ich bin meine eigene Frau (I am my own woman) based on the autobiography of charlotte von mahlsdorf, and absolutely wonderful. need to screenshot some of it, but to describe one thing: there was a moment of reenactment where her younger self was having sex with someone who worked at the estate of her great aunt (who had given her the book on transvestites by magnus hirschfeld and said that the two of them should have been born in opposite bodies), and said aunt (using the terminology of the film, an overlap between lesbianism and transmasculinity) is trying to find the worker and is really annoyed

walks in on them having sex and goes "oh i see, carry on" and just leaves again 😂😂😂 i cackled like a witch

[aytvill]

Archive footage of Randall Nott's final performance as Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf (and 34 others) in "I Am My Own Wife" by Doug Wright on March 24, 2019 at the Martinez Campbell Theater.

[goldammerchen]

I read once someone saying that there's two GDR movies about homosexuality, I think it meant the educational film Die andere Liebe (1988), and the theatrical film named Coming Out (1989).

Talking about this, I read this some months ago, that also mentions Charlotte von Mahlsdorf:

Huneke found that during the Cold War era, communist East Germany had more lenient sodomy laws and accepted gay activists’ demands more quickly than its democratic twin. As a result, East Germany contributed significantly to Germany’s pro-gay turn once the country unified in 1990, in some regards more than West Germany did.

West Germany reinstated former Nazis in government and kept the same strict Nazi-era sodomy laws, which criminalized any act perceived to be homosexual, including kissing and touching. As a result, the West German government prosecuted more than 100,000 gay men between 1949 and 1969, of whom over 50,000 were convicted. About the same number of gay people were prosecuted and convicted during the Nazi dictatorship, according to Huneke. East Germany, on the other hand, repealed Nazi-era laws in an effort to be perceived as anti-fascist, and it reverted to the more lenient pre-World War II sodomy law, which only criminalized penetrative sex. And by 1957, East German officials stopped prosecuting consensual adult same-sex relations altogether, Huneke said. “East Germany was sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Huneke said. “On the one hand, it wanted to live up to this anti-fascist legacy, but it was also a brutal dictatorship that didn’t want to appear to be gay-friendly. So they took a reactive approach. In general, they seemed to let gay people be, unless someone who was connected to the regime was accused of being a homosexual.”

aaaalso I found this just now (and more, linking some from the search):

States of (Gay) Liberation in East Germany and West Germany

Shame and Love: East German Homosexuality Goes to the Movies (Kyle Frackman)

The Gay and Lesbian Movement in East Germany: A Timeline of Selected Laws, Events and Activists. Talking about movies:

1971-73: Rosa von Praunheim’s feature film Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt is produced in West Germany...

Jstor: Out of the Closet behind the Wall: Sexual Politics and Social Change in the GDR

[ddrmuseum]

❤️🧡💛💚 Themenwoche »Queerness in der DDR«💙🤍💜💖 Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, Gründerin des Gründerzeitmuseums in Berlin, rettete viele Objekte (Kunstwerke, Möbel, Alltagsgegenstände aus dem 19. Jahrhundert) vor der Zerstörung und Plünderung während des Zweiten Weltkriegs und der Nachkriegszeit. Das Museum entwickelte sich in der DDR zu einem Ort des kulturellen Austauschs und der Begegnung für queere Menschen, das unter anderem regelmäßig von der HIB (Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin) genutzt wurde. Ihr Buch »Ich bin meine eigene Frau«, in dem sie über ihr Leben als Transgender-Frau in der DDR berichtete, wurde als Theaterstück und Film adaptiert. Sie gilt bis heute als eine wichtige Persönlichkeit im Kampf für Toleranz und Gleichberechtigung in der DDR und darüber hinaus. Wir zeigen euch heute diese Kette aus unserer Sammlung, um uns an sie zu erinnern, denn auf vielen Fotos trägt sie eine Perlenkette. Mehr zur Themenwoche »Queerness in der DDR« gibt’s bei Facebook, TikTok und dem neusten Blogbeitrag des DDR Museum. ❤️🧡💛💚 Theme week »Queerness in the GDR«💙🤍💜💖 Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, founder of the Gründerzeit Museum in Berlin, saved many objects (works of art, furniture, everyday objects from the 19th century) from destruction and looting during the Second World War and the post-war period. The museum developed into a place of cultural exchange and encounter for queer people in the GDR, which was regularly used by the HIB (Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin), among others. Her book »Ich bin meine eigene Frau« (I am my own woman), in which she reported on her life as a transgender woman in the GDR, was adapted as a play and a film. She is still considered an important figure in the fight for tolerance and equal rights in the GDR and beyond. Today we show you this necklace from our collection to remember her, because in many pictures she is wearing a pearl necklace. To find our more about our theme week »Queerness in the GDR«, check out Facebook, TikTok and the latest blog post from the DDR Museum. #ddrmuseums #ddr #gdr #ddrgeschichte #queer #pride #berlin #museum #geschichte #perlenkette #vintage — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/d9K4RPs

[esqrever]

Respeitar as histórias trans. Diga sim ao talento trans. Chega de transfake!!

