GLR July-August 2025

GLR k

July–August 2025

The Situation

J ENNIFER F INNEY B OYLAN — ‘We’ve seen dark times before.’ M ATHIAS F OIT — Nine Lessons from Weimar K EIRA R OBERSON — Queer Life in Postwar Germany R ONALD O. V ALDISERRI — Echoes of the Lavender Scare

E LI E RLICK — Making Sense of the Trans Right G IANNA H OLIDAY — Book Banning Goes National

$6.95 US, $7.95 Canada

Nazi officers ransacking the Institute of Sexual Science, May 6, 1933

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The Gay & Lesbian Review July–August 2025 • VOLUME XXXII, NUMBER 4 WORLDWIDE

Editor-in-Chief and Founder R ICHARD S CHNEIDER J R . Managing Editor WORLDWIDE The Gay & Lesbian Review ® PO Box 180300, Boston, MA 02118

C ONTENTS

The Situation

F EATURES

J EREMY C. F OX Literary Editor M ARTHA E. S TONE Poetry Editor D AVID B ERGMAN Associate Editors S AM D APANAS P AUL F ALLON M ICHAEL S CHWARTZ Contributing Writers R OSEMARY B OOTH D ANIEL A. B URR C OLIN C ARMAN A NNE C HARLES A LFRED C ORN A LLEN E LLENZWEIG C HRIS F REEMAN P HILIP G AMBONE M ATTHEW H AYS H ILARY H OLLADAY A NDREW H OLLERAN I RENE J AVORS J OHN R. K ILLACKY C ASSANDRA L ANGER

“We have seen dark times before.” 10 J ENNIFER F INNEY B OYLAN

Colin Carman converses with the author of Cleavage

Nine Lessons from Weimar Germany 13 M ATHIAS F OIT

The sexual liberation of the 1920s provides a cautionary tale

Queer Life in Postwar Germany 16 K EIRA R OBERSON

Remnants of prewar activism slowly regrouped to fight ¶ 175

The Lavender Scare and Its Echoes 19 R ONALD O.V ALDISERRI

McCarthy didn’t stop with the Commies; next came the homos

Making Sense of the Trans Right 22 E LI E RLICK

They’re out there, and they have a following: meet Buck Angel

Banning Books Is Back in Fashion 26 G IANNA H OLIDAY

State and local bans persist, but now it’s official U.S. policy

R E V I E W S

P OEMS & D EPARTMENTS G UEST O PINION — On the Power of Books in Perilous Times 5 D AVID G ROFF C ORRESPONDENCE 6 BTW 8 R ICHARD S CHNEIDER J R . P OEM — “Song of Sappho” 24 A NZHELINA P OLONSKAYA T RAVEL M EMO — The View from Scandinavia 28 A DAM M.M C M AHON A RT M EMO — James Le Baron Boyle: Camping It Up on Campus 30 E DWARD M ORAN P OEM — “Underwear Nostalgia” 32 M ICHAEL M C K EOWN B ONDHUS P OEM — “My Husband” 39 E DMUND W HITE C ULTURAL C ALENDAR 46 A RT M EMO — March Laumer, a Gayer Oz 47 F RANK S ERAFINO P OEM — “Neither Here Nor There” 49 M ALCOLM F ARLEY Daniel Kane, editor — Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard 42 M ICHAEL Q UINN Kaila Adia Story — The Rainbow Ain’t Never Been Enuf 43 J EAN R OBERTA Bruce P. Spang — River Crossed 43 H ANK T ROUT Prabal Gurung — Walk Like a Girl: A Memoir 44 N ILADRI C HATTERJEE Rebecca L. Davis — Fierce Desires 45 Y OAV S IVAN Five Films 48 J EREMY C. F OX Roshan Sethi, director — A Nice Indian Boy 50 B RIAN B ROMBERGER Larry Carver — Rochester and the Pursuit of Pleasure 31 R AYMOND -J EAN F RONTAIN Simon Goldhill — Queer Cambridge: An Alternative History 33 D ANIEL A. B URR Mary Frances Phillips — Black Panther Woman 34 A NNE C HARLES Amy J. Elias, editor — Speculative Light 36 R EGINALD H ARRIS Kevin Brown — Countée Cullen’s Harlem Renaissance 37 T HOMAS K EITH Alison Bechdel — Spent: A Comic Novel 38 B RIAN A LESSANDRO Bruce Vilanch — It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time 40 C HARLES G REEN B RIEFS 41

A NDREW L EAR J AMES P OLCHIN J EAN R OBERTA V ERNON R OSARIO Contributing Artist C HARLES H EFLING Publisher S TEPHEN H EMRICK Webmaster B OSTON W EB G ROUP WebEditor A LLISON A RMIJO ______________________________ Board of Directors

A RT C OHEN ( CHAIR ) R OBERT H ARDMAN S TEPHEN H EMRICK H ILARY H OLLADAY D AVID L A F ONTAINE J IM J ACOBS A NDREW L EAR

R ICHARD S CHNEIDER , J R . ( PRESIDENT ) T HOMAS Y OUNGREN ( TREASURER ) S TEWART C LIFFORD ( CHAIR EMER .) W ARREN G OLDFARB ( SR . ADVISOR EMER .)

The Gay & Lesbian Review/ WORLDWIDE ® (formerly The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, 1994-1999) is published bimonthly (six times per year) by The Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational corporation located in Boston, Mass. Subscription rates : U.S.: $41.70 per year (6 issues). Canada and Mexico: $51.70(US). All other countries: $61.70(US). All non-U.S. copies are sent via air mail. Back issues available for $12 each. All correspondence is sent in a plain envelope marked “G&LR.” ISSN: 1077: 6591 © 2025 by Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc. All rights reserved. W EBSITE : www.GLReview.org • S UBSCRIPTIONS : 847-504-8893 • A DVERTISING : 617-421-0082 • S UBMISSIONS : Editor@GLReview.org

July–August 2025

3

Long, Hot Summer: ‘The Situation’ FROM THE EDITOR

B Y “THE SITUATION” we* have in mind the current state of American politics and LGBT rights. But be cause things are changing so rapidly, and because this is a bimonthly magazine, we cannot hope to provide an up-to date analysis of “the situation” as it tumbles out of one man’s head (or so it seems). What we can do is to look at current events in light of historical precedents and ongoing social trends. Following an initial interview with trans writer and ac tivist Jennifer Finney Boylan, who discusses the current state of danger for transgender people in the U.S., the articles ap pear in roughly chronological order. Two pieces highlight the centrality of Germany as an early bastion of LGBT activism starting in the late 19th century, when “homosexuals” emerged as a social type to be studied or treated or liberated. By the time of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), a fledgling liberation movement had emerged in Berlin and else where, with Magnus Hirschfeld as its intellectual guru. Mathias Foit examines this movement and draws nine lessons from its rise and fall that might be relevant to these times. Hopes for lib eration were crushed by the Nazis and put on hold until after the war, but even then, as Keira Roberson explains, rebuilding an LGBT movement was slow in both East and West Germany, and ___________________ * This issue was effectively co-edited by me and Jeremy C. Fox, who did the major legwork on the feature articles.

homosexuality was still illegal until the late 1960s. A notably dark period occurred in the U.S. in the postwar period of Cold War and McCarthyism and the “Red Scare,” a witch hunt for alleged communists that expanded into a “Lavender Scare” with homosexuals as its prey. Ronald O. Valdiserri takes us through this era of naming names and ruin ing careers and finds some disturbing parallels with the cur rent state of politics in America. These historical episodes are relatively easy to understand because we know how things turned out. Living through such times is another matter, filled with confusing developments whose significance cannot be known. Thus, for example, Eli Erlick reports on a surprising trend: people who identify as transgender but support the agenda of the far Right and actively oppose that of the LGBT mainstream. One such individual, Buck Angel, a former porn star who has aligned himself with Trump and white supremacy, has quite a following. The movement to ban LGBT books from public libraries and schools began a few years ago, but the new administration has given it a major boost. Gianna Holiday documents some of the state and local efforts and shows how the federal government has assumed the role of book-banner in chief, with targets rang ing from the Smithsonian Institution to government websites to Harvard University. Who knows where it all will end? R ICHARD S CHNEIDER J R .

“ Worldwise sheds a long overdue light on one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century.” Brian James Baer, author of Queer Theory and Translation Studies: Language, Politics, Desire

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GUEST OPINION

On the Power of Books in Perilous Times D AVID G ROFF

Once again our work is urgent. We will stand up for LGBTQ + words. Let all of us resolve to publish and purchase and protect our books and the people who write, read, sell, and shelve them. Let’s work to make our publishing efforts and literary institutions more economically sustainable. Let’s reinforce our efforts not only on behalf of authors but on behalf of readers, those precious and necessary strangers who so need our soli darity, community, and art. Let’s all recognize that we are the messengers of vital and ever-evolving ways to live and love—that we are, as the late Felice Picano referred to us, people in history. Let’s agree that we should, as Oliver Radclyffe said in the title of his trans memoir, “frighten the horses.” And let us be emboldened by the words of Audre Lorde: “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” In that spirit, let’s embrace the truth that Dorothy Allison imparted last year on this stage: that we have the power to alter the plot, to see our stories as a way out, a way of loving and act ing in the world—which is, as Dorothy told us, “a revolution ary transgression.” On the page and in the streets, let us be revolutionary transgressors, together. David Groff, a writer and independent book editor, teaches poetry and publishing in the MFA Program at the City College of New York.

