Lynn Breedlove has been a defining voice to the queercore movement. With projects like Tribe 8, The Homobiles and COMMANDO, Lynn has been vocal in the punk scene since the 90’s. Despite being a performer and author of many formats, chaos enthusiast and community builder, he also has been a loyal friend of the Schwules Museum. In this interview, Breedlove talks queer rebellion, unexpected family wisdom and why writing is basically permission to get weird on paper. In December, Lynn and the head of SMU’s education department Panda Ortmann are teaming up for a workshop on queer writing – if you want a taste of Lynn’s brain before this workshop, this conversation might be the perfect amuse-bouche for you!

Yasmin: Hi Lynn, thank you for being here! I’m trying to be as little starstruck as I can when I ask this question: can you please introduce yourself?

Lynn: Yes, I’m Lynn Breedlove and I’m a writer and performer of many formats… Just give me a format and I’ll tackle it. (laughs) It seems like my words and my body are the media I work with. I’m born in California, but my mom was born in Chemnitz. She considered herself a “Rucksackberliner”, so she took me to Berlin a lot when I was a child.

What’s a Rucksackberliner?

A Rucksackberliner is someone who comes here from somewhere else, then decides to stay and identify as a Berliner… So, I am one too.

Now I’ll have to ponder if I am one too… (laughs) What are your topics, Lynn?

The overarching themes have been gender, sexuality, transfeminism, authoritarianism, police brutality, freedom of speech and who gets to have it… But it really depends on the work.

You are an artist and you’ve been an artist for a long time – what motivates you to roam the streets of this earth as freely as you do?

Well, I could give you the Californian answer, which would be: “I’m a Sagitarius, Aries rising, Pisces moon.”

That’s also a very Berlin answer (both laugh)

But the true historical reason would be more like… I do feel like I came into this world feeling myself. As soon as I was able to talk, I informed my family that my name was Johnny. They decided that more pink dresses were what’s in order, making me realize ‘yikes, that didn’t work’… After that there was a lot of me pushing my will through, for example I would sneak on a pair of pants under the pink dress. Both of my parents were very funny and super confident in the world. My mom was in Berlin all the time, going: “Hau auf die Pauke, du kannst schlafen, wenn du tot bist!”, and dad would be backpacking somewhere in the backcountry… I learned to explore the world from them. They were both awake at dawn, but only because one was finishing the night and the other one just starting the day – I really like that time of day. My parents both had a few things to work through. Where I grew up, there was a lot of trauma, bullying, anger and poverty. My dad taught me early on that if anybody tried to bully me and I needed them to back off: “no matter how big they are, you just ball up your fists and stick out your lip and look at them like you are ready; because if you beg and cry, they’re going to kick you!” So, I walked through the world with all that.

What a family story! You seem to be at peace with everything, is that right? To me it didn’t narrate as a story of oppression.

Yes. I came out to my family as queer, or gay in the 70’s, and they were like: “okay… We kind of knew that.” I went through so many changes and at the same time I was an only child, so they kind of just had to accept it. They were mostly very supportive and trying to see me for who I was as best as they could.

I am sure your parents are proud of you now. What’s it like to be a queer icon?

(laughs) I don’t see myself as a queer icon, but I do appreciate it when people go: “oh, I saw you did a thing. I am inspired by your work.” Moments like that truly are my raison d’être. Ever since the beginning with Tribe 8 [lesbian punk rock band from S.F., 1991-2005] I would tell people, who were excited to see me in their city, “why don’t you start your own band? Then you don’t have to wait for 364 days, you could be doing some queermo punk right now!” So, anybody that says they started writing, comedy, a band because of me… That’s amazing. I see all of us as a constellation, I am not in the center of anything.

How did you deal with the publicity of it all?

Actually, I am kind of a shy person; going to a party you’ll find me hanging out in the corner and at the snack table. But when I get on stage, there is something about the light and the mic and having the permission to do and say anything you want… You get to step into this other persona, where for me that’s when all the confidence starts to come through. When you get off stage, you get to be your shy self again. And when someone comes up to you and congratulates you on the show, you have instant friends.