Desde a ação no Teatro São Luiz que o casting transfake tem continuado e a reposição da peça sobre Charlotte von Mahlsdorf volta agora a palco: Respeitar as histórias trans. Diga sim ao talento trans. Chega de transfake! 🏳️‍⚧️

Roubar a história de um povo é uma tática de desumanização dos marginalizados e oprimidos. A maioria das pessoas queer, especialmente as pessoas trans, não conhecem as vidas e as lutas daqueles que vieram antes delas. Esta alienação da história é muitas vezes usada como uma arma contra as pessoas queer, negando a própria condição humana – que tem uma multiplicidade de expressões de género,…

[larryland]

REVIEW: "I Am My Own Wife" at Hubbard Hall

REVIEW: “I Am My Own Wife” at Hubbard Hall

[unateoriadegliautori]

ich bin meine eigene frau (1992)

[jannejohannee]

[postoctobrist]

One really funny thing that TERFs are mad at me about is joking that East Germany had a transgender aesthetic, which is a shame because a) it’s true and b) not just an aesthetic - by the last years of the regime they were explicitly more progressive in some ways than West Germany, and the reunified Federal Republic wouldn’t let you legally change your gender without surgery until 2011!

There’s an interesting case study in trans rights in the DDR in the form of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who was able to live openly as a trans woman even in the 60s at the price of informing for the Stasi. Given that a lot of people informed for a lot less protection than that, it shows that the authorities were minded to accept LGBT people out of some combination of a sense that they could be controlled politically, were a useful cudgel to attack the west with for their homophobia, and and quite possibly some genuine concern for the betterment of humankind etc etc. after reunification von Mahlsdorf got attacked in the street by neo-Nazis and when she died her family insisted she be buried under her deadname. Like everything about the DDR it is a complex legacy

All of which is to say that I’m going to say more things are transgender and you can’t stop me

[variousqueerthings]

also not to be idk. pretentious and yet ignorant i guess, because i don't know enough about japanese cinema of the era. but i really don't want to compare this film to warhol, beyond the superficial (that he did make movies with trans women starring in them, that this began on the tail-end of the 60s), and the queer (gay) cinema that was happening at this time in america, the trifecta of easy riders, midnight cowboy, butch cassidy and the sundance kid, because i don't think it's really speaking as an answer to that

yes this was concurrent and i'm sure there were cross-pollinations of ideas, but i would prefer for it to take me down some other routes.

an obvious reference is its tangent about masks, making me think there's at least a non-zero amount of reference to yukio mishima, so that makes me think about violent masculinities and fascism and heterocisnormativity, but i'm sure there's many more ideas that aren't american-born

also just.. it's better than any warhol film ever was. it's doing way more and way better. maybe i just despise warhol

but now ive gotta think about this murder scene and the trope of the murderous trans woman, because i might challenge that it's doing that as well, but again... references (which, its most obvious reference is greek, see below)

im also curious about the terminology of "gay boys" as translated from the japanese and what its gendered connotations are (does this relate to someone strictly feminine, is it a catch-all queer term, does it say something about how they're expected to present, feel, have sex...? many questions)

some european inspirations: the use of "ach du kleine augustin" ... germany by way of hc andersen? the greek mythology it's playing with (oedepus rex), the name "leda" (again, greek), and the club name "genet" (jean genet i assume). i also feel like our lady of the flowers and funeral parade of roses have some similarities to it...

(just enjoy the shot)

(funnily enough this reminds me of candy darling some years later, but ofc that reminds me of frida kahlo and then im jumping way forwards and thinking of the filipino movie "die beautiful"... anyway)

watching funeral parade of roses and on the one hand i feel quite late coming to this film, but on the other hand think i needed this time to to get it, but also the amount of references that i know nothing about feels like yet another level of understanding to unlock

i didn't know going in just how overt it was going to be about its trans subject-matter. it's interesting to me how recognisable 1960s tokyo is, considering i know very little about it and it's making me think about gender politics in japan as evolving parallel at this point to gender politics to, say, america, which is the 60s i've seen the most of, cinematatically, of this era, with the next being probably france

also i don't think anything quite as bold in terms of (trans)gender themes was happening in either america or england at this point, cinematically, with the exception of the blip that was glen or glenda, which was not well-received

