Gerda’s narrative is one of the most disruptive stories in Before Gender. Not only does she offer us ways to consider disrespectability politics in the 1910s, but she was also blamed for what is currently the earliest known explicitly LGBTQ+ riot. Gerda’s story is centered around her participation in the Rauchfangswerder riots, as the event in her life with the greatest historical – yet forgotten – impact. I will provide you with additional context for Gerda’s chapter on this page.
I debated whether to include Gerda’s story in Before Gender because she already had a chapter by Katja Koblitz in the 2009 German anthology, Verzaubert in Nord-Ost (“Enchanted in the Northeast”). The chapter notably misgenders and deadnames Gerda, who spent the final 40 years of her life living solely as Gerda and using sie (she) pronouns. In Katja’s defense, this was standard practice in German trans historiography in 2009. Katja’s chapter focuses on her family life and legal transition, and less on her incredible activism, outreach, and provocations. I wanted to tell something different that explored these avenues of her life.
I found an enormous kinship with Gerda, when learning about her dress: “Police arrested the young woman again in 1914. This time, her skirt was allegedly so short that it caused crowds to form around her. The Potsdam district president warned her they would revoke her Transvestitenschein if she continued to wear such clothing” (95-96). In artist-activist Tourmaline’s words, she “refused what we have been refused.” That is, she refused the respectable womanhood she was refused. Tourmaline calls this disrespectability politics, rejecting moralistic appeals to authorities in favor of undermining existing power relations. In high school, a transmisogynist student complained to the staff that my shorts were too short. They reprimanded me and said I had to wear longer shorts from then on. Instead, I wore an even shorter pair the next day. They forced me into a giant yellow t-shirt named “Big Bird.” But, in a way, this was affirming that I was a girl as, of course, only girls were required to wear Big Bird. Thus yet again proving any author who tells you that they are not writing about themself is lying.
I was surprised that Gerda only had a few sentences written about her in English. She was such an influential and colorful figure in the Weimar Republic. However, it also makes sense: her records were destroyed during the sacking of the Institute of Sexual Science, along with periodicals and papers mentioning her. Even more surprising was the lack of contemporary information on the Rauchfangswerder riots, which involved over 600 people during a key moment in German history. Some of these records were also destroyed in the sacking, but plenty of periodicals documenting the event evaded Nazi censorship. However, trans historians are overwhelmingly English speakers, and much of the recent German scholarship into trans history has gone unnoticed in the US and UK. I used Gerda’s chapter to help these radical stories of German trans life reach an Anglophone audience.
The only known photo of Gerda von Zobeltitz from Das interessante Blatt, April 3, 1913, p. 2-3.
Two editions of the Zobeltitz coat of arms
Various ads and postcards of the Waldhaus Restaurant, the location of the Rauchfangswerder riots
The “memorial” for the Waldhaus Restaurant on its original site (the location of its ice cellar) in Berlin. Built in 1895, the restaurant ran until 1986. It was demolished in 2005.
