[EN] Viva la Vulva: Our statement on the Dyke March Berlin 22. July 2022
Why?
On 2 July, we had been attacked by trans activists at the Dyke March Cologne. On the same day, we decided to go to Dyke Marches as openly homosexual women from now on.
We stand for lesbians and reject the appropriation of our spaces by men. Because we had to expect attacks by trans activists just for showing the definition of ‘lesbian’, we decided to go in front of the march where the police were and where we could be maximally visible. We also feared that otherwise our ability to participate would not be secured and we would most likely be kicked out before the start, as has already happened with Get The L Out among others.
Our message: lesbian is not a dirty word. Lesbians must be able to be visible without being attacked. We do not fear you and we will never disappear. Lesbians will not go underground again.
This year's Dyke March Berlin ran under the motto "All Dykes* Are Beautiful". The asterisk after 'dyke' means that men are welcome in a lesbian space. It also stands for the conversion of lesbians to 'transmen'. We lesbians are taught that if we love women, we must really be men on the inside: and since recently, not only by conservative parts of society, but also by the "LGBTQ community". Therefore, we should self-harm with the help of so-called "trans health care" by being chemically and surgically mutilated and castrated1.
Young lesbians and lesbians suffering from internalised homophobia are particularly threatened by this new form of conversion therapy. Lesbian spaces are erased, any lesbian who criticises this is excluded, threatened or even attacked. This discrimination does not only come from local groups. It comes from the highest levels of politics.
When men are suddenly welcomed into spaces designated for lesbians, when these same men are told that lesbians are interested in them sexually and that any lesbian who says otherwise is a "discriminatory TERF", this puts lesbians in acute danger. Some of our fellow women have already experienced this first hand.
Instead of criticising them and their fetish, men are validated by Dyke Marches with asterisks as "lesbians".
We demand free speech, not to be attacked and not to be pressured into having sex with men. The complicity of the Dyke Marches must stop.
Course of Events
At the junction Mehringdamm/Yorckstraße we waited for the Dyke March. When the Dyke March Berlin turned the corner with the "ALL* DYKES ARE BEAUTIFUL DYKE MARCH BERLIN" banner, we walked in from the side and led the march with our banner "Lesbian noun a homosexual adult human female".
The organisers stopped the march. The organiser of the Dyke March Berlin walked towards us, overtook us, stood in front of us and made it clear that we had no place at the Dyke March, neither before nor after the main banner. We ran past her, right back to the front. The Dyke March organisers refused to continue the march.
The irritated police (with a special unit for LGBTI-related group-based "misanthropy"), who – except for one police officer who conveyed that we knew "exactly" what the problem was – but did not elaborate when asked – did not understand what was supposed to be offensive about our banner, except that it was perceived as offensive. The police tried to persuade us to leave and then also set about getting us out of the march. This did not happen, however, because in the meantime a discussion broke out on the part of older lesbians who objected to the organiser kicking lesbians out. The first aggressive trans activists joined them.
While we were negotiating, a crowd of aggressive men and women formed around us. Some policemen formed a barrier between us and the trans activists on the pavement.
The moment the train stopped, we became targets. Naturally, trans activists took advantage of the fact that we were on display and tried to attack us.
A woman in black with sunglasses, incited by her male companion, sprinted towards the black banner and tried to jump us. This was only prevented by the quick-witted reaction of one of our women, who became a human shield by turning her back on the attacker and blocking her path with the purple banner. Then, police kept the woman away from us.
We were ordered to leave the street and wait on the pavement until the procession had passed. The angry mob, however, refused to go any further and formed a cluster around us. The police tried to surround us protectively.
The organiser tried at one point to appease the aggressive trans activists.
The sign "You never need to apologise for not liking dick" was stolen by a man.
A bystanding woman who had filmed the theft of the sign was attacked and trans activists shouted at her.
Another bystanding woman, who had a mobile phone in her hand and looked like she was filming, was hit on her cap by a trans activist. Other women intervened. Thus the transactivist belief in guilt by association was on display.
A man in a skirt and green top saw the sign "gender identity is neocolonialism" and spat at the woman holding it. The woman filed a complaint. The man was escorted out of the march by the police.
The trans activists started shouting "Some chicks have dicks, get over it!" and "TERFs go home!" and grabbed us. The police told us that they feared that the trans activists would escalate the situation. Not unjustifiably, as we can see from the violent attacks on us at the Dyke March Hamburg 2022 in a similar situation. We would like to make the comparison of the lynch mob.
Eventually we were allowed to join the march, but only at the back. The police assured our protection. The police told us to take down all the banners for our own safety until the march had passed.