Editor’s Note: At the Publishing Triangle Awards ceremony on April 17 at the New School in New York City, writer and edi tor David Groff, a cofounder of the group, received the Michele Karlsberg Leadership Award. Below are excerpts from his speech accepting the award. T HIRTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO, a small group of authors and book people came together in the offices of Robert Riger, a Book of the Month Club executive, and Michael Denneny, the trailblazing editor for St. Martin’s Press. It was a terrible time. Our community was under siege from the relentless epidemic of AIDS, with the 1970s Stonewall movement, the feminist movement, and the civil rights move ment under constant assault from the cruel regime of Ronald Reagan. But amid the epidemic and the oppression we faced, what thrived among us was books. Books were the main medium

through which we connected with each other, how we built our identities and con nections and as lesbian and gay people and bisexual and trans people. Every single one of you here tonight had your identity crystalized and liberated by a queer book. Our work was urgent. Our resolve then was to come to gether to support our writers, enlarge the number of our readers, gather for events and

How One Gay Cath A Prince

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Brian McNaught

parties, undertake these very awards, and maybe get a date, The other people in those early meetings, among them some who are here tonight, included Michele Karlsberg, Michael Denneny, Lew Archibald, Malaga Baldi, Christopher Bram, David Cashion, Jane DeLynn, Carole De Santi, Trent Duffy, Robin Hardy, Stan Leventhal, Ethan Morrden, Roz Parr, Howard Reeves, Robert Riger, Matt Sartwell, Lawrence Schimel, Anna Sequoia, Carrie Smith, Mary South, and Sharon Stonekey. Tonight we again gather in a time of crisis. We have en tered an era that is at least as dire for LGBTQ + people as the late 1980s and early ’90s. An epidemic of hate endangers us all. The virus of fascism threatens our democracy, our climate, our fellow humans who are immigrants or otherwise oppressed, as well as every queer person—as we’ve seen already with at tacks on our health care and education, and with the brutal and inhuman offensive against trans rights and the denial of gender affirming care to minors, with organizations like Transforma tive Schools, which we honor tonight, routinely menaced. As publishing people in particular, we’ve seen our pride flags furled, and our books banned from libraries across the country, from public schools to the U.S. Naval Academy.

a —Christie Hardwic i o us all.” ft g t fe is a uc tion. . . . S me with awe and inspir y that le journey in a wa e and his shares hi geously and intimately “Brian McNaught cour s lif h a lif Radical Self endernes author of lf T y • orders@wipfandstock.c ( 541 ) 344 - 1528 m • Boo CASCADE k.co

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Correspondence

(1869-1939) was one of the few who lived openly as a gay man in his day, and his oils were so powerful as to be nearly transfor mative for me. One of Somov’s paintings sold in 2023 for $13 million. Though alas I must admire a mere copy of TheBoxer as I dress for the day, his painting—and his life—remind me of the need to fight for beauty and truth. Garrett Glaser, La Jolla, CA Why Libera ti on Was So Necessary To the Editor: Regarding the “Origins” issue (March April 2025) on the start of the LGBT liber ation movement, the question is: Just what were LGBT people trying to liberate them selves from? Sexual liberation must be understood in the context of the Judeo Christian culture from which we are fit fully and only partially extricating our selves. That emphatically binary tribal culture prohibited any sexuality not in tended to swell the tribe’s numbers, a cul

ture uncomfortable with nakedness, ashamed of the body as the soul’s baggage. This begins with Judaism and becomes successively adopted by Christianity and Islam, persistent forces in our world. This culture’s representatives now hold national power and international hegemony, so our gains in liberation can’t be taken for granted. Ancient Greek culture was not burdened by any of that. Theirs was a frankly bisex ual culture that acknowledged same-sex at traction and love. Men and boys exercised in the nude and performed athletic games in the same manner. Sappho records her bisex uality in the fragments we have of her work, and historians Thucydides and Xenophon testify to the generals and admirals who went to war with their male lovers. Indeed, the Sacred Theban Band was a respected military force of 300—150 pairs of lovers— sworn to fight to the death rather than shame their lover. They were undefeated until Philip and son Alexander swept

My Life with Boris To the Editor:

I enjoyed Pavel Golubev’s ”Queer Mod ernism in Russia” (May-June 2025) in part because I am infatuated with pugilist Boris Snezhkovsky, immortalized in Konstantin Somov’s 1933 painting TheBoxer , among many paintings of Snezhkovsky. Somov

F R I E N D S O F T HE R EVIEW F RIENDS OF T HE R EVIEW are readers who donated $150+ to The Gay & Lesbian Review , a 501(c)(3) educational corporation, in 2024. All gifts are fully tax-deductible.

