07/04/2023
The gay male religion of Antinous, a neo-pagan faith, has marked the ninety fifth anniversary of the birth in 1928 of a symbol of survival against incredible odds. Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, was a German gender and sexual non-conformist, who today would probably be considered to be broadly under the transgender banner. She used female pronouns throughout her life, and somehow managed to evade both the Nazi dictatorship in Germany and the later East German communist authoritarians, who were propped up by the Russian state. Charlotte had a Pulitzer Prize winning play made about her life, but she was a reluctant symbol of the liberation movements of the nineteen nineties, and eventually moved to Sweden to avoid homophobia and transphobia, living in seclusion until her passing on in 2002. Nevertheless, as the Antinous blog notes, “We honor St. Charlotte von Mahlsdorf for being someone who was not afraid to be openly trans in the face of totalitarian dictatorships and police states. Someone who survived the Nazis and the Stasi secret police ... wearing a dress, a strand of pearls and a handbag.”
