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“Other people might think differently about this…”

Content: Joke is trans* and P.’s foster dad. P. now knows quite a lot of things about trans*, some of which he learned from Joke, others he learned elsewhere. Sometimes Joke and P. talk about trans*. Some of these conversations are pleasant, others less so. In this text, Joke tells us what he_ thinks about these conversations.

“Other people might think differently about this…”
A contribution by Joke Janssen
Translation by femmateurin

In the beginning, I was trans* and my new flatmate was seven years old. Then society interfered. Now, I’m 34 and P. is perhaps culturally queer; or something like that. Wandering thoughts on trans* and being a parent.

Recently, P. told me during dinner: “Joel and Kubilay have figured you out by the way.” Even though I was clear about what they had “figured out”, I still asked him what he meant by that. “They have noticed that you’re actually a girl.”

Talking about trans*
I’ve always felt conflicted about the conversations resulting from anecdotes like this. P. has been a part of our family [1] for five years and has known the word trans* [2] since he was seven years old. And just as my being trans* is not a completed or finished project for me, it is not one for him. So for almost five years, we have every once in a while talked about trans*, and with P. becoming older, our conversations are changing and becoming deeper. I feel that this is right and important; trans* for me is shifting, transforming, woven with threads of my ever-changing life, thus talking about it also changes, adapts, and is being renegotiated.
At the same time, these conversations are unpleasant for me because they are not (if they have ever been, which I doubt) a child’s innocently curious questions about the new and the unknown which occurs in life every once in a while. Our conversations are situated in a space made up of conflicting ideas about the world. P.’s questions, his commentary and statements sometimes speak of a subcultural, queer [3], and trans* knowledge. But of course, he also lives a life elsewhere and at other times the hetero-normative, gender-binary-normative outlook on trans* pierces his words. Just as in the example at the beginning, which is no better than every “Can I ask you a personal question?” at work or the expression of pride in the other person’s eyes when they think they have worked out my alleged gender, assigned at birth. At work and between adults, however, I can make use of unfriendly curtness [4] (which is very effective) or from a sociological perspective observe how many times my conversational partner can put their foot in it within a mere two sentences. The situation between me, an adult trans* person, and the eleven year old for whom I have taken responsibility is an entirely different one, however.
When talking with P., I feel like I have to respond more to these statements on the margins, even though it can be annoying sometimes because it means leaving my comfort zone. But when we decided to foster a child, this crossing of boundaries was probably part of the deal. The alternative, telling him less, is not an alternative at all: I participate in P.’s life just like he participates in mine. This familial process of learning together, with one another, and about one another frequently crosses boundaries in any case; we are too close, we have too much time and not enough space to leave these complicated matters unspoken. And that’s okay because we are probably going to spend some more time [5] together. Our home [6] is supposed to be a place where we can negotiate matters together and these matters can be talked about. That also means talking about trans*. Partly, my life with P. means, therefore, re_phrasing trans*, time and time again and suitable to his age, and making it accessible as far as that is possible.

Putting trans* into words?
The task of expressing trans* and making it graspable in a hetero-normative, gender binary society with a language structured along those lines [note by the translator: German assigns a grammatical gender to nouns, thus expressing and reinforcing the gender binary. “Der Mensch”, human, for example is grammatically male, while “die Sonne”, the sun, is grammatically female.] is one which neither P. nor me can master at the moment. P. certainly has a much more differentiated view on trans* than many people who think they are more mature than him. Nevertheless, stories like the one I mentioned at the beginning indicate the trenches separating my own understanding of trans*, what I have been able to articulate so far, from the dominant knowledge about trans*. When I talk to P. about his story, we only touch upon a fraction of this set of issues; at the same time, I experience a mental chain reaction. I might tell him perhaps why I think the choice of the words “figuring out” is a bit unfortunate and why I, why my body and my gender cannot be “figured out”. I might refer to the dominant understanding that trans* folk hide their real gender, hoodwink the other, deceive them, and play a game of charade of false genders [7]. The notion that trans* folk can be “figured out” has eventually made its way to P., in the first place bestowing upon him and friends the supposed knowledge that I’m hiding something. What P. is learning in this instance, is that there are signs of a truth about gender which will reveal themselves to you if only you look long and hard enough. At this point, he becomes an arbiter of a hegemonic discourse [8] about trans* which attempts to put to order, to oppress, and to refute as wrong and misguided the alternative knowledge circulating in our family. I’m also forced to intervene if I do not want my own experience to be presented as wrong. “Other people might think differently about this…” So it does not seem like it is just P. who disturbs the peace of our otherwise so subcultural family: Each and every one of us at times carries fragments of this discourse which make it difficult to articulate matters differently, sub-culturally. P.’s story is merely very graphic; moreover, he finds himself in a very particular position, which I’m going to talk about in more detail at a later point.
I’ve said that conversations about trans* are very exhausting for me. At the same time, I feel it is crucial to be responsive to his points of view in conversation. On the one hand, there are, after all, my own years of experience with trans*, giving me a wealth of ways in which to bring about normative clashes. On the other hand, P. offers his very own perspective, one which I might not have even considered yet. To be precise, I should be glad that P. still turns to me. My job as a parent at this point is to have very specific conversations with him which he might not have with many other people.

Dominant speaking – what we are dealing with
What I can read from P.’s story and what at the same time marks off the space in which P. has to make sense of his subcultural knowledge, is the hetero-normative search for the real gender of trans* folk. In a society which knows only men and women, people search for the “gender assigned at birth”, the “original”, the “biological”. For all the, rather dubious, love for trans* folk (I was asked about Conchita Wurst after my last talk.), the fact still remains that trans* cannot be understood, cannot even be thought. The dominant discourse about gender has to sort every individual into either one of two ideas. This is still about the power of genes, hormones, about reproductive organs, or whatever else is beneficial to the logic of a gender binary at this point in time. Our alleged gender, assigned at birth, can determine how we see the world, how we articulate ourselves, how we look, and what we can achieve. This is especially true for trans* or inter folk, who have lost their respective ways at some point and who have to be brutally bent into shape in one way or another, who have to be cut down to size, who have to normalised.
The notion of trans* which is reflected in P.’s story and to which I would like to offer an alternative thinks about trans* bodies as bodies on their way from one point_gender to another. Trans* bodies are bodies in transit, so to speak, merely presenting a passage from male to female or female to male [9]. The binary logic cannot accept any deviant interpretations of body. In the dominant narrative, after all, gender is two-dimensional, a temporary connection between male and female at best, an either-or, always in transition. Multi-dimensional notions of trans*, trans* bodies as facts, with a sense of self and a reality of self, not on a journey from a to b, merely on a journey, are nearly impossible to articulate in our linguistic reality. Especially not between chocolate ice cream and toothbrushes while keeping the cat from sneaking into P.’s wardrobe. And how could they be when my own attempts of articulating, of lifting my body out of a logic of binarisation, are like walking on sand – leaving painstaking traces, gone with the next wave. My imparting knowledge and experience to P., and myself, is fragmented narration, our thinking about trans* is always thinking in the making.

