As in many other areas, the experiences and stories of white men dominate queer historiography as well: moments and events that have moved gay white men are interpreted as important ‘moments’ for the entire queer community. How can we change such typical narratives of queer historiography?

The recently published book Queere (Un-)Sichtbarkeiten by Yener Bayramoğlu is an attempt to do this. One of his methods is to talk about the history of (in-)visibility in the yellow press, i.e. in newspapers that report on particularly tragic queer events, that are silent about queer life in general, and that reproduce wrong representation if they report at all.

The author compares the situation in Germany and Turkey and questions the supposed ‘universality’ of white gay men’s experiences.

In the course of his historic and comparative analysis the often claimed dichotomy of Occident and Orient loses its grip. While there is a clear plurality of queer representation in the Turkish yellow press, the German media is dominated by wrong representations, distorted voices and gaps caused by non-representation.

Yener Bayramoğlu works at the  Alice Salomon Hochschule. He is joined by María do Mar Castro Varela, a professor for education and social work at Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin.