[Content and trigger warning: sexual violence, queerphobia, racism]
2020 is over. And our first reaction might be to go “Finally!”. Because the year already got off to a shitty start with the leak of the voyeuristic videos secretly taken at the left-wing alternative festival “Moni’s Rache“. Since then, several cases of sexualised violence in left-wing spaces and by perpetrators claiming a left-wing identity have become known.
It continued with the femicide in the Auwald, the anger, the grief, and the pain it caused.
We ourselves are confronted with queer hostility every day, institutionally, structurally, and personally. Seemingly powerless, we had to watch how in neighbouring Poland the rights and dignity of queer people are trampled underfoot and how more and more municipalities declared themselves as so-called “LGBT ideology-free zones”. All in the context of a backlash of ultra conservative Catholicism under the PiS party. This party wants to take away the right of FLINTA* people to decide about their own bodies and is now aiming for a de facto ban on abortion, already limited under strict abortion laws. Things don’t look any better in Orbanist Hungary: de facto de-recognition of trans* identities, adoption ban for same-sex couples and also a first “LGBT ideology-free zone”.
On February in Hanau, happend a racist, right-wing motivated murder of ten people. While we are still in mourning, right-wingers are preparing death lists and procuring weapons in preparation of a D-Day. Almost weekly, new right-wing extremist connections in the police and the Bundeswehr are revealed, which are passed off as “individual cases”.
Internationally, the images of the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and many others committed by US police officers have reached us. But also in Germany BIPOCs have to fight against everyday racism, racial profiling and police violence.
Meanwhile in Nigeria, the #EndSARS movement is calling for the disbandment of the police force known for torture, abductions, rapes, assaults and executions.
By March, Corona had arrived in our country as well. In addition to the health threat and the now hundreds of Corona deaths per day in Germany, measures were taken to contain the pandemic. This also meant that many places in the queer community had to be closed indefinitely: bars, clubs, saunas, dark rooms, queer club rooms, ball rooms, etc.
The state even helped to destroy queer feminist spaces like the Liebig34 house project in Berlin with its police repression apparatus . People were forcibly put on the street and made homeless for the interests of investors.
For us, such places are spaces of retreat from cis-heteronormativity and queer-hostile discrimination and offer protection from violence. This is were we have the opportunity to develop freely and empower each other. Without those spaces, the world felt and still feels lonelier and more hostile for many queers. To contain the virus, we also had to limit our direct social relationships. For queer people, however, these quite often take place outside the bourgeois nuclear family or normative concept of the monogamous couple. Therefore our interpersonal relationships usually extent further than within the allowed “two households”. Meeting fewer people is a necessity that puts a psychological strain on us, but which we also follow out of solidarity to protect others, especially those belonging to risk groups.
At-risk patients, such as people with chronic illnesses or disabilities, were and are particularly affected by the contact restrictions. The Corona virus means potential danger to their lives, which is why self-isolation had to be particularly strict and social contact became the exception. The unsolidary behaviour of mask refusers, Corona deniers and “Querdenker” or insufficient containment measures all meant for those people to be locked up in their own flat for an even longer period of time.
The fact that not everyone can “stay at home” in a pandemic is shown by the overburdened so-called “essential workers”, for which politicians have nothing more than a round of applause. As the squatting action in Habersaath-Straße in Berlin made obvious, forced evictions and homelessness are connected. On the one hand we have vacant homes and overpriced rents, on the other the overcrowded, inhumane and sickening conditions in refugee camps in Moria as well as, once again, the hundreds of drowned in the Mediterranean in 2020. In those situations, we have to ask ourselves the honest question: Why is it that one human life suddenly is worth more than that of another?!
But fruitful synergies can also be formed from anger, sadness, pain and the longing for utopias. At this point, we want to talk with you about some groups, events and protests that have stayed especially in our minds throughout 2020. Things that have given us strength and allow us to look forward with confidence to the near future.
Just before the pandemic and its accompanying containment measures turned our lives upside down, we experienced another vocal and empowering Feminist Fighting Day on 8 March.
Against everyday racism, the continuities of colonialism, the inhumane treatment of refugees and the murders of BIPOCs by police officers in the USA, Germany and worldwide, the angry Black Lives Matter protests spread like a wildfire. They also spread to Leipzig, where more than 15,000 people took to the streets on 07th June of 2020. The whole protest was self-organised by Black people and people of colour, supported by groups like the ISD Leipzig and the BIPOC group at the University of Leipzig (statt bipoc university group.
In order to draw attention to the situations of queer BIPOCs, to exchange and to empower, the rally “Black Queer Pride: Stand up, Speak up, Show up” by Series Be: took place the 4th of July 2020 at Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz. A touching, creative and militant start for the queer political rallies and demos still to come in the following months.
After the CSD Leipzig could not parade through the city as usual this year, some of us felt depressed at first. At the same time, however, this offered the opportunity for a more political and powerful alternative with the aim of giving people from different backgrounds a chance to speak and making the protest accessible to all. With this goal in mind, “Queering Defaults” was founded in June 2020 as a queer-intersectional action group. Emerging from a queer telegram group, it brought people together, who not only were critical of existing Pride structures, but also wanted to put their political aspirations into practice.
After barely six weeks of preparation and without even knowing each other personally beforehand, we managed to organise a queer-intersectional weekend under the motto “The Future is Intersectional – Queer Perspectives” from 24-26th of July 2020 full of different events.
On Friday and Saturday, a dozen workshops took place. The topics were Drag King/Quing, Queers in Prison, Violence Experiences of Queers in Saxony, Bi/Pan Empowerment, Voguing, DJing, Anti-Semitism in Queer Spaces, Fat Acceptance, Twerking and Walking in High Heels.
At this point, we would like to thank all those who offered workshops and the spaces we could use! Several times the workshops resulted in networking, e.g. for mutual bi/pan empowerment or to further practise deejaying.
After the last workshops, we also had a panel discussion on Saturday evening about how we can make queer spaces more inclusive. A big thank you to all the panel speakers and Treffpunkt e.V. for the space!
The final event was a powerful demonstration that went through the city with more than 500 participants. With no less than a dozen speeches on very different topics, we made our criticism available to all. You can still read them on our blog, including translations into different languages (featuring a contribution from a queer BIPOC and a queer Muslim perspective, as well as speeches on fat shaming, discriminatory behaviour on gay dating apps and the situation of queers in Poland). This was framed by a long list of or own demands, great music and angry demo slogans. The group “diversif”, an intersectional BPOC collective founded in 2020, supported us as an awareness team.
After our demo someone exclaimed on Insta they had accidently ended up at the “anarcho-queer faction of the community”. That’s an ascription we can happily live with.
Afterwards we all had to take a breath, happy about the weekend, but exhausted. The panel, the demo and the discussions around it also showed us our own mistakes, overlooked barriers and insensitive behaviour in preparation and implementation [of the weekend]. This was a painful insight, but one from which we will learn in a joint reflection process and want to do better in the future. Therefore, a huge thank you to all the people who gave us constructive criticism and brought us closer to the answer to our panel questions through concrete advice. In this way, it was made possible for us to start a learning process.
This event weekend can only be seen as a prelude, because we want to organise more workshops, panels and demos in the future!
But there was not much time to catch breath. On 13.08.2020, under the title “#PolishStonewall – Solidarity is our Weapon”, a demonstration in solidarity with the queers and FLINTA* in Poland affected by discrimination and police violence went through Leipzig. It did not remain with that one demo. Instead the group “ACT Ost” was founded, which since then has taken a stand on- and offline against queer hostility and the precarious situation regarding abortions in Poland. ACT Ost organised rallies in front of the Polish Institute at the market place, high-profile solidarity-actions, videos and appeals for donation.
In the beginning of September there was yet another queer event by Series Be: on ifz grounds and “Rainbow Beam”, a queer open air film series with great talks in Leipzigs east took place.
In addition not only a sex workers’ action week in Berlin from 31 August to 7 September took place. On Leipzigs Richard-Wagner- Platz the Lovemobile of the Leila counselling centre provided information about sex work.
With all these rallies, demonstrations and actions, we all succeeded in giving queer issues and intersectional perspectives more representation in the media this year. In the course of our demo alone, a large number of journalist articles, television and radio reports were produced. We brought queer perspectives into already existing struggles and alliances by contributing a speech to the rally of “Leipzig nimmt Platz” against the “Querdenker:innen” on 21 November. Most recently, we also spoke at the rally “Solidarisch durch die Krise” on 19.12.2020 about the non-functioning STI prevention in Leipzig during Corona.