Cultural queerness
My attempts to convey a different kind of thinking, of thinking trans*, are accompanied by a whole different type of responsibility: P. is growing up in a family thinking and acting critically_queer and he is developing a world knowledge which means he can be called “culturally queer” (Garner 2005: 198). Abigail Garner draws on Stefan Lynch’s terminology and applies it mainly to adult, heterosexual children of lesbian or gay parents [10]. Cultural queerness describes those who have been socialised in non-heterosexual family groups and who in hetero-normative settings have to perform complex translations and adaptations in order to be understood. As children coming from gay and lesbian families are wandering between worlds, so to speak, Garner also refers to them as bicultural (ibd.). I adopt the term cultural queerness and expand it critically to include the concept of queer used in this article to make it applicable to contexts outside of identitarian politics. Cultural queerness, in my opinion, grasps very well the conflict which P. faces already when telling me his story.
P. himself is culturally queer because in five years of living with us he has been considerably influenced by our critical_queer views on matters. And that is not because we send him to queer school from dusk to dawn but results simply from our living together. We share a certain way of making sense of things which would be nearly unintelligible outside our family. That is the case in most families; in our family, however, our domestic knowledge refers to a subcultural archive. Thinking queer and trans* in some instances is P.’s bread and butter. Even more, our family context relies in a fundamental way on the idea that another way of thinking and acting is possible in the first place.
P.’s cultural queerness, however, time and time again positions him as other in a hetero-normative, gender-binary society. In these moments, when the dominant and the subcultural knowledge clash, and there is an abundance of those moments, P. is required to quickly calculate and adopt his position. He can foreground either the one or the other knowledge while doing so. And indeed, P. is then also faced with anti-trans* and anti-queer hostilities, even though he does not himself identify as trans* or queer. The dominant knowledge on a regular basis invalidates the other truth of his family context, declares it to be less valuable, to be deviant_sick_twisted_crazy. In the example mentioned above, it is possible for P. to be caught in a conflict between foster parents and friends for which no good solution can be found, simply because he feels he is required to defend me. For P., like for other children, his key carers, which includes us, are of existential importance because the quality of his life essentially depends on us. And P., like other children, therefore, at times feels it is on him to defend us, even if adults do not like to think about this structural dependence [12] very much and_or even trivialise it. In any case, P. is consistently required to defend a queer and trans* family context in the face of a hetero-normative, gender-binary world, mainly in situations in which none of us are there to come to his aid. The anti-trans* and anti-queer hostilities directed at P. specifically, frequently overlooked by adults, call into question his family context, his world knowledge, and his home.
When P. tells me his trans* anecdotes, it is, therefore, my task not only to reflect how these experiences affect me and how I can distance myself from them; with my long years of trans* experience, I, as a parent of a culturally queer child, am required to work with P. on the right tools with which he can encounter anti-trans* and anti-queer hostilities directed at him. In this short conversation at the dinner table we work on a complex system of alternative knowledge which can consolidate P.’s cultural queerness as well as sharpen my queer and trans* perception of the prevailing conditions. And our archive of knowledge is a work in progress, solidifying with every new experience and discussion. Luckily, all these experiences with his friends, do not mean that P.’s queer knowledge becomes set in stone as normative, something we dreaded when he started living with us. On the contrary, rather: By discussing experiences, both of us are continuously moving, changing directions again and again.

[1] I define family here as a group of people who have decided to take responsibility for one another in some way and call themselves a family. Children do not necessarily have to be in the picture.
[2] My article focusses on a particular notion of trans*, namely the one that fits me. My notion of trans* entails questioning femininity and masculinity where they are considered to be natural, as well as male and female as biologically determined categories. For me, this is the only way to position myself beyond merely two categories, to create a space for something different, and to explore this. I’m explicitly speaking for myself, therefore, but I hope that my text makes it possible to create a space for connection.
[3] queer: When talking about queer in this article, I do not refer to an identity, a different term for gay or lesbian, an abbreviation such as LGBT. I consider queer here to be an anti-identitarian way of political and critical action, critical thinking and acting in opposition to what allegedly is normal, to what has-always-been-this-way, to the unquestionedly unambiguous, to the dichotomous categories. I’m thinking of a notion of queer which refuses to collaborate with mechanisms of oppression and instead challenges habitual power imbalances, especially amongst ourselves. I’m fully aware that this is not (yet) what queer practically entails. At the same time, I know that queer for many (and for myself) is a welcome and liberating self-designation. The contradiction remains and I hope to not neglect it.
[4] unfriendly curtness: Not altogether that effective. At work I find myself in a sales person-customer dynamic and I am forced to be friendly and accommodating, even when the interaction shifts away from the goods I’m selling. Which it generally does very quickly. While the connection between trans*, physical “ambiguity”, my position as a sales person in the adult entertainment business, and a hetero-normative drive to explore is exciting for the customer, it does not really have any connection to what I’m talking about here and will have to be discussed in a different text at a different time.
[5] some more time: The perspective of living together in foster families is painted by insecurity. We cannot say how many years P. is going to stay with us. In this, foster families are only different at first glance from families based on “blood ties” or adoption. A family setting is insecure in most cases and it’s impossible to predict when a child (or any other person) is going to leave the family group. This fact is frequently swept under the rug in non-foster families, while in many foster families it makes up a constantly present background noise.
[6] home: My home is exactly the place where I can negotiate. Home is only in some cases – in my case very much so – demarcated by a front door; it also grows in a meta-space in conversations, friendships, and mutual trust.
[7] charade of false genders: You only have to look at how dominant language refers to trans* folk: We only appear or seem to be x (because actually we are y). We are frequently depicted while doing particularly masculine things (working out!) or particularly feminine things (going to the hair dressers!) because we try so hard. And if it weren’t for the confusingly small hands, the unusual broad shoulders, or being especially emotional, you’d never have thought what we really are. But you have to hand it to us: Well done! (Well done! was an actual compliment a customer once paid me because she almost! did not realise what I actually am. Another full article, I guess…)
[8] Hegemonic discourse refers to a society’s prevailing knowledge on a subject matter. The discourse determines what we can know and sets the discursive boundaries of what can be said within which we can and have to move about more or less unharmed. Discourses are created by human beings but at the same time go beyond the individual and cannot easily be shifted by a single person. It is easy for us to go along with the discourse and considerably more arduous to go against it. Different knowledge works in subcultures but is penalised by the majority, for example, by declaring proponents of subcultural knowledge to be insane_sick or because their words are no longer understood.
[9] Male to female / female to male: The diverse and at the same time limiting ways in which it is possible to talk about trans* also reflect the notion of a transition from one gender to another: FtM, MzF [note by the translator: the z here stands for the German “zu”, “to”], trans man, woman with a transsexual past.
[10] Garner writes about “gay parents”. What she means is LGBT family groups, which she also researches, while at the same time limiting her analysis to children with gay or lesbian parents.
[11] Garner talks about families in which the parents are not or cannot be read as heterosexual (cf. Garner 2005, 122ff). The parents of those who participate in her studies were all gay, lesbian, bi, or trans*. Garner concerned herself, therefore, mainly with sexual identities and forms of desire. Possible hetero-normative attitudes, which do not have to be tied to heterosexuality after all (but rather affect us all), are not discussed in Garner’s work, at least not under the label of hetero-normativity. It is possible, however, to draw this information from the family descriptions in her writing.
[12] The dynamics of dependency of children towards their key carers are far-reaching and are frequently abused. For those interested in power imbalances between adults and children, see Ritz (no year).

