I grew up in a small town in the East of France, close from the German border. I wouldn’t say it was a particularly homophobic area -at least not more than any other small town- but it deeply lacked of queer people.
Out of my whole childhood, I can only recall one gay couple around, a colleague of my mom and his husband.
It’s hard for queer kids, because you don’t even know what queer life can be. Most of us left to bigger towns.
I moved to Paris when I was 16. I wasn’t out -even to myself- before moving there, and have not been in the closet since then. For me, this city will forever be associated with the freedom to be yourself. I felt truly empowered to be there so young, navigating in anonymity of a big city.
After some years, I felt again that queer lives were not visible enough in the streets of Paris. The community is vibrant but mostly concentrated in our bars, cabarets and other associative venues. I decided to move to Berlin, one of the queerest cities in Europe in my opinion. It was the perfect decision for me, and I really feel at my place in this city. But it is definitely not perfect : in the last two years, I really felt that an increase in violence towards us queers, from street harassment to assaults.
This is a harsh reminder, that it’s not because our situation improved in the last decades -or at least in the West- that it will keep improving, or even that it will stay this way. I’ve been harassed or assaulted 6 times over the last 2 years. Gladly, these events did not made me want to hide, but rather to look more queer, more provocative, more like myself. If people have a problem with me existing, then I can just be worse.
Being an open slut, showing my sex life is part of this. The beauty of being queer is to be out of the norms and to break them. Sex and kinks are political, and I think that exposing them is part of a cultural fight.
With the rise of fascism, I believe we need to learn how to support each other to remain free and proud. Tomorrow can still be better than yesterday, but we have to fight for it.