After the procession had passed thanks to the intervention of the police, we joined them at the back with police protection.
Older lesbians joined us and wanted to support us, also accompanied us for a while and helped to protect us from attacks.
Trans activists tried to attack us every time they had the opportunity. Among other things, there were several attempts to set fire to our big banner and one of the lesbians was hit on the back of the head from behind while trying to protect the black banner which was being pulled.
From beginning to end, we walked along for over an hour. Over this period of time, there were so many positive and negative interactions that we cannot list them all here. It is equally difficult to estimate how many charges we had to file in total. It must have been over a dozen.
Again and again, groups of trans activists broke out of the train and chased and threatened us. There was hardly a moment when we were not being chased by a group of trans activists, at least one group was always on us. We never felt safe. Even though we were under police protection, they constantly tried to attack us. This shows very well the criminal energy coming from this movement.
Our participation in the march ended with the police telling us that they could no longer protect us from the constant attacks due to lack of staff. Quote from a police officer: "We just had a [police] group on you and it almost was not enough to protect you from attacks."
The Police
Without the protection of the police in Berlin, it would not have been possible for us to participate, so aggressive was the behaviour of some of the participants. The police had to protect us from the attacks and did so consistently.
Without the police, some situations could have ended badly.
As in Hamburg and Bremen, a visibly confused policeman asked us at the end "on a personal level" what exactly the problem with our banner was and whether we knew why we were getting these reactions.
The Stewards
At one point, two stewards stopped us and tried to get us to take down our banner with the definition of "lesbian" in the middle of the march. Encouraged by this, a mob formed around us shouting "TERFs out!" until it was broken up by the police.
Another steward pushed one of us back and stood in the way of the Real Dyke March with her arms outstretched, pulling on the banner and trying to snatch one woman's cardboard sign and another's mobile phone. The problem? A few of us had walked too far to the front.
Dick* March Berlin
Unfortunately, there were men among the stewards. There was also a lot of aggression towards us and women/lesbians by men. Apparently at the same Dyke March lesbians were pelted with stones by men.
Epilogue
In a subsequent interview, the organiser of the Dyke March described us as an "unimportant mini-group[…] of fanatics", i.e. extremists who "[...] are out of touch with reality (illusion), overzealously advocate political or religious doctrines of salvation and are prepared to use violence against those who think differently (intolerance) in order to enforce their convictions "2.
Accordingly, we do not consider ourselves fanatics. After all, we do not attack women for holding a banner with the definition of "lesbian" because it goes against our religious beliefs of "gender souls in the wrong body".
The "LGBTQ" scene has long been divided. One can even say that there has never been unity. On one side we have the queer movement and the trans movement, who consistently behaviour like at the Trans Pride in Berlin on 30 July 2022. On the other side women, feminists and people who are simply attracted to the same sex.
One of the banner bearers had a moment with another woman at the Dyke March Berlin that she wants to tell us about:
A woman came up to me from a group and engaged me in conversation in English. She asked me what my 'transphobic' banner was about. I said 'I'm just a lesbian' and that I therefore am attracted to people of the female sex, i.e. 'cis' women and 'transmen' (women who claim to be men or take testosterone). The woman then faltered and I saw tears come to her eyes. 'I feel the same.' 'I feel the same.' At first I didn't understand what she meant.
Then I understood – that the woman is a lesbian but can't say it. Or maybe hadn't realised it yet. Probably at that moment she had suddenly realised what this conflict was about. I felt a strong urge to hug her and so I put my hand on her arm.
At that moment, the group she had come with pulled her back, away from us. She looked back. We looked at each other and we both had tears in our eyes. Then her group covered her and cut off her gaze.
So for at least one lesbian in this Dyke March, we were not unimportant. That is all that matters to us.
What does that mean for Lesbians?
Persons of the female sex who are exclusively attracted to their own biological sex, also called lesbians, are no longer welcome, tolerated or safe in their own spaces.
Cologne was not an isolated incident. The events at the Dyke March Berlin should be sufficient proof of that. The "LGBTQ community" has a problem and it is called lesbophobia.
It can not be glossed over and it will not go away by ignoring it. Instead of fighting amongst ourselves, we lesbians should stand together in these times.
We will rebuild spaces just for lesbians, no matter what obstacles are put in our way. Step by step.
About effects and complications of just one of the operations touted by the trans movement for women, phalloplasty. This involves shaping a piece of skin, usually from the arm, into a tube and sewing it onto the genital area. In addition, the uterus and ovaries are removed, the vagina is removed and sewn shut, the vulva and parts of the clitoris are removed, and the clitoris and urethra are relocated. We see this as a form of FGM.