References:
Garner, Abigail (2005): Families Like Mine. Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It is, New York.

Ritz, MichaEla (no year): Kindsein ist kein Kinderspiel. Adultismus – (un)bekanntes Phänomen.
http://amyna.de/amyna-medien/dokumente/Kind-sein_ist_kein_Kinderspiel.pdf (last accessed: August 2014)

Joke Janssen lives*loves*works in Hamburg, at the intersections between arts|politics|theory, which go very well together. His_ favourite activities in addition to everyday life at the moment are ballroom dancing, queer(?) childrens‘ books, and old computer games. At the moment he_ also writes on www.laufmoos.de and can be contacted by email: joke@riseup.net.

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trans*parent

an article by e.
translation by elena.

no justification, but overcoming the inability to speek.
a brave and angry description of an image (date: sometime 2014) of a self-perception as trans* and parent that i fought for
i am trans*parent
i am trans* and a parent for my kid = trans*parent
i have the urge to write about myself, because i don’t know any other people that live under the same circumstances as i do.
if i had to describe myself i would first talk about my identification process surrounding my gender identity, my body and my place within the relation to my child and my friends. Then i would add all the attributes that are self-determined, constructed, determined by others who create layers that form an image of me. a complex image. an image that i can’t describe here as a whole, which i wouldn’t want anyway but is constantly in my mind during my writing process. a confused, queer image.

trans*
do i identify as trans*gender or genderqueer? i don’t want to settle in either of those and define myself – or at least not for ever. This is one of many reasons why i have a hard time ‚coming out‘. I’m afraid to be labeled with a certain role and all its clichés by my social environment (“non-returnable and no power over my identification”), to get a set place in the catalogue in their head and endure their looks full of sympathy, fear or hate.
but i also get a headache from the fear i have around people and environments, where I’m already out, because of what they could see through their transphobic glasses that they were trained to wear and that i sometimes where myself when i look at me. i have learned that people like me are ‚gross‘ and a lot of other things that i don’t want to repeat here for their triggering effect.
sometimes i live in a phase of neglect, but this is impossible to keep up for a long time. sometimes ‚trans‘ is part of my thoughts every second of my day to day life, as a constant roller coaster, i never stop thinking about who i am.
i sometimes go overboard with this, when i paint my whole chest with black acryl colour or when i write ‚who am I?‘ on my forearms in big letters.

