TRAging - Dyke March Cologne, 02/07/22
We’re all acutely aware of the special hatred which men, and by extension transgender activists, hold for lesbians. It’s something we’ve seen them display time and time again, from being kicked out of Pride events for stating basic facts about their sexuality, to suffering outright attacks at the hands of transactivists. When men see women they can’t have, they turn them into pornography genres, fetishize them, and outright try to become one of them so she no longer has an excuse to say no. When she inevitably does reject him, he says that it’s “bigoted” and “hateful”.
Over time, Pride events, including lesbian-specific ones such as Dyke Marches, have bought into this wholeheartedly, and accept and defend these men. Thus, when lesbian women say NO, they are often attacked by attendees of these events and slandered by the organizers. This was what happened at a Dyke March in Cologne, Germany, on 2nd July 2022.
This is the Dyke March’s demonstration route from that day, available via an archive of their website. It was set to begin at Roncalliplatz at 6:00 PM local time, then progress through the streets of Cologne before turning and retracing some of their steps in the opposite direction. The last few blocks of the march would pass through the same locations which it had at the beginning, taking it past a historic cathedral and the Museum Ludwig.
Museum Ludwig has an interesting design where the road goes underneath part of the museum. On each side of the building, there’s a balcony overlooking the road with stairs leading up to it from the sidewalk. The march route would take attendees through the road tunnel twice, and anyone on the balcony would have a vantage point and could also catch the crowd’s attention.
This is precisely what some women did. The German chapter of Women’s Declaration International had held an event earlier that day, and lesbians in attendance made plans to meet up at the Dyke March, which was relatively close by. They had positioned themselves on the balcony by the time the march returned on the final leg of the route. They displayed several signs and flags: a sign bearing the definition of lesbian, one which read “LESBIAN, homosexual not queer”, a Labrys flag which lesbian women have used in the past, and a gay rainbow flag with “LGB” printed over it. They reportedly also had a couple of other signs out of view, reading “Stop transing the gay away” and “Lesbians don’t have penises”.
The march below had mixed feelings. Many in the crowd gave a thumbs down or the middle finger, though there was a bit of clapping in favor of the demonstrators on the balcony. One man voiced his displeasure by calling them “untermenschen”, a Nazi term for “inferior” races and a word that literally means “subhuman”.
By now, the march organizers had realized what was happening, and a few stewards were sent out to cover up the display. About 13 seconds into this video, uploaded by LGB Alliance Austria, three of them can be seen running toward the stairs leading to the balcony: a man in a striped shirt in the lead, a woman with a white baseball cap, and man with long hair and a white shirt. The white shirt steward had it open in the front to show off a black bra, which is visible in other videos.
They and other transactivists tried to break up the demonstration. The steward with the white cap snatched the sign reading “LESBIAN, homosexual not queer” and ran away, with the demonstrators being held back from giving chase. Not long after, transactivists unfurled their own banner over the side of the balcony. When fully extended, it reads, “DYKES AGAINST TRANSPHOBIA! SELF-DETERMINATION NOW!” The woman with the Labrys flag attempted to put it over the banner, but was shouldered out of the way by a man holding the banner down. Another transactivist attempted to grab the flag, but failed.
Around this time, the bra-wearing steward and another transactivist attempt to steal a bag from the women, but give up and throw it into a bush, where a demonstrator with a yellow backpack retrieves it.
Things only escalated from here. A transactivist with whitish hair is fighting the LGB flag bearer, and a banner holder with a drawstring backpack comes to her aid. White cap steward takes notice of the scuffle and runs over, pulling the flag bearer back, but she twists out of the steward’s grip and holds her fist up to get her to back off. According to a retelling of events from the demonstrators, she had been struck twice by white cap steward, once in the throat and another time in the jaw.
At the same time, striped shirt steward is attacking the Labrys flag bearer, who seems to have had her flag stolen by now. He puts her in a headlock for about four seconds before she manages to free herself. Other transactivists realized what was going on and hurried to fold up their banner.
After the attack, the demonstrators filed a police report, and according to them, they were told that they may have been the victims of a homophobic hate crime. Meanwhile, transactivists had already gotten to work slandering the demonstrators as “fascists” and equating feminists with Nazis. Yet another transactivist referred to the demonstrators as “untermenschen” online. One could say that the call is coming from inside the house.
There was also praise for the stewards and march organizers who had attacked the demonstrators. One post reads:
As participants and eyewitnesses, we explicitly support the statement of the DYKE MARCH Cologne organizing team on the targeted provocation of transphobic disruptors on the sidelines of this year's #Dykemarch:s.
We won't let ourselves be divided!
The Dyke March organizers also released their own statement, in which they explained that they had attempted a “non-violent de-escalation of disturbances”, which apparently involved shouldering the demonstrators already there aside to hang a banner over the balcony. They accused the demonstrators of instigating the attack, to which they saw it fit to put one of them in a headlock. A PDF document of “evidence” was released alongside this, though unfortunately the translation link doesn’t work on it.
At the same time, there was an outpouring of support for the demonstrators. Discussion reached English-speaking feminists, with comedy writer Graham Linehan and gender critical news outlet Reduxx featuring articles on their respective websites. Unfortunately, this was not the last time transactivists would assault lesbians at Pride events in Germany, as similar circumstances unfolded in Hamburg just one month later.
The demonstrators have their own post on the events that unfolded at the Dyke March which has been referenced a few times throughout this writeup. Please go and read their post, too!