That’s a very wholesome duality you are describing here. What has changed for you going from Tribe 8 to The Homobiles?

When Tribe 8 started I was newly sober and I was still pretty crazy. Somehow, I was all over the map and at the same time felt totally fine to shout anything I want, be half naked and test how outrageous I could be. I think my whole personality blossomed when I got sober and it blossomed through Tribe 8; that was my whole community. Also, there was a lot of anger, and we questioned really anything that was accepted as a given, also as queers. And to question that with your whole body, and without giving any lecture or analyzing it… After we yelled about cops and chopped dicks off for like ten years, I went: “Okay, we did that, everybody has seen that… Now what?” So I worked on my One Freak Show, which was all about gender and family, especially how my family held space for me to become who I was. Following that my mother had a stroke that led me to take her home and start Homobiles, which is  a rideshare. By the way, at the time nobody knew what a ride share is. When we started, Lyft and Uber looked at us like “Hold up, what are you doing? You look like you’re making money.” So now they are gazillionaires, but anyway… After my mom passed, we started The Homobiles, the band. I was really sad, so at first the only thing I could do was covers about cars and babes.

So, with Homobiles the rideshare you help people who are more likely to be threatened in public get around safe, like sex workers, drag performers and queers. Homobiles’ cause seems very informed by purpose. Is that your general approach to activism?

You know, who are my people? My people are the gays, drag queens, leather boys, people who are walking around at night in a mini-skirt or chaps, who don’t feel safe. We have a lot of history of people deciding to get together and walk down the street as a group, such as the pink panthers, during the 80’s and 90’s, when people were getting beaten up for being gay. I was very much raised on that ‘you just get together and handle what needs to be handled’. I also think that necessity is the mother of invention – when my mother had a stroke, I knew I want to take care of her and make money. So, I looked at her, looked at her car, made some flyers and started getting the word out about my rideshare at places like FemmeCon. And for the next five years I was able to take care of my mom. The community took care of her. When she had her memorial everyone came, all the people that trusted me, all who knew I was primarily doing this being inspired by my mom without really knowing who my mom is… I had no idea from the first time I had jumped into that car, giving people a ride, that it would be 300 of them at that memorial.

That’s really deep! I feel like this hands on-approach is a big part of what constitutes Queercore as a movement anyway… Does Queercore today feel more like a nostalgic label to you or do you still consider it a current, vivid attitude?

Well, when we were at the latest Lunchbox Candy event I definitely felt like oh, our shit is old and tired. (both laugh) But no, to me it is a state of mind, an ethic. Punk, at the end of the day, is folk music. It’s music for the people, you are standing up for the downtrodden, you probably are part of the downtrodden… It just happens to be louder and more obnoxious than Woody Guthrie.

What are you rebelling against right now?

(laughs) Clearly, we have a little bit of an authoritarianism-problem in the world today. It’s so weird that I just fled to Germany, when in the past my mom fled Germany to live in America… But as she used to say: “All governments suck. All wars happen mostly because of money, even though they’ll sit and pretend that it’s about ideology; but mostly, it is about money.” So thinking about how that is expressing itself today, I think rebelling against people that want to oppress, repress, suppress others, who already don’t have much of voice make me think: “Really, you’re just a bully. And my dad taught me how to deal with your ass.” And finally, I think one really important job we all have is to encourage each other, to not give up but to keep fighting. We really have to rise up as one people, as a crowd. That seems to be very effective right now.

I like how hopeful you are.

I am. Hope is one of the many things that put me on my spiritual path. You know, I am currently writing a piece that I’ve been working on for 20 years. It starts out with me becoming an American anarchist and talking about mom growing up in Nazi-Germany, how she got a stroke and what that did to the whole family dynamic. It’s also weaving in my dad – my dad and his wife got murdered by my stepbrother.