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through Greece. And today? We have really just begun the great task of liberation from an ancient, tribal, Judeo-Christian culture, and the far right, now in political control, would like to lock the doors. Gay people, like everyone else, are subject to religion’s offer of com munity, fellowship, and its afterlife prom ises, but hardly any denominations of the mainstream religions offer unconditional acceptance, and American evangelical faiths are actively hostile to that goal. Walter L Mosley, Wilmette, Illinois Edmund White’s Wisdom To the Editor: Regarding your review of Edmund White’s The Loves of My Life: A Sex Mem oir, I received an early lesson on this topic

when I was a student at Johns Hopkins Uni versity and White was a visiting professor (1977-79). Two quotations in particular stand out in my mind. One of the first things Ed said to his cre ative writing class was: “Desire is the en gine of the universe.” Let that sink in. The engine of the universe is … desire. The other thing Ed said to me was said in private. When I was bemoaning the fact that my boyfriend at the time had just up and left me, and that I felt used, Ed came back with: “Better to feel used than useless.” John Sakowicz, Talmage, CA An Overlooked Departure To the Editor: I was surprised not to see an obituary for China scholar and Harvard professor Ross

Terrill in the [January-Feb. 2025 issue of] TheG&LR . It was, after all, your periodical that tipped me off about his insanely hedo nistic life story as revealed in his journal. Hismemoir Breaking the Rules: The Inti mate Diary of Ross Terrill is a fascinating account of a private life lived unabashedly during a long period of major cultural change. Ross may not have been everyone’s cup of tea politically, but he certainly did it his way, and simultaneously dodged the AIDS bullet. Breaking the Rules was really mind blowing to read about someone who moved in conservative professional circles but lived such a brazenly pleasure-seeking personal life. His life qualifies for a men tion to your readers. Mathew Vipond, Easton, PA

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The Big Guns It took a series of improbable connections, but somehow a gay American porn star has become a symbol of re sistance for Ukrainians in their war with Russia. It happened in the city of Kursk in a contested region of western Ukraine that’s currently controlled by Russia, which decided to install a heroic BTW

Urban Blues Two of the “reddest” U.S. states now have the LGBT Pride flag as an official state flag—albeit only in the cap ital and largest city of each state. Salt Lake City approved a ver sion of the Pride flag as an official city flag to circumvent a Utah law preventing public buildings from flying any non-of ficial banners. And the City Council of Boise, Idaho, did much the same when it voted five-to-one to make the Pride standard an official city flag, again in response to a statewide ban. Like so much of American politics, it was all an exercise in symbol ism, but the mayors of both cities stressed the importance of making all residents feel welcome. Stated Boise mayor Lauren McLean (D): “Boise isn’t acting out of defiance. We’re acting out of duty.” Among other things, this battle underscores to what extent the Great Divide is a gap between the cities and the provinces. As luck would have it, this division also roughly de scribes the residence patterns of LGBT people, who continue to flock to the cities, where symbols of freedom can still fly. Weaponizing Gender Many states have codified discrimination against transgender athletes into law, including, as of last April, Georgia. For a reality check, GLAAD looked into it and found that therewere no trans students competing in Georgia. The legisla tion cited the case of one Tia Thomas, a trans swimmer who once tied for fifth place in a collegiate match against swimmer Riley Gaines, who became an anti-trans activist following her painful defeat. The Riley Gaines Act requires public schools and uni versities to establish segregated sports teams and bars trans ath letes from competing. While the new law applies to no known

mural to commemorate the 80th an niversary of the USSR’s 1945 vic tory over the Nazis. But a clever sixteen-year-old Ukrainian managed to prank the Russians by submitting photos of porn actor Billy Herring ton. Apparently the Russians were looking for a truly hunky young man to make their point, and Her rington fit the bill, appearing seven times in the mural, photoshopped into a Russian uniform. Reported

Queerty.com : “For both Ukrainians and LGBTQ + people in the region, the stunt symbolizes willpower in the face of regressive occupation.” For the record, starting in 1998 Herrington starred in such movies as 9 1/2 Inches and Lords of the Locker Room , among others, before dying at age 49 in 2018.