trans*parent
adding to that i have been a parent for more or less than a year now. the parent that brought the kid ‚to life‘ – a minimising description of the work and pain that i went through.
others would call themselves ‚mom‘ but i use my first name. i am very happy with my kid, who i love a lot. i am very happy with my best friend, others would say „boyfriend“, the ‚dad‘ of our child, who i love a lot. i am also happy with my friends and the dog, that are part of my family and that i love a lot (this is not a hierarchy)
this being-a-parent brings some huge contradictions and conflicts to me being trans* and the perception of my body.
i experienced breastfeeding as a moment of distress, because of the gendered perspective it has in society and the (real life) gaze on my gendered body.
breastfeeding means exposing my chest (i don’t have any words for what that means for me) and an unwanted state of dependence within my family
breastfeeding is a recurring triggering moment for me because of the made up and unquestioned (and therefore almost unbreakable) connection between breasts and femininity.
Therefore i stopped breastfeeding, which is something i have to and had to justify myself for in this society all the time.
since I’m a parent a lot of people think they have the right – no even the duty – and responsability to interfere in my life

and there are so many aspects in the context of being a parent, where my perception of gender and the mainstreams perception clash. after all i also find the pre- and postnatal gender assignment of my child problematic.
do i confine my kid in ‚his‘ development potential if i refer to ‚him‘ according to ‚his‘ assigned gender as ‚male‘?
the outside world would destroy ‚him‘ if i would raise ‚him‘ with my understanding of gender, against the heteronormative world order. like it destroyed me.
i am walking against walls in these forced gender order.
nevertheless i sometimes find walls that i can tear down or walls that have been torn down before me or (protective) walls, that i build myself – ways, gapes and compromises.

transparent trans*parent
what i want to show the world of my self is my decision. however this decision has consequences for my kid, me and our family.
before becoming a parent i never thought i would or could or had to live ‚out‘ in the open.
honestly, i can’t even imagine living openly in this society: how much pain and how little acceptance and appreciation would follow an outing. too scared of what others would think.
but i can’t live a ‚hidden‘ life if i want to show my kid that i am discriminated against for no reason.
i don’t want that ‚him‘ to learn that being trans* means having a secret. i don’t want to accept society’s rule through my reactions and decisions.
i want ‚him‘ to understand, that what i do is a fight for him and me and us.
i want to give ‚him‘ all the instruments ‚he‘ needs to reflect and decide who ‚he‘ is.
and yes I’m afraid that my decision (that i am also making for ‚him‘) to live more in the open will have consequences that i can’t control and that could lead to ‚him‘ being discriminated against or denied appreciation.
if i let my perception of the world be part of our relationship, people will eye us even more.
those coltish accusation that i have to face make me brave-angry: is it not manipulation if a kid is forced to correspond to a gender category by a fixed set of characteristics, behaviours and expectations?
i think that it would be a lot harder to explain my trans* identity to my kid if i would reinforce societies stereotypes by living a hidden life. i can’t build up a facade without risking ‘his’ love and trust in me and if i want to give ‚him‘ everything ‚he‘ needs to lead a self-determined life.
i can’t keep up a facade infront of the world if that means that ‚he‘ would have to play along and bare the weight of societies norms with me.
so there is little choice for me other than living an open life, to be transparent. the range of this openness is something i decide together with my kid and my family.
being out means giving people a target for attack. but it also means that i fight against those who want to deny us the right to life and love and to fight for the ones that i love.
i live trans*parent.

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Thematic focus: Trans* and parenthood.

Translation by Kim

Preface:
After having placed a main topic in both of the last issues (Issue 6: GirlFags/GuyDykes; Issue 7: Non-relationships/relationships) we once again decided on a thematic focus: Trans* and parenthood.
Since the subject of parenthood from a queer perspective offers many starting points and points of reflection, we decided on putting the focus on the connection between trans* and parenthood. In a society structured by a binary gender system (male/female), parenthood is related to fixed (traditional) role models and expectations. Expectant or present trans*parents especially face stereotyping and discrimination, since they (may) allegedly contradict existing normative role models.
On pages 6 to 27 you will find texts dealing with the thematic focus by different authors. The texts reflect the authors‘ individual perspective. Therefore, not all levels of trans* and parenthood are included in this main topic.

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Editorial Issue no.8: Another actual thematic focus

Translation by Kim

For issue 8 of Queerulant_in, which you are now holding in your hands or reading on a screen, we decided on the thematic focus „Trans* and parenthood“. There is plenty of room for this theme, comprising nine articles and several other contributions, such as comics.
You will find more on this starting from page 4.