yes, the warhol superstars but cinematically a lot of those movies are messy af, even if the acting is very interesting (flesh, trash, women in revolt) + a large part of it was mockery more than actual exploration of transness, queerness, and gender. germany was going to start making some really interesting movies in the late 70s and 80s and sidney lumet was going to disappoint me in 1975 with dog day afternoon (one of my favourite movies that nevertheless is a letdown on its depiction of a trans woman)

but funeral parade feels more like a trail-blazer -- to be a bit simplistic -- than any of those films, perhaps with fassbinder's Jahr mit 13 Monden (but still, that wasn't until 1978)

anyway will have to see what inspired funeral parade... keep following that thread of trans cinematic language and how its choices were born out of an experimental, surrealist, non-chronological, fluid depictions of time and place and action and relationships

i also think there's a lack of fear of bodies in this that renders the violence of hyperfocusing on trans bodies (in this case transfeminine bodies) moot, because all bodies are simply bodies and it's the 60s and people have a lot of sex regardless of bodies. i dont think it manages this all the time and im sure there's more analysis to be done on a closer watch, but it mostly eschews in my opinion the idea of performance/trickery that pervades so many of these films, i think in part because of its blended genre

[binch-i-might-be]

guys. I went to this tiny museum consisting of a collection of everyday objects from the 18th century with a focus on early music recordings, and the (now deceased) owner of the collection who renovated the whole house basically by herself was a trans woman.

there's a PLAY about her. it ran on broadway! it's called "I am my own wife"!!

her name was Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. the museum is only open two days a week, and the lady did a whole guided tour just for the two of us. they have a little book out of all the couples who got married there (absolutely beautiful house!). lots of gay weddings :)

[elliegoose]

extremely cool that the movie Coming Out (1989) was made and all and it's legitimately a pretty good movie that i would recommend watching even if just because it's historically noteworthy (you can watch it for free from the goethe-institut website here) but wow literally every other queer character in the film is more interesting than the main character. i would rather have watched a movie about basically anyone else in the bar who has a speaking role. it really felt like they wrote the main character to act as a bridge between the straight audience and the queer characters, rather than as a character in his own right with like, a personality that is shown on screen.

i did love that charlotte von mahlsdorf just played herself though. it's cool as hell that she was important enough in east berlin's gay community that she gets featured in the film. trans women rule

[fantabulosabasket]

“Groups of same-sex desiring men who labeled themselves homophiles (a word they thought sounded more respectable than homosexual) cropped up in West Germany in the early 1950s. Unlike similar groups in the United States and other western European countries, however, they quickly faded. By 1960, they had all but disappeared. There was no Stonewall moment in West Germany, no memorable stand against the oppressive policing and sexual morality of those early postwar decades.

Instead, West German politicians reformed the laws banning homosexual conduct in 1969 as part of a broader revision of the penal code. After this legislative change, new gay and lesbian bars, saunas and periodicals soon arose. A radical liberation movement also appeared in those years. But it was strikingly different from its cousin in the United States. Its members opposed the commercial gay scene, viewing it as a barrier to the kind of solidarity that would be necessary to win real social and political change. The groups attacked gay publications, denouncing them as nothing more than “masturbation templates.

...

The East German experience with gay liberation was yet more surprising. Although most Westerners assumed such activism could not possibly have been successful in a communist state, by the end of the 1980s, East Germany could realistically lay claim to being one of the most sexually progressive countries on Earth. In the 1970s, gay men and lesbians began to organize together in East Berlin. While the Stasi, the secret police, denied the group the right to organize in public, these tenacious women and men coordinated house parties, steamboat cruises and birthday dinners. In the middle of the decade, they met Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a trans woman who ran a museum in one of East Berlin’s outer neighborhoods. She offered them the museum’s basement to host their activities, and for several years they “bopped and danced like it was 1904.” This arrangement lasted until 1978, when the East Berlin police forbade the group to continue meeting.

But only a few years later, lesbian and gay activists mobilized again, this time under the umbrella of the Protestant Church, the only nominally independent organization in the communist state. Spreading rapidly across the country, they pressured the regime to change laws and social policies, such as allowing gay men to serve in the military, repealing a law that set a higher age of consent for gay and lesbian sex and making it easier for same-sex partners to find housing together. The government tried cracking down on the groups, but to no avail: They continued to grow in size and number. So worried was the Stasi that its functionaries convinced the East German government to accede to activists’ demands. Stasi officials began circulating memos in 1985 insisting that government bodies address gay men and lesbians’ “humanitarian problems,” that is, taking their complaints seriously.”

   - Samuel Huneke, The problem with a U.S.-centric understanding of Pride and LGBTQ rights: What LGBTQ liberation looked like in East and West Germany and what it teaches us

[orzuie]

I spent my time at uni today researching Charlotte von Mahlsdorf and cried about historical trans women and then I came home and continued reading “The Last Girl Scout” by Natalie Ironside and now I’m crying about fictional trans women