“Like many LGBTIQ+ organizations and groups in Germany, we are dismayed by the campaign initiated by EMMA Magazine and others against Tessa Ganserer, a member of Parliament. The article “Ganserer: Die Quotenfrau” (Ganserer: The quota woman), published in EMMA on January 19, in which Ganserer’s deadname and male pronouns were used several times, is an attack on the dignity of all trans people, and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms.

The background of this smear campaign is an attempt to hinder the self-determination law for trans people planned by the current coalition government. We find it particularly appalling that this campaign against gender self-determination and trans lives is being carried out in the name of feminism. This discredits the legacy of a radical feminism that was an is inspiring to us, that belongs to all of us, and that still makes demands of us: before it was mainstream, feminist voices insisted that sexuality was not a space free of power and violence, that racism, antisemitism, economic oppression, and ablism must be named and fought even in our own movements, and last but not least, that so-called biological facts only exist through accrued social and cultural meaning.

We are an institution committed to the preservation, research, and exhibition of the history and culture of all queer people; a history in which trans people have often been at the forefront despite being ignored and even actively discriminated against by cisgender queer people. We stand without reservation on the side of trans communities. Our struggles are indivisible.”

The board of the Schwules Museum

Photo: Tessa Ganserer, member of Parliament. Bündnis 90/Die Grünen im Bundestag, Kaminski