Issue no. 8, which should have been published in December 2014, has once again been realized with a great deal of effort. Sadly, our capacities are limited. Additionaly, the increasing demand and in turn the larger edition of Queerulant_in also means publishing costs are higher. Therefore, once again the request to our readers: if you have any means of financial support, please help us!

You can read about our glorious tour on page 46. You will also find some pictures there.

On our homepage (see the pink circle on the right below) you will also find a recording of the different articles from previous issues of Queerulant_In. Some of the current issue’s articles have been recorded in order to reach a broader audience: blind people, people with handicaps in sight, people who do not like to read or who are unable to, who would like to listen to Queerulant_In on the go. You will find the recorded texts as well as the audio recording from the tour (either right now or in the near future) on our homepage.

Another innovation, which is for now available only for two texts, are small summary boxes. These are meant to provide a quick overview and a short summary of the article’s content in simple language.

For feedback, requests for critiques, to have a feature written, to get autographs, readings or any other requests as well as harsh criticisms please refer to kontakt@queerulantin.de – also if you want to write an own piece. Deadline for issue No. 9 will be the 1st of November. You may also send us announcements or digital posters and flyers for queerfeminist and/or trans* events or other emancipatory events between March and December 2016.

Be fluffy (if you want to)!

Information on readibility and the glossary:
Words marked with a „dot“ are explained in the glossary (No Link yet). The respective words are only marked when they first appear in an article.

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Dossier: Issue 8 – Trans* and parent(ship) in English

Queerulant_in, a magazine for queer politics and praxis – now in English (at least in parts)!

Maybe you all know already about Queerulant_in. However, maybe you’ve just stumbled over this site, while searching for an English text on queer. In this case, here is a short explanation:

Queerulant_in is a german-speaking, political, non-commercial (i.e. free of charge) magazine, distributed all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is run collectively by volunteers and everyone who feels like it can partake. Either by sending in Texts, comics, suggestions on improvements or by helping correcting texts.
We bring out one to three issues per year. The latest issue (number 8) had the main topic “Trans* and Parent(ship)”. We try to translate as many texts as possible into other languages, to reduce the barriers for our readers. Since, sadly, we don’t have the funds to print Queerulant_in in other languages as well, we are uploading the English texts on our website. We collect them here in form of a Dossier for a clear overview.

If you don’t know Queerulant_in yet , we want to introduce you about our self-conception.: Because when we talk and write about queer politics and praxis, it is important for us to add a short self-conception. For us, queer is a process, an attitude, a concern, an Identity. Queer can be everything – just not apolitical. Queer can start with your gender identity or with non-heteronormative desires, but it carries on, all the way to the radical, critical questioning of all norms.
Thus, it is important for us to constantly note and discover further power-structures, aiming towards breaking these open and abolish them. Hence, we are against forms of racism, classism, ableism, antsemitism, antiromanyism, islamophobia etc. We want to give voice to marginalized people whose lives are queer.

To keep things simple, we also have introduced a Glossar. It is important for us to be intersectional, to keep in mind and highlight entangled power-structures and -relations. We want to contribute to the development and the upkeeping of a (queer) community. And we hope we did and further can with the following Texts in English – Have fun rummaging through Queerulant_in in English!

Queerulant_in ist ein Magazin für queere Politiken und Praxen – jetzt auch (teilweise) auf Englisch!

Vielleicht kennt ihr Queeulant_in schon, vielleicht seid ihr aber auch zum ersten Mal über diesen Text gestolpert, als ihr nach einer englischen Webseite gesucht habt. Für diesen Fall, hier eine kleine Erklärung:

Queerulant_in ist ein deutschsprachiges, politisches, unkommerzielles (also kostenloses) Magazin, das im ganzen deutschsprachigen Raum ausliegt. Es wird von einem Kollektiv ehrenamtlich betrieben und jede Person, die*r Lust hat, kann mitmachen. Entweder durch das Einsenden von Texten, Comics und Verbesserungsvorschlägen, oder durch Korrekturlesen.
Pro Jahr kommen ein bis drei Ausgaben heraus. Die letzte Ausgabe (Nummer acht) hatte das Schwerpunktthema „Trans* und Elternschaft“. Wir versuchen so viele Texte wie möglich in andere Sprachen zu übersetzen, um die Barrieren für unsere Leser*innen weiter abzubauen. Da wir leider nicht die Mittel haben, Queerulant_in noch zusätzlich in anderen Sprachen zu drucken, werden die Übersetzungen ins Englische nach und nach auf der Webseite ergänzt, hochgeladen und hier gesammelt. Um euch einen einfachen Überblick zu verschaffen, seht ihr im Folgenden das Dossier unserer englischen Texte für die achte Ausgabe.

Für den Fall,dass ihr Queerulant_in noch nicht kennt, findet ihr im Folgenden eine Zusammenfassung unseres Selbstverständnisses: Denn wenn wir über queere Politik und Praxis reden, ist es uns wichtig ein kleines Selbstverständnis beizulegen. Für uns ist queer ein Prozess, eine Einstellung, eine Tatsache, eine Identität. Queer kann alles sein – nur nicht unpolitisch. Es kann bei Geschlechtsidentität und von Heteronormativität abweichendem Begehren beginnen, geht jedoch weiter bis ins radikale Hinterfragen aller Normen.
Deshalb ist queer für uns ein ständiges Mitdenken und Entdecken von Machtstrukturen, mit dem Ziel diese aufzubrechen und abzuschaffen. Wir sind deshalb kritisch gegenüber Rassismus, Klassismus, Ableism, Antisemitismus, Antiziganismus, Islamfeindlichkeit und vieles mehr. Wir wollen marginalisierte Menschen zu Wort kommen lassen, deren Lebensrealitäten queer sind.

Um alles verständlich zu halten, haben wir auch ein Glossar eingerichtet. Uns ist es wichtig intersektional zu sein, also auch auf miteinander verschränkte Machtverhältnisse hinzuweisen. Wir möchten zur Community-Bildung und -Pflege beitragen. In diesem Sinne, hoffen wir mit den folgenden Texten einen Beitrag hierzu zuleisten – Viel Spaß dabei, Queerulant_in auf Englisch durchzustöbern!

1. Einleitung / Editorial.
Translation by Kim.
Link: Here.

2. Vor_Wort* zum Schwerpunkt / Preface on thematic focus.
Translation by Kim.
Link: Here.

thematic focus: Trans* and parenthood.

3. Die Quadratur des Bauches – wie du als Mann schwanger wirst, bist, warst und gewesen sein wirst.
Iko Prinz.
Link: No Translation available.

4. Die Bilderbuchs.
Tsepo Bollwinkel.
Link: No Translation available

5. Wie wachsen Trans*-Teens in Sachsen-Anhalt auf?
Katharina.
Link: No Translation available.

6. trans*parent
e.
Translation by Elena.
Link: Here.

7. „Andere Leute denken das vielleicht anders…“/“Other people might think differently about this…“
Joke Janssen.
Translation by femmateurin.
Link: Here.

8. Trans*sein und die eigenen Kinder.
Asta Dittes.
Translation by
Link: Not yet available.

9. Schleifen in der Zunge.
Nicole von Horst.
Translation by
Link: Not yet available.

10. Menschen, Mythen, MuttIationen – Ein Abgesang (engl.)
als menschverkleidet.
Translation by bleistiftrebellx
Link: Here.

Interviews and more

11. Mein Leben in der Kommune. / My life in a commune
Alicia.
Translation by Jonah Evers
Link: Here.

12. Ich habe die Zurückweisung überwunden.
Corinne.
Translation by
Link: Not yet available.

13. Interview mit Fembooks.
Rene.
Translation by
Link: No Translation available

14. “If I were a boy”: Young Queers in US-Television
Steffi Achilles.
Translation by Elena.
Link: Here.

15. Shabbat Shalom!
Paul Kalt.
Translation by
Link: Here.

Kolumnen. Columns

16. Ezras Advide-Kolumne.
Translation by Jonah Evers.
Link: Here.

17. Trans*- und Tanzkolumne. / Wortbahnhof’s trans* and dance column
Wortbahnhof.
Translation by femmateurin.
Link: Here.

Rezensionen. Reviews:

18. Lifeworlds beyond labels / „Lebenswelten aller Kategorien“ zum Buch „Mind the Gap“ von Marie-Christina Latsch.
Rezension: Claudia Frenkel
Translation by Raptor-Femme.
Link: Here.

19. How Lotta was born (Review) / „Wie Lotta geboren wurde“ zum gleichnamigen Buch von Ka Schmitz und Cai Schmitz-Weicht.
Rezension: Mara Otterbein
Translation by: femmateurin
Link: Here.

20. Glossar. Glossary.
Translation by Kim.
Link: Here.