Queer Pride Dresden has been active for almost 3 years! We would like to share with you who we are, how we are structured and the plurality of our goals. In an addendum, we’ll also outline how we want to deal with internal conflicts.
Queer Pride Dresden has been described as a “bunch of colourful people of different languages and positions”. It’s not so easy to offer a definitive description of the Pride, because like queer identities Pride tends to evade the usual definitions of NGOs, associations, political groups or committees. But nevertheless we’ll try to offer a glimpse of how we think of us and how we get active.
What are the goals of Queer Pride Dresden?
- We want to increase visibility for queer topics, queer people, queer politics.
- We want to empower and educate ourselves and others!
- We want to build a community and strengthen queer networks – locally and internationally.
- Short and concise: we want fun, we want revolution, and we care for each other!
What do we do?
- We organize the emancipatory, left, antifascist Queer Pride in Dresden.
- We create brave spaces for discussing, planning, acting and partying together.
- We are motivated to be active, organize the Pride and other events for queers in Dresden.
- We celebrate queer love, queer bodies, queer voices, queer lives, queer resistance!
- We enjoy confusing norms and spreading ambiguity. #RadicalRainbows!
- We stand up for a society where all people can be different without fear! #NoRacism #NoFascism #NoCops
How do we do it?
- We are a flat organisation and meet each other on an equal footing.
- We share our knowledge, experiences and skills to reduce hierarchies.
- DIY – We want to do things ourselves rather than paying companies and having to sell out the pride to pink washing corporations.
- We want to create brave spaces for queer people. We aim for spaces free of queerphobia, transphobia and sexism (for examples, see below) so that everyone can get active.
- We’re trying to desconstruct capitalist, patriarchal, racist structures in ourselves and in the ways we interact with each other.
And last but not least, one thing not about us, but about you:
You are queer enough and you are welcome!
Addendum
So, how does Queer Pride Dresden wants to deal with conflicts?
To achieve all these nice things mentioned above, we not only need to change society and challenge outside norms and restrictions. We also want to constantly improve our collective conduct and define good ways to deal with internal conflicts. Thus, we agreed on the following principles:
- We stand for solidarity against different forms of oppression.
- We aim to avoid any gatekeeping.
- We are willing to learn. We are willing to work on conflicts and reflect on our actions. At the same time, we are also willing to set boundaries (and remind about consent) to protect our queer siblings.
- We stand for reminding each other that we are all in our own learning processes and we all make mistakes. We understand that some do not have the capacity to deal with mistakes, but there are others who do have the capacity.
- Let’s try to pull each other up to the same level of understanding!
- We aim to be transparent about our processes, discussions and decisions to those who are concerned.
Our goals when dealing with conflicts may include:
- Taking action when disrepectful or discriminatory situations happen in Queer Pride spaces.
- Regular check-ins with person affected and their support group throughout the whole process.
- Keeping in mind wishes/needs of person affected.
- That the affected person(s) feel safe again in Queer Pride spaces.
- That the person(s) who acted discriminatory understands, reflects and acknowledges the behaviour, apologizes if this is a wish from person affected, and starts a learning process.
- To reach a peaceful coexistence.
In addition to that we are thinking about joining the “community agreement“. This project of leftist, anti-authoritarian groups in dresden aims to establish a common way of dealing with sexualised violence and implement best practices to prevent it.
To give a better orientation and a general understanding of important concepts, we want to offer some examples and definitions of what discrimination can look like:
Transphobia:
- Denying the existence of ANTI* people (Agender, Non-binary, Trans, Inter*)
- Misgendering
- Deadnaming
- Pushing the “lost lesbian theory”
- Voicing explicit or implicit assumtions that somebody else had/needs/will do surgery or hormone treatment
- Invisibilization or rebinarization of non binary/agender people, for example by demanding a certain kind of androgynous look or behaviour
- Exclusion and gatekeeping by comments like: “trans women=aggressor” or “not feminine/masculine/androgynous enough”
Queerphobia:
- Negation of queerness, e.g. describing queerness as “unnatural” and so on
- Expecting or enforcing conformity with gender expression norms and gender roles
- Discrimination against deviation from the cis-hetero-endo-mono norms
Sexism: (can affect women as well as feminized people, e.g. anyone with feminine traits or anyone who expresses their gender in a way that is associated with femininity)
- using sexist language or insults
- making threatening or aggressive comments based on a person’s gender
- focusing attention and praise on someone’s appearance rather than their other attributes
- basing someones value on their role as a mother, wife, or girlfriend
- demean someone for defying gender norms
- treating people as subordinates based on their gender and punishing them when they “step out of line”
- believing that some victims of sexual assault “ask for it” due to their behavior or clothing