T, E-BOOK, AND AUDIOBOO OK EDITIONS PRIN

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Georgian, the danger of such laws, as GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis pointed out, is that they create a weapon against “cis gender girls who don’t fit neatly into societal expectations of gender.” So, if the rationale for these laws is to protect cisgen der girls from unfair competition, the practical effect is to ex pose all female athletes to accusations leveled for frivolous or vengeful reasons. Georgia Equality executive director Jeff Gra ham noted that “anyone who loses can throw a tantrum, bring a lawsuit, or bully the champion simply for being deemed ‘too good’ at their sport.” Given the dearth of actual people or prob lems covered by this law, it’s all about hypothetical possibilities that sound scary and play on pre-existing bigotries. Bishop to Black Square Practitioners of “conversion therapy” have popped up here numerous times, usually for one of two reasons. Either they were “ex-gay” evangelists who got caught in a decidedly gay situation, or they were therapists who used their position to initiate inappropriate sexual contact with their charges. In the latter category is Scott Dale Owen, who was once a Mormon bishop but then became a mental health coun selor in Provo, Utah. Owen ran a “person-centered” practice where he treated men for their “same-sex attraction.” His MO was to tell clients that their relationships with men were “bro ken” and that the only way to repair them was through physi cal contact with a man. Owens would start with touching and work his way to full sexual relations. Of course, he was work ing with gay men, so the seduction wasn’t such a long shot, analogous to an AA counselor using alcohol to seduce clients. Owen also played the God card, telling his victims that he’d been specially chosen for this work: “God gives certain people special permission to do things that are normally wrong.” And it worked, at least for a time. Police tracked down over a dozen former clients who said they’d been sexually abused by Owen, who was found guilty of forcible sodomy, among other crimes, and sentenced to a fifteen-year prison term. Hearts of Gold When you think of gay-friendly public spaces, the restaurant chain Hooters probably doesn’t spring to mind. And yet. A piece in The New York Times reported that Hooters has been a godsend for many a teenage boy growing up in a hostile environment. It works like this: for boys who display certain, um, tendencies early on, fathers and grandfathers every where seem to land on a single idea: take them to Hooters! But by now the waitresses have learned to spot such scenarios, and they know just what to do. Rather than subject these kids to the awkwardness of pretending they’re enjoying this, they’ll pull a boy aside and reassure him that it’s okay to be gay. The Times writer, Peter Rothpletz, endured an annual ritual as a teenager with his clueless grandfather; one waitress whispered: “You’re perfect the way you are, kid.” When he posted a story about this experience on Bloomberg.com, he received “hundreds of direct messages from other gay men who felt the trajectory of their lives had changed after a single meal at Hooters.” The question remains: why are the waitresses so nice to these boys, who clearly aren’t there for the boobs? Rothpletz surmises that many of the women see themselves as outsiders, often mistaken for sex workers, and may identify with members of another sexual minority. In any case, it’s another example of a pocket of re sistance where you’d least expect to find one. July–August 2025

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INTERVIEW

Colin Carman converses with the author of Cleavage

‘We have seen dark times before.’

T HE COVER of Jennifer Finney Boylan’s new memoir, Cleavage: Men, Women and the Space BetweenUs (Celadon Books), features a famous photograph of actress Sophia Loren eyeing Jayne Mansfield’s copious décolletage. Boylan, who burst onto the scene with the bestselling memoir She’s Not There in 2003, is again interested in exploring what it means to be a man or a woman, and what the trans experience reveals, and how all this has changed since the year 2000. Since 2010, the bestselling author has been the inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer-in-Residence and professor of English at Barnard College of Columbia University and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times . The author of nine

J ENNIFER F INNEY B OYLAN

filled with so much hope and joy. I love the way all the charac ters orbit around each other. Lots of goofy little touches. The character representing Mars has two daughters, Phoebe and Demi, echoing the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. The character representing Jupiter has one red eye—the one repre senting Saturn wears lots of rings. And then there’s the chapter “Asteroids,” in which I visit all these tiny stories of people ad jacent to the main story—like they are busted up fragments of bigger planets. And so on. It’s a ton of fun. I originally wanted to write a trilogy—with The Constella tions as book two. But Constellations was a dud. I got lost while I was writing it, and should have worked on something else. It was a classic second book problem, although actually,

