What does it mean to help shape the management of a queer museum as an inter* person? Luan Pertl brings decades of commitment, clear political stance, and a wealth of experience to the Schwules Museum. This conversation focuses on visibility, sensitivity in dealing with archival material—and Adele Haas, whose impressive life story is finally being told. An interview about queer histor/ies, inter* perspectives, and why genuine participation is more than just a buzzword.
Yasmin: Where I come from, we say “Grüzi vielmols” as a greeting; what do you say where you come from?
Luan: Servus! It’s spelled with a u and pronounced with an a.
Well then, Servus Luan! Most people probably already know you, but would you like to introduce yourself briefly?
Sure! I’m Luan Pertl, part of the dual management team here at the Schwules Museum, an inter*activist, and part of the LGBTIQ* activist community for a good 25 years.
With you, the Schwules Museum has found its first openly inter* person in a management position—what does that mean for you, personally and politically?
I have been connected to the Schwules Museum for a long time, not only through my membership in the association or my curation of the Mercury Rising exhibition, but above all through my early visits to Berlin, when I often went to the Schwules Museum, even though it took me some courage to walk through the door for the first time… But that’s exactly why I think it’s really nice to be part of the management team at the Schwules Museum. Politically, it is very important for the inter* community that this has happened! Of course, there are many inter* people who lead inter* organizations. But as far as I know, I am the first inter* person to be a managing director at a queer institution; I think that’s an important statement for young inter* people! It shows them that we can achieve something and that we can also gain visibility outside of dedicated inter* organizations.
What is the current situation regarding inter* topics at the Schwules Museum?
With the exception of the Mercury Rising exhibition, which I also curated, inter* topics are relatively invisible. I think that’s a great shame! Of course, things are changing now that I’ve taken up my position. With this, there is a wave of people who suddenly feel a great deal of trust in the Schwules Museum. These may be people who are now willing to donate their estates and bequests to the Schwules Museum, or historians researching inter* topics. So, something is changing, but there is still a long way to go to increase visibility.
Why has it taken so long for inter* topics to become visible at the SMU?
There are various reasons for this. One of them is definitely the general taboo surrounding the topic in our society. Another is that inter* topics are still only discussed in medical terms. Both of these factors are also reflected in the LGBTIQ* community! I was at the CSD over the weekend and saw that out of 80 trucks, maybe 5 had an inter* symbol on them… I know that this has a lot to do with ignorance. But this ignorance also stems from a lack of engagement with the topic. I criticize that!
What political and curatorial considerations play a role when it comes to keeping stories like Adele Haas’s in the museum and making them visible?
A fundamental issue is “Nothing about us, without us!” For example, you cannot organize an exhibition on inter* issues without the equal participation of inter* people. Of course, this does not only apply to inter* issues. But talking about inter* people without their participation is simply not acceptable, because it has always been about talking about inter* people, and that has to stop—we need active participation! Another concern is the idea that inter* people have always been part of the community and involved in many early struggles, even if their inter* identity was not always visible. For a long time, there was no language for it, and many inter* people grew up in a medicalized environment and did not even know that intersexuality existed. Many then became part of the LGBTIQ* movement because they were also gay or lesbian, or had embarked on a trans* path. I think it is all the more important to draw attention to this invisibility. In any case, sensitive handling of visual material is required. There is a long history of forced photography for inter* people, which is why care must be taken when depicting and illustrating them: who took the photos, how is the person depicted, or how much say do I give people in a photo session? Inter* history must be told, but we also have to ask ourselves how we tell it: is it always just about medicalization, or do I also talk about the lived realities of inter* people—which are manifold! Working with the archive certainly also involves keywording, how it is structured, and how it is used. The keywording terms must not only make sense to the people who work in the archive, but in my opinion, they must primarily give inter* people the feeling that the SMU archive is a safe place for me and my history. There was already the very good Trans*cestors project in the SMU by Tomka Weiß. With his work, he shows what it means to deal with trans* estates sensitively and highly professionally in archival work. I would like to see the same for inter* estates.
You’ve touched on a few things that are covered in the zine you brought us. The zine “Ich möchte so gerne mein Leben in die Welt schreien” (I want so much to shout my life out to the world) is about Adele Haas, who lived from 1907 to 1979. How would you tell Adele’s story?