In our opinion also patriarchal, domestic and sexualised violence have been addressed more on the streets this year. Examples of this are the memorial and solidarity actions in the context of the femicide in the Auwald, the catcallsofleipzig actions, but also the demos and rallies that have only taken place in the last few weeks. There was a rally along the Eisi after a femicide in Delitzsch, as well as a spontaneous rally in Lene-Voigt-Park after an attempted rape there and the No More actions. However the rally at the corner of Eisi and Elisabethstraße after a rape during daytime in a busy neighbourhood is particularly memorable. The shared trust that was shown to the people speaking completely spontaneously about their own experiences at the microphone let us know that we are – indeed – not alone.
In Berlin thousands gave vent to their displeasure about the eviction of Liebig34 and in Leipzig we recently heard about solo actions like the colour tagging of the Padovicz properties in the north and east of the city. In Bremen the anarchaqueerfeminist squatting of the Dete turned into a (temporary) contract of use for a queerfeminist centre – how cool!
On 30.12. we also received the news that abortion has finally been legalised in Argentina after decades of struggle.
However in the middle of a pandemic people are still put on the streets or – like on the borders of the EU – are eaten by rats in closed up quarters without adequate sanitation and health care. Yet the occupation of the Luwi71 at the end of August and subsequent occupation attempts and sham occupations showed us how much space we actually have. No one would have to sit on the street or in overcrowded camps! The houses and flats should belong to those who need them and not to those who bought them cheaply, deliberately let them fall into disrepair and then luxuriously renovate them. This is exactly how people who can no longer keep up with these prices, are being forced out of the city.
When priorities are set in this way sometimes anger is taken to the streets in resistance. That being said the riots taking place for three days in a row after the eviction of the Luwi and the “Soziale Kampfbaustelle” in the beginning of September are comprehensible.
In October we commemorated the ultraright terrorist attack in Halle one year ago, which was directed against the synagogue and cost two people their lives. The trial finally came to an end in December, but there is still a long way to go to come to terms with it. Once again, the police’s investigative errors were too serious and the question of what role the perpetrator’s mother in particular played in his radicalisation was not investigated enough.
The perpetrator has now been convicted. But this does not mean that the anti-semitism combined with racism and anti-feminism that were the basis of his crime have disappeared from the world.
With tears in our eyes, feelings of powerlessness and anger we commemorated the 331 known (!) people who have been murdered worldwide in 2019 for transphobic motives at the Trans Day of Remembrance/Trans Day of Revenge on 20 November.
This review of the year cannot be complete. Too much has happened. Both bad and good. Although 2020 has been a really shitty year in many ways, our selection shows that resistance to patriarchal, queerphobic, racist, ableist, antisemitic, anti-Muslim, classist and misanthropic conditions formed on various levels. There have been powerful demonstrations, solo actions, occupations and the formation of new groups. In fact a lot has happened this year regarding queer activist and queer feminist actions in Leipzig. We are hoping that in 2021 we can build on this together with all of you to show what we no longer put up with and to demand what is rightfully ours.
Let’s all continue to fight, struggle and look out for each other!
In this spirit, we wish you and all of us a resistant and queerfeminist year 2021.
CHEERS QUEERS!,
Queering Defaults
[Text on the endcards:
The year 2020 was full of a lot of shit, setbacks and attacks on us and our self-determination.
Nevertheless, many new groups were founded, projects were started, networking happened.
We were loud, queer and powerful!
Thank you!
To all the activists who attacked the Cistem in 2020 with a queer-intersectional lens.
And also to everyone who stood in solidarity with them!
On that sense:
Much strength to you to continue our struggles against the overall shit in our diversity!
Queer Love to you,
Queering Defaults and friends.
The future is intersectional!
Songs featured in the video:
Human Drama – planningtorock
Good As Hell – Lizzo
Stay Black – TT The Artist, Maya Simone
I’m Coming Out – Diana Ross
Refuse To B.A.M. – HC Baxxter
Patriarciao – Łaja Szkło (ft. Aktivistis)
Kiss My Fist – Dream Nails
Vogue – Madonna
Queer As In Fuck You – Dog Park Dissidents]