teen books, her last publication was yet another new venture, MadHoney (2022), a courtroom drama cowritten with Jodi Picoult after the two had agreed to write alternating chapters while isolated due to the pandemic. MadHoney is not only a page-turner but a vehicle to help Amer ican moms—women like my mother and her sisters, who make up much of Pi coult’s fan base—to wrap their minds around issues related to trans identity. I interviewed Boylan fifteen years ago for this magazine (May–June 2011 issue), and again this spring, via email, for this issue. Colin Carman: I did my homework and re-read The Planets , your 1991 novel

since my first book was the short story collection Remind Me to Murder You Later , Planets was number two. The third book was going to be The Galaxies —but it never happened. Someday maybe I’ll go back to it. My third novel after Constellations was Getting In . True Boylan enthusiasts will note that one of the college tour guides (it’s a novel about a family taking the col lege tour in New England) is Phoebe, the youngest daughter in Planets . So she had one little visit. Maybe I’ll stick her in an other story someday. CC: Let’s get President Trump and pol itics out of the way right off the bat: Pennsylvanians went for Trump in the

Jennifer Finney Boylan. Cover photo for Cleavage .

published under the name of James Finney Boylan. It’s set in “Centralia, Pennsylvania.” I also re-read Long Black Veil (2017), a novel set in Philadelphia. How has your relationship with your home state changed over the years? Jennifer Finney Boylan: I only know one or two old high school pals in PA now, so I hardly ever get back there anymore. Channeling my inner James Thurber, though, I can assure you that in all my dreams, the clocks that tick are the “clocks of Pennsylvania.” I miss it. Like Centralia itself (the site of The Planets ), mostly the Pennsylvania I dream about is one that only exists in memory. That was kind of you to visit The Planets —it is such a wild story! I wrote it during the first year of my marriage, and I was Colin Carman is an assistant professor of English at Colorado Mesa University. His forthcoming book is titled A Friend of Mine: Bob Dylan & Allen Ginsberg .

largest Republican margin since 1988. How do you explain their support for him and his baffling appeal to working-class Americans? JFB: I don’t know. I guess people thought that having a con victed rapist and failed businessman who is also a convicted felon would be better than having a woman of color as presi dent. [ Editor’s note: In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse against advice columnist E. Jean Carroll but re jected her allegation of rape .] CC: Trump was still in campaign mode when he addressed Congress and declared that there are only two sexes, male and female. He even went so far as to showcase a female student who allegedly was injured by a trans athlete. Why has the trans sports issue become such a lightning rod? JFB: Because understanding trans stuff, and the sports ques tion in particular, takes nuance and compassion and wisdom.

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We don’t do that stuff so much anymore. Really, the sports thing is infuriating. Tell me that this is really a national problem, re quiring the full attention of the Executive Branch. As if the peo ple who are all blue in the face about trans women in sports ever gave two flying fucks about women’s sports before. Or women in general. Just about the only thing about women’s lives that kept them awake before was the hope of taking away our right to abortion. CC: I reached out to a friend of mine who is currently transi

write this book, taking stock of where the movement has been over the last 25 years. I guess I hoped, though, that the occa sion of writing a bookend to She’s Not There would mark a mo ment when we could celebrate our progress instead of mourning all that we have lost, at least for now. I wanted to write about the fullness of a trans woman’s life, instead of focusing on transition. So many books about and by trans people are about transition—Chaz Bono even gave his book that title. But life goes on, and I wanted to write more broadly about the differences I experienced Before and After, in thesaurus one day, looking up words that meant division. Cleavage jumped out at me as a “contronym,” a word that means both itself and its opposite. Which, in addition to evoking images of breasts and bosoms, also is a good way of thinking about the life of a trans person. CC: At my university, the LGBT group hosts an ask-me-any thing booth where they try to explain the current nomenclature, “they-them,” “cis-male,” “nonbinary,” “transphobic,” etc., to other students unfamiliar with, and sometimes hostile to, these ideas. Why are pronouns important? JFB: Pronouns are important because it’s an act of human kindness, or generosity, to call people by the names, and the everything from love to loss, from food to fashion. There were a lot of stories to tell, and earlier ones I wanted to revisit. The title came from my looking at the

tioning and is a big fan of yours. I asked her to formulate a question, and she wrote: “These are very hard times for trans people, especially young trans people who want and need to play a sport. As a parent, what would you say to a trans youth who’s told ‘No, you can’t play’”? JFB: I would gently explain that the world

Walk tall, be proud, and be happy, because if you’re trans, you’re a superhero. And oh how they hate it when we’re happy!

can be a place in which mean men and women sometimes hurt people, but that sometimes people act mean because they’re afraid. But I would make it clear that there is nothing wrong with the child, and that there are more good people than mean ones in this world, and that we can help mean people be nicer by treating them with love. And then I would tell the child in no uncertain terms: “I will play with you.” CC: You had a foray into reality television, a show titled I Am Cait , in which you road-tripped with Caitlyn Jenner. Talk about a wild ride. How do you think about that experience now? JFB: Caitlyn turned out to be as dumb as a bag of hammers. I hoped to open her heart by teaching her about the lives that trans people live, but in the end she was less interested in that than in the stupidity to which she was committed. It broke my heart. I really liked her, and think she had the potential to do great good in the world. I don’t think the show was especially well cast, though I came to love the women I traveled with. There was one night that kind of summed it up for me. We were all in Chicago, and at the symphony hall a pianist was per forming Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 . I proposed that we all go together. But instead everyone was determined to go to a local drag show, where we stuffed dollar bills into the G-string panties of someone dressed up like Liza Minelli. I get drag and celebrate it as art. It has been a way of find ing expression when there were no avenues available for that— and also it has created a loyal, fierce community. I love all that. Still, there are lots of women (and men) in the trans community who are at least as interested in books and ideas and music as they are with people lip-syncing to Gloria Gaynor. It is worth noting that in Caitlyn’s Malibu mansion I never once saw a book. Although Fox News was blasting from big TVs all day long. CC: Your previous memoirs, She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders (2003) and I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted (2008), both take their titles from famous songs, and I know, having worked with you in Maine, of your love for music. Why “ Cleavage ” as the title of your latest memoir— which, you told the Times , you did not especially want to write? JFB: Did I say that? I wonder what I meant. I was psyched to

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JFB: We learn from Ovid that none of us is any one thing. I think that switching lanes is exactly what we’re supposed to do as humans. Otherwise, you can get stuck driving behind the same slowpoke all the way to Maine. CC: You have said that Cleavage is more “truthful” than your earlier memoirs. How so? What were you prepared to share that you were reluctant to reveal in years past? JFB: I think some of my work—especially She’s Not There — had an air of apology to it, like, “please love me even though I’m trans; I’m so sorry if this is upsetting.” I’m kind of over apologizing, to tell you the truth. I am grateful for this life and don’t need anyone else’s permission to be happy. CC: Your use of the past tense alarmed me in Cleavage , as in “the life ... was hard.” I assume this doesn’t mean that you’ve stopped writing. So, what are you working on or thinking about working on, and in what genre? JFB: Well, yeah. Don’t let anyone fool you—being trans is hard. For me it was harder before I came out, though I know lots of people for whom the opposite was true. Nevertheless, there is plenty more to come from me. I will continue to write essays for TheTimes and The Washington Post —at least as long as the Post doesn’t consider telling stories about people like me to be anti-American or something. I understand that in the fu ture their opinion page will focus on free markets and personal liberties or some such. Well, I’m happy to write about personal liberty. I’m the fuckin’ personal liberty poster child. CC: You told People: ”It’s hard to be old and to see the world that you have fought for, destroyed.” But you also referenced a new generation of writers, including Torrey Peters. What other writers excite you, and what keeps you optimistic? JFB: I suspect this is trans apostasy, but I’m more interested in stories than authors. The best books I’ve read in the last year are probably Wellness , by Nathan Hill, and The Bee Sting , by Paul Murray. It’s powerful work. My favorite trans authors are Kate Bornstein and Charlotte Clymer. Charlotte, along with Tor rey, is part of a new generation, and it’s interesting to me to watch the discourse shift and evolve over time. CC: You have busted—pun-intended—so many boundaries on and off the page. In closing, the aforesaid trans friend also asked if you might offer some words of hope during these dark times. JFB: Well, first off, these are dark times. But we have seen dark times before. In the short run, there’s nothing wrong with taking care of yourself, protecting your heart, whatever you can, when you’re feeling broken. If possible, try not to let the clowns live in your head. Focus on policy, if you have to, and work for change. But don’t get sucked into the daily ritual of shouting into the void online. Most of all though, walk tall, and be proud; and be happy, as best you can, because if you’re trans you’re a superhero—a precious soul who has had to rise above things that most people can’t understand. Greet each day with auspiciousness and joy and be glad for this life. Oh, how they hate it when we are happy. Let them see your wis dom and joy and grace. They can take lots of things away from us, but they cannot take that. One way or another, this darkness has to give.