That is horrible, Lynn. I am sorry for your loss.

Yeah, that was rough. It happened right at the beginning of Covid. So now I am at a place where I am asking myself what I was taught by both my parents, from their lives and their deaths. One died very slow, the other very quickly. What I am learning right now is that I have to overcome the fear that people will be bored with my story. It’s strange, I always used to say to my mom: “You should tell your story!” And she would say no, because ‘it has been told before’, so I would encounter: “but not by you.” That’s also kind of what my upcoming workshop here at Schwules Museum is about: nobody can tell your story, through your filter, the way you tell it, the way you connect dots and trial breadcrumbs. Don’t diminish that power by acting like your story isn’t relevant for the rest of us.

Yes, your upcoming workshop on queer writing! You are giving this workshop together with Panda Ortmann, the head of our department for education and outreach. I learned that you have known each other for quite some years now; can you tell me more about your guys’ creative friendship?

When I met Panda they came through in San Francisco around ’98 or ’99 to make the documentary Step up and be vocal. It takes a lot of dedication to come all the way from Europe, just to ask: “what’s the scene like, that you got going on in SF?” I always found that very cool. For EuroPride 2000, they came to see us in Rome – they kind of just showed up, it was the best time ever, and a very memorable one as well. Just an insane amount of punkrock, queermo craziness on float… And to have Panda around for that was great. Over the years we would visit each other back and forth. They made a lot of space for me and my work, so I always felt extremely seen by them. Also, I just watched them grow up, since they were much younger than me when we met making the movie. And now they’re just like… all grown up. They are very smart and it’s great to see them at work, and how serious they can be. We’ve had this mutual admiration for a long time now.

A spontaneous love letter to Panda, I love it! Your workshop is going to be about autobiographical fiction. Why was it important to you to not entirely write autobiographically?

I write a lot of memoirs, so everything I write is based on a true story. My novel Godspeed, for example, is memoir fiction though. So, we added the word ‘fiction’ because if you are not totally careful about who did exactly what when, people will come in and try to discount your whole story.

Do you feel like people demand more truth or authenticity from queer people?

You know what, no I don’t think so. I think it might be just the other way around. The fact that we are queer and trans, we’re already outside of society, already out of the parameters of the rule book… Thinking about it, that actually might be a double-edged sword: while there is freedom in the fact that mainstream society doesn’t deem us suitable to fit normative standards, there is a trend towards interpreting us and our lives as made-up fantasies anyway – and all of the sudden my transness supposedly isn’t real anymore.

I was only thinking about art, but this is actually very true. How do you decide what is real and what is fiction, when writing?

Really, I’ve been listening to other people who write in the genres that I enjoy, trying to learn how to create more wiggle room for myself when writing. Say Mary Karr, she says that what you want to do is say: “This is how I remember it.” Kathleen Hanna also adds this disclaimer to her memoir. So, maybe you were there and remember it differently, but this is my book. And everyone who remembers it differently can write their own book. I find that pretty cool, because remembering things in different ways is a given. Even as I age, I remember things differently than a few years ago.

Do you have any tips on reading autobiographical or memoir fiction? How do we not fall into the trap of trying to decipher what is ‘real’?

Just like when you are writing it, when you are reading it you must open your mind. Open your mind and your heart, be ready for anything. Especially in writing, the characters write themselves, they write the story. You let them lead you down their path. And when you’re reading, I think you want to have that same sense of curiosity: when you turn the page, what’s going to happen? What are they going to do next? So really, it comes down to having less expectations towards ourselves as writers, or towards other writers as a reader. When I read one of my favorite Michelle Tea books I don’t sit down and go “but what really happened, Michelle?” (both laugh) Performers and audience alike should allow themselves to go more into a childlike mode.

Sounds exciting, what does the creative process of your writing look like?