Adele Haas is an inter* person who lived during World War II and, fortunately, beyond. A notable feature of her life story is that Adele’s mother was asked at birth which gender she wanted to assign to the child, which was very surprising at the time. The sad story behind this, however, is that the gender her mother chose was not the right one for Adele. Adele fought for decades to be allowed to live as a woman or inter* woman. Unfortunately, Adele had to endure many imprisonments in this struggle, including in concentration camps and psychiatric institutions. Even after surviving these, she was repeatedly reported to the police and imprisoned… This person’s journey shows very clearly how much strength it took to go through it. I am really very grateful that Jako Wende did this research and is still doing it! These stories need to be told.
The items pictured in the zine and the accompanying leaflet are now part of our archive…
That’s right, Jako received them as a gift from Adele’s grandniece, who left them to us as part of her estate. We have many of her clothes, which Adele sewed herself, by the way! One dress is still traveling with Jako, where it is used for lectures. It will then be added to the archive. As the first bequest from an inter* person, the handover was emotional for me anyway, but with this background story and all the strength Adele mustered to survive…
How do you generally frame Adele’s story in the context of the pathologization and persecution of inter* people during the Nazi era?
That’s a complicated question! Within the community, we know that there was a lot of persecution. Thanks to Jako’s work, we now also have evidence that this persecution took place. The problem is that in some research, you would like to be able to say clearly “this is an inter* person,” but this is not entirely clear from the documents about the person. Paradoxically, the medical documentation is missing, even though such documents are very violent and we don’t really want to work with them – but we have to! There is simply an area of tension in historical research. Adele’s case is a great example of how these stories can be researched with sensitivity.
Do you see any continuities between the way Adele was discriminated against back then and the way inter* people experience discrimination today?
A large part of this concerns forced examinations: having to repeatedly undress in front of the police and medical staff, repeatedly showing what your genitals look like. Haas, for example, reports on the administration of injections. This report is echoed by an inter* person named Bella Pre, who, according to Jakos’ research, had to share the Sachsenhausen concentration camp with Adele for a time. We do not know what was in these injections: in the case of the two, it could have been testosterone, but it could also have been a sterilization agent. Inter* people were sterilized and castrated, their own hormone production was taken away from them, they were given hormones without their consent, they were operated on without their consent, and in some cases without even knowing it. These are all things that continue into 2025, even though there is a so-called “ban on surgery” on people with variations in sex characteristics in Germany. I put that in quotation marks because, for me, it is a pseudo-ban: it is very narrowly defined, and many inter* people are not included at all! Adele would have liked to have had surgery so that she could live in her own gender – she often asked for it. She was denied these surgeries, and this is still reflected today: when inter* people want medical treatment, they don’t get it. There is a sentence in the medical guidelines that, in short, says that inter* people are excluded from transition processes. On the one hand, this means that they perform surgery on them as children, assign them a gender, and mutilate them. But when these individuals then say, “What was done to me is terrible, something is wrong here, and I want to live in the gender that suits me,” they are denied. This illustrates quite well how Adele’s story continues.
When you refer to the work of Jako Wende, I wonder about alliances with inter* communities, activists, or scientists: what role do they play in the future work of the museum?
Alliances are always important; without them, much would not have been achieved! Even though alliances are often made invisible, I think thinking in terms of alliances is particularly important in the current climate. It was certainly productive to fight lone battles for a certain period of time, but right now we really need to work together again – and for me, that goes beyond LGBTIQ* issues! When I curated the exhibition “Mercury Rising – Inter* Hermstory[ies] Now and Then” it wasn’t just inter* people who were involved. That was a very conscious decision on my part, because allyship strengthens us, empowers us to be a safety net for each other, and allows us to take joint steps in the great project of self-determination. Solidarity within the trans*, inter*, non-binary community is particularly close to my heart because politics and medicine are trying to divide this alliance: some get these rights, some get that visibility, and others are completely ignored… We must not play this off against each other.
Are you happy with how the zine ‘screamed Adele’s life into the world’?
Yes, I think the zine is very well done! The research wasn’t easy, and condensing what we found into such a small booklet isn’t easy either. I think Jako Wende did an amazing job, just like the lectures Jako gives! This allows us to tell many parts of Adele’s story. Together with Flo Däbritz, we are continuing to plan projects that deal with the perspectives of our community through an inter*historical lens.
What future plans can we look forward to at SMU when it comes to making inter* issues more visible?
In general, I would be very happy if inter* people would archive their estates and bequests with us, if inter* artists would dare to submit their exhibitions to us, and if inter* people felt that we were creating a safe space for them here. To achieve this, inter* perspectives must become part of the narrative of general movement histories, and we are working on that. A proposal with River Roux is currently in the works that deals with inter* perspectives of the last 100 years – but we’ll have to wait a few more months for that!
We’re happy to do so. Thank you for the interview, Luan!
Interview & photo: Yasmin Künze