words, that they have chosen. I’m not Catholic, but I’d call the pope “Your Holiness.” I’m not a British subject, but I’d call King Charles “Your Majesty.” I don’t know her, but I’d call Cherilyn Bono Allman “Cher.” Because that is the name she has chosen. I don’t have to totally grok pronouns like “zir” or “zem.” Who asked me to pass judgment on anyone anyhow? It’s about respect. CC: Two things in your response to an interviewer with Peo ple magazine teed up two more questions: “[ Cleavage ] jumps around in time,” you said of the book. And: “Things keep threading back, which is the thing I love to do as a writer. I love to weave things together into a mosaic. I think Cleav age might be a little bit of a harder read, but that’s good. It should be hard. I mean, the life that made it, the life that it’s about, was hard.” JFB: I like classical music, and jazz, and (forgive me) the Grateful Dead, because their compositions give artists and writ ers and performers a chance to engage in long thoughts, long forms. I think my writing aspires to music. Something I might have mentioned 100 pages earlier can come back, in a new form, and is experienced in a new way. Because its meaning has been changed by the intervening story. CC: Cleavage jumps around in time, but so does your entire career: educator, memoirist, novelist, collaborator, columnist for The Times. Genre-wise, you keep switching lanes and, in Cleavage , you’re time-traveling. Is this by design?

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ESSAY

Nine Lessons from Weimar Germany M ATHIAS F OIT

T HE WEIMAR ERA in German history (1919– 1933) saw the emergence of what was probably the world’s first organized, public mass move ment for queer liberation, complete with its own institutions and fervent political activity. The campaign’s roots can be traced back to the sec ond half of the 19th century, and some of its major players were active from the 1890s onward, in a period known as the Wil helmine era (1890–1918). A lively queer culture—consisting of meeting points, nightlife, and stage performances, among other elements—flourished alongside this movement and has been celebrated in popular culture ever since, including in the prose of the Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood, his story’s spectacular Broadway run (1966–1969) as the musical Cabaret , the show’s Liza Minelli-starring Hollywood adapta

1. (Q UEER )H ISTORY IS NEVER LINEAR . It is a commonly held belief that the arc of history is one of progress or improvement, from less sophisticated sociopoliti cal systems and relations to more advanced forms. However, whether it’s the anti-LGBT rhetoric and policies of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis or Weimar Germany’s descent into fascism, history reveals that no democratic achievement can be taken for granted. The Nazis destroyed in a matter of months whatever progress the sexual freedom movement had achieved in almost forty years. After twelve years of the Nazi regime, it took West Germany two decades of democracy for its queer movement to become at least as public and vocal as it had been in the Weimar era.* It wasn’t until 1994 that the infamous Para graph 175, which criminalized sex between men, was finally erased from the German penal code (though it had been re

formed in the 1960s, and subsequently was not widely enforced). However, modern legislation pertaining to legal gender recognition is still pending; hatred and fear of LGBT people are on the rise; queer refugees, migrants, and peo ple of color are facing systemic racism and in tersecting discriminations; and some right-wing groups are challenging the German LGBT com munity’s achievements, including marriage equality. 2. P ROGRESS IS NOT JUST ABOUT RIGHTS . Looking at the balance of the Weimar queer movement from the standpoint of liberal re forms, one German historian described it as characterized by “apparent achievements and an emancipatory stalemate.” While the move ment may not have achieved its primary goals—abolishing Paragraph 175 and raising the overall societal acceptance of sexual and

Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli in Cabaret (1972).

tion in 1972, and the successful contemporary German TV se ries Babylon Berlin (2017–present). With the Nazi rise to power in 1933, both the campaign for expanding rights and the public queer culture suffered a sudden and brutal rupture, marking the beginning of systematic op pression and, later, extermination of sexual and gender non conformists in Germany. That movement ultimately failed to achieve its goals, but its enduring legacy can teach us a lot about social progress and queer history. I have identified what I see as nine lessons that we can take from the Weimar experience that may be applicable to our own time. Mathias Foit is the author of Queer Urbanisms in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany: Of Towns and Villages (2023). An earlier version of this article appeared in Notches (notchesblog.com).

gender nonconformity—it would be misguided to consider it a complete failure. The queer movement of both the Wilhelmine and Weimar eras succeeded in creating, possibly for the first time in history, a group consciousness that extended beyond local, regional, or even national boundaries, as well as positive patterns of individual and collective self-identification for sex ual and gender nonconformists. The German queer press of that time, consisting of approximately twenty titles, sparked the es tablishment of groups across the country that were both politi cal and social in character. It created a fellowship of like-minded ___________________ * This refers to West Germany. In East Germany, a satellite state of the Soviet Union, political self-organizing of same-sex-loving and gen der nonconforming people was slower and less spectacular, which was due, among other things, to the limitations of its political system.

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