Frankly ... Berlin  Queer at Kotti again – finally!

Even in the big city there is a lack of safe spaces and queer hotspots where queers can finally meet up with other like-minded people again. Our columnist Margarita Tsomou takes us along with her to a reunion at Berlin’s Kottbusser Tor – central yet marginalized at the same time.

The person in front of me has the word “Chaos” tattooed on the back of her leg. She is sporting a thick silver chain round her neck, basketball shorts and an undercut beneath her ponytail. I’m also wearing a heavy silver chain, though a somewhat more feminine one, short suit trousers and my long hair tied in a plait. Like me, she is cheerfully striding past the Turkish fruit seller’s stall, walking towards the underpass and all the way to the rear apartment block at Kottbusser Tor – it’s immediately obvious that we are heading to the same place: Möbel Olfe.

It’s Tuesday, which means it’s “women’s day” at “Olfe” – which is what we call the bar that was introduced to me as a queer institution when I moved to Berlin 13 years ago. Here, hidden away between the Kotti catacombs, the doner kebab stalls and the late-night shops just around the corner from the mobile methadone van at the end of Dresdner Strasse, we find our safe space: a place where queer women can feel at home. Berlin is characterized by the fact that it has not just one but many different types of queer scene. The purely gay culture encountered in Schöneberg, which feels almost like an archaeological find, is so yesterday. In view of the multiplication of non-binary gender forms, the concept of homosexuality is reaching its limits. But we go to Möbel Olfe because it manages to do both at the same time: reflect contemporary queer culture while still being a good old-style lesbian pub – a Berlin rarity that is unmatched!

A Sense of Community 

On the way there it is advisable to hold your breath for a short time to avoid the stench of piss, and to ignore the occasional mouse (or are they actually rats??) that can be seen scurrying around. But when you do finally arrive, you are greeted by a scene from a lesbian picture book.
 
A panorama of all kinds of different women, ranging from very young baby butches to older legendary lesbian VIPs. You can see chic tomboys wearing sports jackets, long-haired femmes or Berghain non-binaries with purple highlights and nose rings. In one corner we have a crew of flirty Italians, in another a group of Syrians; then there are the multilingual and proud bad-ass second- or third-generation immigrants, not to mention women who’ve only just moved to Berlin.

I’ve always felt at ease at Olfe because there’s no dress code and nobody is excluded, no matter their age or particular scene affiliation, and because there is a sense of community that unites us all despite our differences – a kind of satisfied longing to be among like-minded people. We can always come to this place because we will always find someone here who we haven’t spoken to for ages in this huge city.

No Prime Time for Women

For example, I find myself bumping into the iconic author Else Buschheuer who came out a few years ago; she has short bleached hair and is wearing dark glasses. Buschheuer talks about the Berlinale premiere of Genderation, a movie made by a friend of hers, the queer filmmaker Monika Treut. Buschheuer sees the Olfe as a “charging point for queers”, a place where women can find reassurance and where a person’s existence as a lesbian is transcended. Enfant terrible of the queer scene and my former Missy Magazine colleague Hengameh Yaghoobifarah comes over to us and we chat about their new novel “Ministerium der Träume” (i.e. Ministry of Dreams). My friend Chiara, creative director in the area of virtual reality, comes by and asks with annoyance why Tuesday should be women’s day. Why is Thursday – a much better day to go out drinking – the “male gay day”? It seems that women aren’t granted prime time even in the queer Mecca that is Berlin.

For a while we focus on the most important thing to do here: allowing our eyes to wander around the room, trying to catch someone’s eye, returning a meaningful glance, or perhaps trying to avoid someone who is trying to catch our eye. This does not necessarily involve any particular expectations – looking is an end in itself. Many people seem familiar, maybe because we have seen them here before, or perhaps because we recognize faces from dating apps – people we never wrote to, or people who never wrote back.

By around 10 pm at the latest the bar is so full of smoke that the faces become indistinct and it’s hard to get a proper lungful of air. It’s a price I’m happy to pay. In a Berlin that is changing, gentrifying and poshing itself up at an alarming rate, Olfe is one of the few places that still retains its character. Whether lesbian or queer – we are united here by our attitude as trouble makers, beyond any trends. Olfe is a constant in a world of flux and thus makes us almost conservative. We will hold the fort here in a stubborn effort to preserve this little piece of Berlin, however much the city may change.
 

July 2021