To me, there are different kinds of writing. When I wake up, I do morning pages, very mechanical. You let your hand move across the paper and let yourself blurt out anything you want, as long as you fill three pages. That’s a morning meditation for me, with coffee. Next I will get a snack, because to be honest… It takes me a while, I’m a morgenmuffel. I don’t want to wake up and immediately get to typing; I’m not Gertrude Stein. My best creative process happens at night. By then I’ve had time to think and interact with the world, maybe record a quick voice message or put something in my notes-app. And when I’m home at night, it’s really quiet, with very little distractions. It’s quiet and dark and warm, that’s when I can hear my own voice best. And as I said, when I’m coming up with lyrics for a punk song, it’s more like fast and funny, you have to have a certain rhythm… But writing a book of any kind is more like blathering on endlessly to yourself… and maybe somebody else wants to watch, at some point, I don’t know…

If you’re lucky! (both laugh) So when you write, do you have an imagined audience in mind? Or do you imagine writing against a certain audience?

Yeah, I’ve heard that’s a really important thing to think about, but I don’t. (both laugh) No, it’s much more of an open-door-policy: “here you go pal, you can come in, but get ready, because it’s going to get strange.”

Lynn, I asked you to bring an object with you, that is dear to your heart. Did you manage to do so?

Yes, I brought something, right here. It’s my dad’s high school ring. He gave it to me 25 years ago, when he realized: “oh, I see that you are identifying as more male than female.” And I still remember, he tried to play it off like it was nothing special. He went: “here, I don’t wear this ring anymore… I’m not into jewelry anymore… So here you go!” It was his high school ring and he had it specifically made, because he didn’t like the rings that all the kids were offered. So his parents let him go to the jeweler and get it done. A few years ago, I went back to the same jeweler to reset the ring, as the stone was loose. This guy has been doing jewelry stuff for my family for ages, he used to be my grandparents’ neighbor; so there’s a lot of connection. Anyway, I think my dad gave me this ring as a way to tell me that he sees my boy-self. I always feel like he is with me, protecting. So when I go out on my bike, knowing I’ll be riding traffic, I put this on and always think to myself: “I’m good.”

Despite the tragedies that followed, I think that’s really beautiful. Can you describe your ring in three words?

The soul’s infinite.

Some may say that’s cheating, but I like it so much that I’ll let it pass. What else does the ring stand for?

I don’t know if you know about this Crosby, Stills and Nash song that goes “teach your children well…” and later on switches to “teach your parents well…” I think that’s genius. Even though my parents got divorced when I was 18, they stayed friends in a way – mostly because they had to, since I was fucking up so much (laughs) I think a lot about my family’s dynamic. We all have character arcs because of each other, which is something I’m exploring in the current book I’m writing. It’s about how we shaped each other’s lives and makes the family memoir a very important one to me. Even if nobody ever reads it, it serves as a meditation for me. Sometimes I think about the effort it takes for the parents of trans kids to adapt to the changes that come with transition, especially if they weren’t raised with those ideas themselves. I imagine how that can be kind of hard, they have no idea what the fuck is going on. And still, so many parents try, more and more, to accept their children and evolve along with their children. Expand their minds! And both my parents, especially my dad, changed their whole outlook politically because of me. Because I was a queer kid, they went more and more left. They had to stop voting for a party or for a world where their kid wasn’t loved or even made space for. I appreciate that.

That’s really powerful. And to have it all materialized in a beautiful gold ring is so special. I’m assuming you are not interested in donating it to the archive of the Schwules Museum? (both laugh)

No, that would be a lot. Most of my cool stuff I would give to your collection is still in California. I’ll take care of that some other time. But for now let me tell you, I really appreciate that the Schwules Museum is here and I really hope that in these politically challenging times, the museum doesn’t get targeted. I’m sending a lot of protective energy over this place and all the people in it. It’s so vital to be documenting our histories, since we are in a moment where many forces are trying to erase us – again. I’m so sick of that shit, so thank you for what you are doing.

I can’t imagine a better ending for this. Thank you for your kind words and for your time, Lynn!

Interview & photos: Yasmin Künze