Legal aid for Montserrat Varela against Kellermann

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Why this crowdfunding?

On Jan­u­ary 27, 2023, I post­ed the thread linked below on Twit­ter in Span­ish:

Link to the thread

[The Tweet con­tains a pho­to of the press state­ment by the “Antidiskri­m­inierungsstelle des Bun­des” i.e. Fed­er­al Anti-Dis­crim­i­na­tion Agency ( https://www.antidiskriminierungsstelle.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/publikationen/Flyer/die_antidiskriminierungsstelle_stellt_sich_vor_englisch_barrierefrei.html  ), link to the Press state­ment in Ger­man: https://www.antidiskriminierungsstelle.de/SharedDocs/aktuelles/DE/2023/20230126_gedenken_bt.html ]

Trans­la­tion of the the Span­ish Tweet:
Today is the day of the lib­er­a­tion of Auschwitz. Yesterday’s press state­ment does not men­tion Jews, it cen­ters a group of per­sons who were not part of the “Endlö­sung” pro­gram that began in 1942
Were homo­sex­u­als per­se­cut­ed? Yes.
How? [arrow to thread below]
#Auschwitz #WeRe­mem­ber

The 2023 com­mem­o­ra­tion of the Auschwitz lib­er­a­tion by the Ger­man Bun­destag (Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment) no longer cen­tered Jew­ish peo­ple, the main vic­tims of the Holo­caust, but the group of peo­ple the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment resp. Ms Ata­man (anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion ombudswoman) calls “queer peo­ple”.

In my view, the denom­i­na­tion “queer” con­sti­tutes a his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism of this epoch in 20^th cen­tu­ry Ger­man his­to­ry.

My point is: at that time there was no queer theory.

Queer the­o­ry emerged pri­mar­i­ly in the USA from the 1990s onwards and has grad­u­al­ly spread through­out the West­ern world. The term “queer peo­ple” in today’s sense was not known back then.

Among the peo­ple per­se­cut­ed by the Nazis at that time were homo­sex­u­al men under § 175 StGB [Crim­i­nal Code] and les­bian women, who were arrest­ed and some­times deport­ed as so-called “Asoziale” (“anti­so­cials”).

What exist­ed in those days was so-called “trans­vestism”, which was emerg­ing as a research top­ic. This term or rather the term “trans­ves­tite” was coined by Mag­nus Hirschfeld in 1910 in his research work “Trans­ves­tites: The Erot­ic Dri­ve to Cross-Dress” (link to the dig­i­tized book).

In this research paper, Hirschfeld explained that there was no inevitable con­nec­tion between homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and trans­vestism. In this research paper, Hirschfeld explained that there was no inevitable con­nec­tion between homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and trans­vestism. This enabled him to have police in Berlin start issu­ing trans­ves­tite cer­tifi­cates, known col­lo­qui­al­ly as “Trans­ves­titen­schein”, for the indi­vid­u­als in ques­tion. Lat­er, oth­er cities fol­lowed.

This cer­tifi­cate pro­tect­ed peo­ple who dressed as the “oppo­site sex” from per­se­cu­tion by the police. The ben­e­fi­cia­ries of this reg­u­la­tion were pri­mar­i­ly men. This prac­tice did not change after the Nazi takeover of pow­er; accord­ing to Rain­er Her­rn, Zeitschrift für Sex­u­al­forschung Jf. 26 (2013) 4, pp. 330–37, it was true that “as long as trans peo­ple were able to refute the ’sus­pi­cion of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty’ raised against them, there is no evi­dence in any spe­cif­ic case for their pros­e­cu­tion.”

Accord­ing to these cri­te­ria, a het­ero­sex­u­al, mar­rid man who secret­ly or pub­licly wore women’s cloth­ing, shoes, under­wear, make­up, nail pol­ish, etc., would not have had to fear any pros­e­cu­tion at that time, because he could have refut­ed the accu­sa­tion of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and obtained a so-called trans­ves­tite cer­tifi­cate.

I men­tioned G. Keller­mann in my thread as an exam­ple of a “trans­ves­tite” because G. Keller­mann had been invit­ed to the com­mem­o­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny for the vic­tims of Auschwitz in the Ger­man Bun­destag (Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment). The core state­ment of my Jan­u­ary thread was the his­tor­i­cal­ly cor­rect posi­tion that a per­son like G. Keller­mann would not have been sub­ject­ed to pros­e­cu­tion under the con­di­tions of the time and would not have been a vic­tim of Auschwitz.

Kellermann’s very own pub­lic state­ments reveal a life as “Georg Keller­mann” until the age of 62, while secret­ly wear­ing women’s clothes. Thus, G. Keller­mann (accord­ing to Hirschfeld’s def­i­n­i­tion) could have obtained said cer­tifi­cate as a “trans­ves­tite” and would not have had to fear crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. Mod­i­fi­ca­tions of the per­son­al or legal sta­tus on G. Kellermann’s birth cer­tifi­cate does not change any aspect of this.

Charge and impending punishment

Keller­mann report­ed me for using the “trans­ves­tite” word. This charge may lead to crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings. In case of a con­vic­tion accord­ing to § 185 StGB, I will be threat­ened with a fine or a prison sen­tence of up to one year. I won’t evade this tri­al — I con­tin­ue to stand by my state­ments.

I con­sid­er this charge to be yet anoth­er attempt to intim­i­date and silence women who take a stand against queer and trans pro­pa­gan­da.

Legal defense

I have hired a lawyer famil­iar with this sub­ject mat­ter to defend me.

In order to under­go these legal pro­ceed­ings finan­cial­ly, I am depen­dent on dona­tions.

Dona­tion lim­it: 10,000 EUR

Accord­ing to my lawyer’s esti­mates, these pro­ceed­ings are like­ly to cost 10,000 EUR. Expe­ri­ences made by women like Marie-Luise Vollbrecht or Rona Duwe con­firm this.

Should the Pub­lic Prosecutor’s Office in Munich decide to drop the inves­ti­ga­tions, and should the dona­tions received exceed the costs, the sur­plus amount will be donat­ed to the legal aid fund of the non-prof­it asso­ci­a­tion Frauen­heldin­nen e.V. (lit. asso­ci­a­tion for women’s hero­ines). This legal aid fund pro­vides legal defense for women.

I am not the first woman to be hit with charges by trans activists and I will not be the last. Trans activists will con­tin­ue to try to silence our voic­es. This mustn’t hap­pen. That’s what the asso­ci­a­tion Frauen­heldin­nen e.V. is for.

Let’s fight togeth­er for our human rights as women, for free­dom of expres­sion and for democ­ra­cy.

Thank you for your sup­port!