Phew, that’s over!

The end of February was very busy (hence the lack of bloggage). Following up on the panel at Bristol University, I was at Bath University on Thursday to give a repeat of my Trans History talk. It didn’t get quite the audience it should have done because the local UKIP parliamentary candidate was on campus at the same time and some of the students felt honor-bound to go along and represent, a decision that I wholeheartedly support. However, we did have several people attending from outside of the university, which was very pleasing.

On Friday I headed back to Bristol to give a trans awareness talk at Southmead Hospital. This was a repeat of an event I did last year. I’m pleased to report that the audience was bigger this time, and included some counselors and an actual doctor. Here’s hoping that I have done some good.

That evening Out Stories Bristol put on a talk by a friend of ours from Bristol University, Dr. Josie McLellan. The subject of the presentation was gay life in East Berlin prior to the unification. You can read a version of it at Academia.edu. The story of the Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin (HIB) is fascinating, in particular the way in which it operated very openly, on the grounds that the Stasi would find out about them anyway so they might as well not bother hiding.

From my point of view, the most interesting part of the story was that played by a trans woman, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. She owned a large house with extensive grounds on the outskirts of Berlin. The HIB used to hold meetings and parties there, and Josie had film of them dancing (to Abba, naturally) at one. Von Mahlsdorf was something of an historian herself, running a museum at her property. Her collection included the bar from a Wiemar era gay club, which she re-assembled in her basement for the benefit of her gay friends.

The biography of von Mahlsdorf on Wikipedia suggests that she was even more remarkable. A teenager during WWII, she ended up killing her Nazi father in self-defense. I note also that her family has attempted to erase her trans identity since her death.

Yesterday I was in Bristol again for the final event of this year’s History Month. Of course that was all about launching Out Stories’ next project, so doubtless I’ll still have plenty to keep me busy. Also I have already started work on next year’s History Month events. You’ll hear more about that in due course.